Changed
I admit it, I was pretty clueless when I was younger. I thought I had the world all figured out and I was also pretty darn sure I was correct in my assumptions. And then I adopted.
I won't kid you, adoption totally rocked my world in multiple ways. One of those ways was shaking up my belief that I had things all figured out. And I did have them figured out for a white girl coming from a place of pretty significant privilege. I knew I came from a place of privilege, but I didn't fully understand the extent; how that privilege seeped into every area of my life and thought.
Watching my children navigate a not-so-kind world has changed me. Caring for a young woman who the harsher voices among us would reduce to the single word 'illegal' has changed me. Seeing the world from a very different lens than the one I was used to using makes me realize how very, very wrong I was about so many things.
Because it only takes one person yelling obscenities at your beloved child and shouting that he needs to go back where he came from to change your point of view. And when that beloved child is three, you realize that the world is a broken place. When that same child, thirteen years later, texts you because he is scared and shaken because the same thing happened again, it makes you angry. Angry that anyone would think this was okay. Angry that political leaders model behavior that makes other think this is okay.
Because in an era when ICE is on the prowl looking for people to deport, it doesn't take much imagination to go back to those 18 months where I did have a person to hide. I spend far too long pondering how I would have reacted if ICE was at my door with my young children around me. It is truly frightening to contemplate. My house guest was not someone to fear. She was a very hurt person from a very broken country. After those 18 months, I have never wondered why people make the choice to flee to a better life.
I see things differently now and my heart breaks. It breaks to hear people who profess to be Christians go to such lengths to try to justify inhumanity and cruelty and evil.
And as a side note, don't mess with my children. I have privilege and know how to use it. It is a very good thing I was not in that parking lot during the scene that caused my child such hurt. I would hope that everyone would see other people as valuable as a mother views her children; that they would stand up and defend the targeted. Even if it is in the parking lot of Target.
I won't kid you, adoption totally rocked my world in multiple ways. One of those ways was shaking up my belief that I had things all figured out. And I did have them figured out for a white girl coming from a place of pretty significant privilege. I knew I came from a place of privilege, but I didn't fully understand the extent; how that privilege seeped into every area of my life and thought.
Watching my children navigate a not-so-kind world has changed me. Caring for a young woman who the harsher voices among us would reduce to the single word 'illegal' has changed me. Seeing the world from a very different lens than the one I was used to using makes me realize how very, very wrong I was about so many things.
Because it only takes one person yelling obscenities at your beloved child and shouting that he needs to go back where he came from to change your point of view. And when that beloved child is three, you realize that the world is a broken place. When that same child, thirteen years later, texts you because he is scared and shaken because the same thing happened again, it makes you angry. Angry that anyone would think this was okay. Angry that political leaders model behavior that makes other think this is okay.
Because in an era when ICE is on the prowl looking for people to deport, it doesn't take much imagination to go back to those 18 months where I did have a person to hide. I spend far too long pondering how I would have reacted if ICE was at my door with my young children around me. It is truly frightening to contemplate. My house guest was not someone to fear. She was a very hurt person from a very broken country. After those 18 months, I have never wondered why people make the choice to flee to a better life.
I see things differently now and my heart breaks. It breaks to hear people who profess to be Christians go to such lengths to try to justify inhumanity and cruelty and evil.
And as a side note, don't mess with my children. I have privilege and know how to use it. It is a very good thing I was not in that parking lot during the scene that caused my child such hurt. I would hope that everyone would see other people as valuable as a mother views her children; that they would stand up and defend the targeted. Even if it is in the parking lot of Target.
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