Daughter… Oh, how sweet that word tastes on my lips! It has been 3 years since the story of you was gifted to this world. When you took your first breath, the world changed for the better. That 3 years has passed so quickly, in a series of blinks & blessings. I can still hardly believe it!
People told me a lot of things about becoming a parent, but the one thing that nobody could have explained is this fierce Love I have had for you since the instant I met you. I carry that love with me every second of every day. It is the purest, most powerful love I have ever felt.
When we brought you home at 5lbs, 4 oz, your strength was already evident. I loved you for that then, and I will always love you for it. Don’t let anyone take it away, or smolder it. It is so precious! Every night, before I sing Our Family Song, I tell you the story that I told you on the day that we met:
On the day you were born, all the gods got together and threw a biiiig party. And they decided that you and me and Momma and Lucy should be a family. So, we brought you home from the hospital, and that was the happiest day of our lives.
Leaving the hospital August 18, 2015
Some people may think that 3 is no big deal, but you are changing so much and so fast that it makes my head spin. So, I want to share with you some of my favorite things about you being 3.
You’re already a girl ahead of your time; you have been from the beginning. You were born a little bit early, spoke early, expressed empathy for others early, and I have a feeling you’ll keep going on this trajectory because you’re already so wise and you understand so much. You’re sensitive, kind and insightful. You’re loving and outspoken and cuddly. I love the way you take my face in your hands and tell me that you love me. You always ask “are you happy?”. I am happy, my darling girl. I’m happy, most of all, that you completed our family. You leave me in awe, every day.
You love your family fiercely. This is a value that I hope remains with you always. At Christmas with our extended family, you stood up at the table, spread your arms out and declared, “This is my family!” The fact that you receive the love poured out to you makes our hearts sing. When you go somewhere with one of us, the other is guaranteed to hear how you want to go back again with your whole family (“I want to go on the Ferris wheel with Mommy AND Momma. With whole my family!”). You constantly tell us that your favorite time is when we are all together. You relish in sitting together, cuddling, talking, having adventures, eating together.. all of it! Being together is when you are happiest, and we are so grateful, because we feel that way too!
You are so confident & brave. I pray that’s a quality that stays with you and that your self-assurance won’t become too tarnished by the world creeping in. I hope that your strong-will, which sometimes challenges my patience, remains a steady strength that takes you wherever your heart leads you. While it can be challenging because it sometimes delays me as I am rushing through this or that, it is something that I admire most about you, and I appreciate the pause that it forces me to take. You love your beautiful, natural hair, and your brown skin. I pray that you will let this pride ground you and guide you as a strong Black woman.
Loving your hair!
You are very smart! You’re a true bibliophile, devouring books every day. You have started “reading” to us now, because you’ve memorized so many books almost word-for-word. You quote the things you hear, and I love the profound lessons you take away, and the hilarious things you quote! You are an exceptional listener, and you take in information in a way that impresses us every time you develop a new skill. When you are taught something, you don’t have to be told twice. Watching your mind work and being able to really have conversations is yet another joy for us. You’re engaging and bright, and always tender. You express your feelings so maturely, it sometimes shocks us.
You’re so funny! You make me laugh every day. You can talk me out of scolding you with your coy little one-liners and that sweet face looking at me so intently. It’s your way of letting me know that you get it. I love that you are so precocious. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
You have music in your bones. You love to dance & sing. You’ve memorized the Sugar Plum Fairy’s solo from The Nutcracker, and you know every move, facial expression & hand gesture from Moana’s (Your favorite movie) How Far I’ll Go & Frozen’s Let It Go. You wake up singing and you sing yourself to sleep at night. You can carry a tune, too! You didn’t get that from me! Your favorite books are Up, Up, Down & Please, Baby, Please, among others. You’re my crafting sidekick, up for any project I put in front of you.
You are so compassionate. If someone is crying, you dash to the scene to ask how you can help, offering a hug, a kind word and whatever moral support you can. You don’t like anything with violence or raised voices. It makes you sad to see people being unkind. When someone is unkind to you, you don’t lash back, and you sometimes get very quiet, but you are learning to use your words to express the injustice that you feel, or just to say “please be kind to me”.
You have a charisma that you aren’t aware of yet. I believe it will serve you well. You make friends wherever you go. I call you the Mayor of Everywhere! When you see other children, you always ask them if they want to be your friend or play with you. When you see babies, you are drawn to them, wanting to hug and kiss and make them smile. You already have quality friendships and you adore your friends, and their families. They bring you joy, and you return it without any effort at all.
Momma and I both feel so grateful, and that helps us to enjoy the moments, as the days pass so quickly. The weight of the gift we were given when we became your moms is never lost on us. I wish I could keep you little forever, but I am looking forward to continuing to watch you grow into the young lady that you’re meant to be. You’ll do great things, my girl.
As you move into this year, my hope is that you will just keeping being the wonderful, beautiful you that you are. As long as you remember that Mommy and Momma love you more than anything in this world, and stay true to yourself, all will be well. Stay strong, let your voice be heard, be kind, hold your family close. Know that you will always be loved, no matter what. And no matter how old you are, you will always be my Baby Girl.
This piece is not just about Heather, or her mom. It is about focusing on the issues that Heather’s life and death stand for. As an iconic symbol of today’s civil rights movement, I join Susan in saying, “There’s no place for hate.” It is about our country taking on the goal of true social justice and equality, for ALL people.
Susan has taken the money raised by a GoFundMe and used much of it to start Heather Heyer Foundation. They offer scholarships to students who are pursuing their passion for social justice. In addition to her tireless work for the Foundation, she travels the country speaking to groups about her experience, and how we can all make a difference. For Susan, this mission is a great privilege and a great responsibility.
Susan led a very quiet life before last year..when I ask her what has changed, she says, “Everything changed. My hobbies, my interests, my work, my hours..everything.”
Here’s what happened on that day..
On August 12, 2017, Heather Heyer was participating in a peaceful, nonviolent counter protest, which represented the reclaiming of justice, equality and the end of racism in Charlottesville, Virginia. On that day, she was murdered in the name of hate. From that moment, Susan picked up where Heather was forced to leave off – what she died for – and I write this in hopes that we will all join her.
Charlottesville, Virginia City Council ordered the removal of Confederate monuments and memorials from public spaces, and white supremacists and nationalists who were part of the alt-not-right, not-new-Confederates, Not-new-Nazis, Klansmen, and various “militias” weren’t happy about it. They organized a 2-day protest which incited hate, racial tension and incomprehensible violence, from the first day.
Heather Heyer joined peaceful counter protesters in opposition on the second day. That afternoon, in an attack of domestic terrorism, fueled by the hate group of which he was a member, 21-year-old James Alex Fields Jr. plowed his car through the crowd, killing Heather and injuring many more.
Heather was 32.
Photo courtesy of Susan Bro
Facts Matter
There are lots of conspiracy theories flying around the internet which minimize Heather’s death, but the facts are what matter. The fact is that a member of the Nazi Party killed Heather. She did not die of a heart attack. She died of blunt force trauma to the abdomen.
James Alex Fields Jr, who is obviously damaged and disturbed (which by will by no means ever justify his hideous act), deliberately killed her. After he plowed into the crowd, people began banging on his car and smashed the rear windshield in order to stop him from doing any further harm. Until that point, the mood of the crowd of which Heather and her friends were a part was peaceful, jubilant and proud of the statement they’d made that day.
Donald Trump condoned the acts of violence and murder by not admonishing them. His use of “very fine people” and “very bad people — on all sides” was a despicable display of retaining the support of his racist base. He has spent the better part of this week patting himself & Kanye West on the back, rather than to focus on driving the conversation back to repairing and making progress for the Civil Rights Movement in America. Instead, those hate groups have publicly bragged that he has given them a nod and a wink to continue their treachery.
As a memorial in Charlottesville stands as a place for people to come and pay their respects to Heather, the site was vandalized several months ago when someone urinated all over the cards, flowers and messages left there by well-wishers, with a note saying “It’s okay to be white again.” Nevertheless, the wall remains.
Memorial Wall for Heather, Charlottesville, VA Photo courtesy of Susan Bro
Race Relations, 1 Year Later
The state of race relations in the United States has, sadly, not changed, except to become – in many respects – worse this year. When I spoke to Susan Bro about this, she said, “A lot of the same mentality that led to slavery still leads to the marginalization of People of Color today, except it leads to different things now.”
What did come of the violence in Charlottesville was that we no longer have the ability to ignore this issue, because someone died as a direct result of it. We, as a nation, are now forced to acknowledge America’s Truth. So, if we have not yet seen the changes we need to end the marginalization of People of Color, at least there’s that; we cannot turn a blind eye any longer because what was done cannot be undone. What was presented to us on our screens cannot be unseen.
Heather’s motto was “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.”
“I’m sorry that someone had to die before we paid attention,” Susan told me recently.
She has experienced this first year without Heather (the first Thanksgiving, Christmas, Mother’s Day, each of their birthdays), this August 12th marks the final “first” as the nation remembers her daughter, and the horrors of that day. The mother of 2 had half of her children taken from her that day.
The flowers that Susan got for Heather on her birthday this year.
What Now?
What could have totally destroyed Susan has truly empowered her. She worked with everyone from grade schools to universities to AIDS Health Foundation. She jokes that she now gives hugs for a living, an absolute plus side. She is determined beyond measure to magnify Heather’s message. Between the Foundation & speaking engagements, the quiet retirement that Susan and her husband were looking forward to has been tabled. There is much to be done and nothing is going to stop this mother’s pure love from making sure people are empowered to get it done.
If you want to make a difference, ask questions, find the Truth, look beyond social media. If you’re protesting this weekend, remain peaceful and aware of your surroundings. There is much to be done, so we have to keep working together to make the necessary changes. When we mobilize, our government is forced to see us. That is how change happens. Let’s be that change!
As an activist and a mother, I was deeply affected by this murder – which happened on my daughter’s 2nd birthday – so I reached out to Susan to ask for an interview. Since we met that day in late January 2018, she has become my dear friend.. I tell you this because it is an example of how we all have the ability to connect.
Her child was taken from her, which is unimaginable, and she could have let that take her into the depths of grief that are paralyzing, but she never saw that as an option. She could have left her story to the big news channels and magazines, but her mission is deeper than that. She saw what I was doing with this activist series on my little blog, and it aligned with what she is doing, and here we are.
If you would like to support Heather Heyer Foundation in their current and future projects to empower young activists in their passion for social justice, please go to: https://www.heatherheyerfoundation.com/donate
Please share this post, far & wide. Let’s work together to be sure that everyone has the opportunity to pay attention & to stop this from happening ever again.
Soraya Miré, age 2, with her siblings. Somalia, Africa
Meet Soraya Mire. Life has a beautiful way of bringing people together. Serendipity worked its beautiful magic one day last year, at a local coffee shop where I was writing. As I headed for the largest table in the place, I joined a beautiful woman who smiles with her whole face. Little did I know that asking to take a seat at that table would would lead to a wonderful friendship and a chance to hear, and read, her story. Little did I know that she’d been through the unimaginable, and that she had taken her pain and used it to heal, and to become a leading Human Rights activist, author, lecturer, filmmaker and champion for justice the world over.
Little did I know.. But I know now, and you should know, too. I am so honored that she agreed to be featured as this month’s Raising A Baby Activist post.
Though Soraya was born in Somalia, this story isn’t based in Africa, the Middle East or Asia. All countries, cultures & families have cycles of pain. It is how we choose to look at them, respond to them and act in contradiction to them that matters. This story is based in our own backyard, wherever you are in the world. It is the story of children, of refugees, of moving parts. It is people coming from other cultures that we aren’t aware of. It is in America.
When I started this journey, I was ambivalent about circumcision of little boys. I once interpreted for Deaf parents whose newborn son was being circumcised and I can tell you it was terrible to watch. It was clearly painful to the newborn, and it didn’t make sense. It was bloody and horrible and felt unnecessary, but society taught me the myth that it’s “cleaner”, so witnessing what price a baby has to pay, I made the mental note not to do that if I ever had a son, blocked it out and moved on. I am now keenly aware of my place against circumcising, no matter a person’s gender. With all due respect, cultural norms, be damned.
In her book, The Girl With Three Legs: A Memoir, Soraya writes about the extreme devastation and physical, mental and emotional trauma she faced and overcame as a survivor of Female Genital Mutilation at the tender age of 13. This book takes us on her journey of how she overcame this horrendous trauma, moving forward as a champion for women and girls all over the world. Her story blew the lid off of this largely ignored “rite of passage”. “The misconception,” she explains, “is that this somehow equates to a first drink or experimentation with a drug. Or perhaps even a girl’s first menstrual period. But this has a different meaning. This is something put upon my body before I was even aware of my body.”
How did you become an activist, and what activism have you been involved in?
Looking back, I was born to be an activist. My mom used to say, “You are a reign of terror!” I believe in fairness and justice. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, but if I’m right, and something is unjust, I’ll tell you without a filter. I respect religion but we are talking about child abuse under the cloak of culture. Mutilation is the ultimate child abuse. The children subjected to it were born perfect. It’s my choice if I want to enhance my body in any way at the age where I can decide for myself correctly, not influenced by the idea of the perfect body.
When I was faced with the decision to choose my family or my activist path, I was considered to have discarded my family because they disagreed with my choices to speak up and reveal what has been happening young girls in our culture, and many others, for about 2000 years. I had no choice.
I have spoken before the United Nations, U.S. Senate Human Resources & Health Assembly and the World Health Organization. I have worked with medical professionals, government officials and with women and families affected by FGM. My goal is human rights for women & girls, and to end this violent global oppression while empowering women.
I was struck by the way you were able to express the emotions of yourself as a child in your book, going through all of that trauma, but speaking as your adult self. What was that like for you?
I want you to smell that burning rotten flesh. That’s the fire that keeps me going. My voice and experience matters. I know that speaking and making you feel how I felt, you will understand millions of innocent children who are forced into this before their bodies were developed. Women can’t have a normal delivery when they give birth. The fistula -the tissue between the anus and vagina falls off – and childbirth is excruciating.
Let me walk with 3 legs. I would rather my clitoris dangling between my legs. I’d rather be “different”.
People refer to Female Genital Mutiliation as body-enhancing surgery. How could this be viewed as that?? I can’t believe this is actually a real perspective! The belief is that this is the mistake God made; that we need to fix this body so that we can make a woman the wife a husband “should have”. It’s wrong.
These are the hidden secrets in our cultures. This is the shame they live with. I wanted you to know it so that change could happen.
What do you say to the people put off the topic of FGM?
This is a crime against humanity.
There is a difference between Empathy versus Sympathy. Any human being who doesn’t have empathy has no reason to block the feelings of the other human being – especially on the topic of FGM. Sympathy comes in the form of looking horrified, turning a blind eye and downplaying what is actually happening. People say things like “What do you think about yourself? If that happened to me, I would have killed myself. What kind of a woman would I be then?” One American woman told me that she considers any person who has experienced it less of a woman because they are mutilated.
When we think of it in the right context, the response is “You’re a survivor. Beautiful. You were abused; how can we make this right and stop this cycle?”
Somalians and other Africans say ‘you brought the most intimate secret out – we had this.’ The countries and cultures knew. Torturing our kids every hour and we kept silent but I refused. I remember my mother’s eyes looking at me allowing my mother provide the ultimate betrayal.
I love and respect, understand and forgive my mother, but it doesn’t give her the right to do that without fighting for me. I have the right to say ‘you are my mother but you were wrong to do this to me. You thought I was like an animal, to do with me whatever you want.’
This happened to my mother, and her mother, and on and on. My mother was abused and so she continued the cycle with me. I didn’t ask for this so now I ask myself how I can make it better for others.
What is your advice for people who feel exhausted by the current political climate, and who may want to take action but feel that they won’t have an impact on lasting change?
We all have a spark inside. Sometimes dimmed with worries, depression, fear – it takes a lot to get off the couch and make things better. Remember why you wanted to make a change a long time ago. Make the choice to live your truth. Television will numb your brain, and you will find yourself forgetting what your truth was. Beware of the hypocrisy of religion & power.
Stay in touch 100% what your mission and purpose in life is, and you will always have that torch to pass it to the next generation. We were too angry or radical, fighting too many fronts to have a torch. Focus on one issue. CHANGE IS HERE – always remember your mission to have that spark to have that torch.
What is your advice to the youth of today, who may not be able to vote yet?
Educate yourself on the topics at hand. Become an expert and learn the opposition’s facts. A good activist must know what their opponent is thinking before your raise your voice. Be an expert without arrogance. Be authentic. Not only when the cameras shine on you. Others may not see your truth because they see standing in their truth. You have to understand what the other is feeling to bring them over.
Angels make mistakes and become eagles. Too much power goes to our head awhen we allow ego and you really must know what you’re standing for.
Know who you are and where you stand.
Be humble.
The closest people you know will be scared of you standing in your truth
Have strong, open dialogue.
Never, ever, ever back down when improving someone else’s life and you have done your homework
Know your facts.
What about parents who are raising baby activists for the future?
It is the hardest job to raise a child. A parent’s first job is to really understand their own self; making peace with their past, how they felt in society, how they saw their bodies in the eyes of others, how they came to be a parent.
Lead with encouragement and listen with sympathetic ears. Allowing their voices to have a space where they are heard “you’re just a child” Once we have empathy. If I hurt you, I know how it feels because I’ve been there.
Wanting to help their children and making peace, they must accept the child’s decision to have, do and say. The choices of understanding happen at an early age. If you take their choices as an insult, and respond with hostility, you break their heart and you are the one left to look in the mirror. When a child doesn’t understand consequences, too much freedom will lead to issues. Too much screen or phone time is unhealthy living and will damage growth.
Male Circumcision
Soraya & I also spoke about infant male circumcision. This is something inherent to American countries, and something that is not common in other countries. There are so many misconceptions among society, and the medical community who profits from its continuation, about culture, cleanliness/disease prevention,
This is the most thorough resource I have found for understanding how absolutely unnecessary & damaging Circumcision is for boys. My conclusion: Just don’t! Here is what a male experiencing this goes through.
Here is some information about male infant circumcision:
Performing a totally unnecessary procedure on an infant who is not at the age of consent is a human rights issue.
As the vaginal hood over the clitoris aids in sexual pleasure, so does the foreskin of the penis. This means that circumcised men & women tend to experience less pleasure than uncircumcised people.
Amputation of this body part is aesthetic in American society (“it’s what everyone does”, they say. “It’s cleaner”, they say) and it is extremely lucrative to the remainder of medical community which still supports it.
The reports of injury, disfigurement, infection and even death have been reported, and many more which have been kept under the radar.
It there is no threat to a child’s health, this – again – is medically unnecessary.
The idea that the uncircumcised child will be made fun of is a dated excuse for amputation and mutilation. There is a large population of uncircumcised males in the U.S. To think otherwise is a dated way of thinking.
As fewer parents request it, the culture is changing from the bottom, up.
This is a trauma, chosen and imposed upon a newborn by a parent.
Internationally adopted children are being circumcised far beyond the age of infancy in order to “match” their American family members and peers.
Soraya Miré works tirelessly to keep this conversation alive and open, and to continue the progress of the laws against this. Her ability to educate the world about this important issue will continue as she is developing a screenplay of “The Girl with Three Legs: A Memoir”. With the brutal honesty of that which exists in real life, and the Truth of her story, this story must be told!
“I can’t say this is in the past”, she says. “What about the next one, and the next one? All of us are born into raising our voices to advance humanity, to make the world a better place for all of us. When I’m feeling good, I can bless others and pay it forward. I stand in acceptance.”
To read more about Soraya’s story, visit http://www.sorayamire.org/
To donate fund to further Soraya’s work, and the making of her film, email: sorayamire@hotmail.com
Happy Pride Month!! For the 6th month of this series, I want to introduce you to a true change maker in the LGBTQ+ community, and someone very special to my family and our community here in Los Angeles, as well as internationally. As we continue to face the most challenging time in LGBT history in this decade, I wanted to this month’s activist to be one who exemplifies true leadership.
I chose the person who I first hugged after the Pulse night club shooting, who I first reached out to about my sheer terror when Trump was “elected” president, and who is my favorite hearing person to interpret for when I work as an ASL interpreter. Lorri L. Jean, CEO of the Los Angeles LGBT Center, is a champion for LGBT rights. By all accounts, she was born that way. Over the years, through my work with the Los Angeles LGBT Center, she has been an inspiration, a role model and a friend. I am truly honored to share her amazing journey.
Here is her story, and what her work at the Los Angeles LGBT Center can teach all of us.
Childhood
The eldest of 3 children (a fact that really impacted who she became), Lorri was an outgoing kid, fearless, with lots of confidence & self-esteem. She was always forming groups, organizing kids and presenting leadership skills from a very early age. She was always fearless.
Lorri, Age 3 (Photo courtesy of Lorri L. Jean)
Lorri’s family grew up very poor. They grew their own food and her mom made their clothes, but they never felt poor. Her parents’ determination and resourcefulness, along with the constant message that nothing should ever stand in the way of what their children wanted to accomplish, made life rich and full. Being unafraid of failure, and receiving the constant message that they could do anything, surely took this activist in the right direction!
“Mom says I always had an infinity to the underdog; a keen sense of the unjust or unfair,” Lorri recalls.
Her father was a farmer who experienced a great deal of loss in his industry, but he always managed to recover. With the help of an investor, who was able to help him start a business raising feeder pigs to sell to the pork industry, her dad decided to raise livestock. One of the loads of pigs contracted cholera. In the largest pork-producing operation west of the Mississippi, regulations under then-President Richard Nixon’s administration required all of the sick animals be eradicated. The federal and state governments were to split the cost of paying for the animals, but since pork was at its highest price ever, the state didn’t have the money, so they refused.
Mr. Jean refused to allow the herd to be killed if he wouldn’t be fully paid for it and he smuggled in vaccine from Mexico to save the herd from dying. The state retaliated by prohibiting replenishment of the herd as long as any exposed animals remained on the property, and by limiting the sale of the pigs to its own meat-packing board, which promptly reduced the price by half.
The result that the family their farm, and everything along with it. Homeless and broke, her father got a trailer and some land in the Arizona desert, where they stayed, with no water or power, until they could afford the utilities. This experience was a transformational one for 13-year-old Lorri. “I thought that was so wrong,” she remembers. “That’s when I decided to become a lawyer, and I was going to change the world so wrong things like that wouldn’t happen.”
As the oldest female child in a farming family, the injustice of sexism showed up when she was deemed by her father as incapable to do the work that she’d been able to do before puberty. He became cautious of hired hands, and when Lorri asserted that she wanted to become a vet, she was told that women could only be small-pet vets because livestock or large animal veterinarians were only men. But that didn’t stop this budding feminist! She showed her support of equal rights by using her voice to highlight disparities within her school sports teams. The budget wasn’t equal, and neither was the use of sports equipment. As editor of the school newspaper, Lorri only got more fired up when the football coach threatened her if she didn’t stop trying to expose the injustice. She absolutely would not give up!
College
As she grew up, Lorri continued to be deeply affected by, and tuned into, the issues surrounding the treatment of migrant workers. She was a justice-seeker from the start, and that fire only grew as she gained tools of leadership, and recognized the ability to use them to make change. The treatment of women and girls was extremely impactful as well. When she started college, Lorri became a leader once again, heading the Arizona State University Campus Women’s Affairs Board, championing for, and winning, the increase of OBGYN services and the right of the 17,000 women in the student population to have access to birth control within those services.
“A deep part of myself knew that I was a lesbian, although I wasn’t conscious of it until my last semester of college. By then, I had realized sexism and homophobia were impacting me, and I decided to become a civil rights lawyer.”
Law School
In 1979, she moved to law school at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where her activism lens turned to issues affecting the lesbian community. The school did not advertise that it is a Catholic institution in their catalog. Lorri was one of only 2 openly gay people attending. She founded the first Gay & Lesbian Law Students Association of Georgetown University Law Center but, after the student bar association, faculty senate and Dean approved the organization, it was vetoed by the President of the entire University, a closeted priest whose internalized homophobia rose up. This led the undergrads and law students to sue, claiming discrimination and seeking the right to proceed. After nine years of litigation, where the students first lost but then won on appeal, the university eventually settled the case, allowing the student groups to exist.
Work Life
Photo courtesy of Lorri L. Jean
Eventually, Lorri moved from lesbian issues to issues affecting all LGBT people. She was asked to serve on the board of the Gay & Lesbian Education Fund, which raised money and gave grants for projects educating the straight community about LGBT concerns. She later became the president of the Gay Activists Alliance. In the worst years of the AIDS pandemic, she realized she found working in the community more rewarding than practicing law.
In 1989, at the age of 32, she applied for the position of Executive Director of the Human Rights Campaign Fund. She would have been the first woman in the position. Even though the staff unanimously endorsed her, a male candidate was chosen. In the aftermath, she was offered the job of Deputy Regional Director of FEMA’s Region 9, its largest and busiest regional headquarters, based in San Francisco. As a result of this promotion, she became the highest ranking openly LGBT person in the entire federal government. During her 3.5 year tenure there, the region experienced a presidentially declared disaster every 30 days.
3 years later, a Los Angeles-based friend called about a job in the movement. Though better known activists had applied for the position, their management experience could not compete with Lorri’s and she began her work with the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Community Services Center (now called the Los Angeles LGBT Center). She had just started dating Gina Calvelli and they were not living together, but they decided to make the commitment and move to L.A. together.
“I knew my parents would think I’d lost my mind, moving to L.A. for a ‘gay thing’,” Lorri recalls. “But I knew nothing like the L.A. Center existed in the world.” Lorri & Gina settled in Los Angeles in December 1992, got married in 2008, and have a wonderful partnership to this day. Lorri worked at The Center from January 1993 until February 1999, then returned in mid-June 2003 and has been with us, by us and for us ever since.
Photo courtesy of Lorri Jean (Photo Credit: Betsy Martinez)
What issues are at the forefront of your work now?
How has the Trump Administration has affected the LGBT community:
The current Administration has implemented countless anti-LGBT policy decisions impacting hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people, many of which have flown under the radar. For example, they have reversed position on decisions by the Obama Administration finding that LGBT people are not protected by the Civil Rights Act.
The Trans community are the most marginalized in our community. It is no accident that the right-wing started focusing on Trans POC, the group most victimized by hate crimes and HIV infection. They are the smallest group with the least protections. It is incumbent on LGB’s in community to do a lot of standing up for the T’s.
Before Trump, we were complacent because we made so much progress under Obama. The election of Trump, and his backlash against us, reveals the fragility of the gains we’ve made. Our progress will never be secure until full acceptance of LGBTQ people becomes part of the fabric of our society. Until then, all of us must volunteer and donate so our movement and organizations like the Center can do more.
He (Trump) is the crazy one that we all see, but he populated his administration with extreme religious idiologs, as well as appointing numerous anti-LGBT judges to the courts.. Those appointments alone could change history for decades to come, because federal judges are there until they retire or die.
Just a few of the additional anti-LGBT initiatives of the Trump Administration include:
On the day of his inauguration, the White House AIDS web page was taken down.
The Department of Education has rescinded protections for LGBTQ school kids.
Rescinding the rules prohibiting companies who do business with the federal government from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity; many of the people impacted live in states without protections.
Allowing Transgender people in the military repealed.
Deterred the Stonewall National Monument, which was approved by the Obama administration, by carving out a piece of the monument on which the flag pole was placed, so there would be no rainbow flag on federal property.
Department of Housing and Urban development removed LGBT nondiscrimination policies.
Executive orders to allow anti-LGBT discrimination by people claiming religious freedom.
Hate crimes have increased exponentially against LGBT, People of Color and immigrants.
What can we, The People, do about them?
The Mid-term election on November 6 could change everything if Democrats regain control of either or both houses of Congress. This would slow, and perhaps even stop, the Trump Administration plans to eviscerate LGBT programs and protections.
Don’t change your party registration! We need to convince the many Republicans deeply concerned about Trump that they needn’t change their party registration, but FOR THIS ELECTION, they need to send a message, to the President and Congress, by voting for Democrats so that the nation can get back on track.
Californians are a lucky, generally progressive lot. We are an important state with a lot of ability to throw wrenches in the works. People need to support elected leaders, obstructing the harmful initiatives of the Trump Administration.
Republican Senators don’t really care what Californians think. But, Californians can run phone banks to call voters in states with senators who might be willing to vote against Trump initiatives. We can convince those voters to call their Senators on key issues. Our Center’s resistance squad organized such efforts around healthcare reform, succeeding in persuading literally thousands of voters to call their own senators. We used software that enabled us to patch them through, directly to their Senators’ offices, and we were able to track that the voters actually stayed on the line and made the calls.
Come off the couch , don’t confuse posting on social media with effective social change. Social media alone won’t do it.
Marching has it’s place, but good old-fashioned grass roots organizing is what creates real change. Get involved. Start your own movement.
We must do everything we can – talk about the issues and make sure that people don’t get complacent and don’t give up.
What would you say to the young people, who cannot yet vote, who want to make change in their communities or in the world?
Look at Parkland. Youth can often raise issues more effectively with elected leaders than adults can’t, even though they can’t vote. Raised voices are harder to ignore, they have the ability to change the minds of the world around them. Young people are more powerful than they get credit for, as we have seen there.
What would you say to people who are already activists, but who feel fatigued & enraged at the direction the world is going, and to the people who access their knowledge from mainstream media, social media, etc., who want to do something, but don’t know where to begin?
At a time of so many policy reversals, and the resulting fear and fatigue, we’ve seen numerous instances of people who should be natural allies turning on each other instead of turning their ire on the real enemies. Some ways to reduce the likelihood of community cannibalism include:
Take lessons from Trump such as:
The importance of being thoughtful and ensuring you have the actual facts before you reach a conclusion. Social media makes it easier to do none of those things.
If you are not wiling to say it to a person’s face, don’t type it.
If you have a concern, don’t email. Ask for an in-person meeting or make a phone call, so you can express your concerns live and in person. A person’s tone, when typed, is often unread & inaccurately amplified. We’re kinder when we’re speaking.
With the latest gun violence events, and the conversations around it, what are your thoughts, and how is the LGBT community affected by the current and potential laws around it?
The NRA misleadingly claims to be an ally of the LGBT community. In the 90s, they were a bipartisan organization. Now, they are almost exclusively Republican. This is clearly not just about gun rights anymore. Now, the NRA is full of Right-wing extremists who go much further than advocating for gun rights. They are advancing a comprehensive anti-LGBT, anti-immigrant, anti-woman, anti-progressive agenda that threatens much of what we hold dear. This community is among the top 2 groups experiencing hate crimes, and many of those victims are shot to death. All hate crimes become much more deadly when guns are involved. This violence, and other types of discrimination cause health problems and increased suicide rates.
As a parent in a same-sex marriage, with an African-American female child, what advice do you have for me?
Stay involved in our community. People need to hear voices & experiences that are different from their own lives.
Understand that it is very important to care for the underdogs.
Raising your child’s social consciousness will be her greatest asset.
Understand the societal forces against her.
Live your truth, get involved, believe you can make a difference, and try to do it.
To donate to the Los Angeles LGBT Center, click here.
(Featured photo courtesy of Lorri Jean. Photo credit: Getty Images)
As I join the world in trying to make heads or tails of the fact that the United States has more school shootings than any other country in the world, I was given the direction to “Define Heaven”. Our children are Heaven. They hold the future in their hands, and must be kept safe.
Heaven
Heaven is where you are.
Your life is Heaven.
Heaven is you, safe.
It is the sound of your laughter, your giggles, your cries; your button nose, and the coils that are like silk to my fingers.
Heaven is in your tiny hands and feet, which wont be so tiny anymore, but which will still be Heaven.
It is being with you, no matter what we are doing.
It is being with you after we have been apart.
It is the sun and the stars and the moon that you love so much, whose distance wont touch how much I love you.
Heaven is in your voice, as you tell me so tenderly that you love your family.
It is in the way you wrap your arms around my neck and bury your face to be as close as you can.
It is in the way that you let music take you and you move me to dance with you.
Heaven is watching you grow & change at a rate that makes my head spin.
It is seeing how compassionate you are, and what a good friend you are.
Even though you are so beautifully small, Heaven also makes you mighty.
Your presence here has already made the world better.
You remind me that Heaven is right here, working through you, my child.
You remind me that I live to make sure it stays that way.
You remind me that, as I hold the gift of being your mother,
I am gifted with the responsibility to join all other Heaven-holders to protect Heaven.
Activists begin with a spark that comes from deep inside our hearts. The desire for kindness, compassion, justice and change is what sets it all into motion. Sometimes it shows up in our children, standing up for the oppressed or less fortunate. And sometimes it happens for adults, in moments that turn our heads in unexpected directions. This post, the second in the RDM “Raising a Baby Activist” series, is about both. A child who sought to end injustice, and a mother who continues her plight to make the message louder than her loss.
I recently sat down with Susan Bro to talk about her daughter, Heather, the foundation started in her name, and how we can raise our children to be change makers from an early age.
Photo courtesy of Susan Bro
Heather Heyer was murdered 6 months ago today, on August 12, 2017, which also happens to be my daughter’s second birthday. While my little family was relaxing in Palm Springs, celebrating our precious daughter and her bright future, a fellow mom, Susan Bro, was faced with the unimaginable loss of her 32-year-old daughter. The entire course of the rest of Susan’s life was altered with one phone call from Heather’s friend. Heather was at the hospital, and they were looking for her next of kin.
The Facts About Heather Heyer’s Death
The debate of whether to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee, sparked a protest called “Unite the Right” by a large group of white supremacists. They gathered on that fateful August day from around the nation, at the park where the statue stood in Charlottesville, Virginia. Heather was with a group of peaceful counter-demonstrators who supported the removal of the statue due to its oppressive and inherently racist symbolism.
They were on a barricaded section of a road that intersects a pedestrian mall. There was a barricade at both ends, so there should not have been cars there at all. However, the top end of the street only had one sawhorse for a barricade. Three other vehicles had already driven past that sawhorse and were parked at the other barricaded end as the crowd flowed around them. Suddenly, James Alex Fields Jr. drove his car through the crowd, striking and killing Heather.
On that 45-minute drive to find her daughter, Susan spent her time frantically calling hospitals to try and figure out where her daughter was. Every call she made to hospitals resulted in being informed that they didn’t have a patient by that name. When she finally located her at University of Virginia Hospital, she had to make the heartbreaking call to her ex-husband, Heather’s father. Their daughter was gone.
She was killed by a blunt force injury to the abdomen. The last time Susan saw Heather was August 3, when they had dinner together. She could not have imagined that would be the last time she would spend with her.
Heather, at her grandparents’ 50th anniversary party (Photo courtesy of Susan Bro)
After an impromptu memorial for Heather, vandals urinated on the objects left behind, and left a note saying, “it’s okay to be white again.” Her burial site must remain a secret, and extended family members must keep their distance for their own safety. For the safety and security of her family, Susan Bro said very little about her feelings towards Donald Trump – though she did express them previously, so she referred me to the interviews which sum up her stance. This interview is one that I remember clearly.
Heather’s mom told me about what Heather was like as a child. She describes her daughter as an artistic, athletic, strong-willed. Her mom raised her to be an outspoken and independent little girl & teenager, “Though she wasn’t always easy to raise!”, she said.
Stormy Face. (Photo courtesy of Susan Bro)
She wasn’t much into playing with dolls, but that wasn’t an indication of her lack of a tender heart. She had a kindness and generosity of spirit that made her mom proud.
Snuggling with her doll (a rare occurrence!), Patch, and Grandaddy (Photo courtesy of Susan Bro)
Susan didn’t know the extent to which her daughter was involved in activism until after her death, but it certainly did not surprise her. As a child, Heather and her brother, Nick, were staunch supporters of biracial siblings, defending them against racism by bullies on the school bus. There were even times that Heather received detention for standing up to a teacher at school, in support of another student. As she got older, her multicultural and LGBTQ friends also received Heather’s innate love and support.
Susan was pleased that Heather was so caring of others. As a teacher, kindness was a fundamental belief that she held dear and worked hard to instill in her children. She admonished any sign of a lack of it & fostered all signs of it.
A teenager with her Nana (Photo courtesy of Susan Bro)
“The Foundation gives me a reason to get up and feel excited about the things that we are doing.”
On her way to retirement with her husband, Kim, all of Susan Bro’s plans – who she was completely, frankly – changed on the day that Heather was killed. In her grief, she became the voice to carry her daughter’s message far and wide. It certainly reached me at the core of my being. With the money collected in a fund to help the family because of Heather’s death, Susan also began Heather Heyer Foundation. She is a cofounder, and the face of the foundation. The quiet retirement that she and her husband were gearing up for is now on hold indefinitely.
Though donations have tapered off, the Foundation continues and Susan, along with co-founder Alfred A. Wilson – Heather’s employer and friend – work tirelessly to maintain scholarships and develop new youth-empowerment projects. A teacher again, Susan speaks all over the world, to schools, scout troops, and anywhere else she’s invited. Most recently, they teamed up with AIDS Healthcare Foundation for their Stand Against Hate Project and rode in the Rose Bowl Parade.
The Foundation’s newest program called “Heyer Voices”, in development now, gives voice to its youth who develop awareness campaigns and service projects, while the grownups serve as guidance and support. “So often, youth have told us that their voices are drowned out because they have adults talking at them. This program will shift the voice to youth, so their ideas can be heard and put into action.”
“This is what an activist looks like” Photo by Lola Shahdadi
Susan & I spoke a lot about being mothers and how challenging it can be. We talked about how to instill a sense of activism from a young age.
The key, she said, is to instill empathy. “A sense of security and love begins at home. We must provide our children with the feelings and experiences at home so that they will carry that out into the world.”
Teach children not to succumb to picking on others. “Find that kid who’s left out. Try to hang out with people who lack that sense of belonging and love and include them.”
“Give them self-worth. Hate groups look for kids with low self-esteem. They are targeting them at a higher rate than ever.”
“Teach empathy by buying or making gifts for people, making cookies and delivering them to your neighbors, or get involved with service projects like volunteering at your local animal shelter.”
“Watch for the teachable moments on television and talk about them.”
Photo courtesy of Susan Bro
Heather and her mom talked about the politics of the world a lot. They did not always agree, but they did share the same fundamental beliefs. “Heather was really good at making me look at both sides of an issue, and we usually came out on the same side.”
One important lesson that Susan learned from her child was that it is common to respond to things viscerally, rather than to analyze the facts. The visceral reaction, that often comes from a viral post on social media, is less likely to be true. It’s important to consult several sources and fact check rather than to immediately jump on the bandwagon of upheaval.
The social justice work that Heather gave her life for was not extinguished by her death. It continues, louder than ever. A regular young woman who loved her job and to party with her friends has become an icon for that justice.
On this day, and moving forward, I ask that we all remember Heather’s message, and carry it with us. Be courageous, be informed, speak from your heart. Do not give up making peaceful and positive change in the world. Most importantly, as you ask yourself if you should stand against hate, remember what Heather knew with all her heart: “If you aren’t outraged, you aren’t paying attention.”
Photo courtesy of Susan Bro
A very special thank you to Susan Bro permitting me to interview her for this article. It is was an honor to speak with a mother who is sharing such a powerful Truth. To learn more about Heather Heyer Foundation, please visit: https://www.heatherheyerfoundation.com/
Every morning, my daughter and I stand in front of her dresser mirror, and we read “She counts 112 blessings every day” from a piece of artwork in her room. Then, starting with the top her head, we count her crown, forehead, eyes, down her face and end at 15 with her heart. Every day, I end it with “And your heart is your biggest blessing.” My hope is that kindness, if nothing else, will be her mark on the world.
As I begin this series of Raising a Baby Activist interviews, I can think of no better way than with the key element of compassion. If you haven’t heard of Sister Helen Prejean, perhaps you have seen the movie Dead Man Walking, starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn, based on her book Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty.For me, her work is the epitome of human compassion and dignity.
Helen in the doorway of the death row facility at Angola Prison ~ Courtesy of Ministry Against the Death Penalty
With a third book soon to be released, Sister Helen is on the road spreading her message, encouraging people to educate themselves on the issues around this controversial topic. I recently had the opportunity to sit down with her communications manager, Griffin Hardy, to learn about her journey, work and mission.
Early Life
Born in 1939 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Sister Helen’s father was an attorney, and her upbringing was one of privilege. They had servants in their home, not unusual for families of certain means during that time. When she was 18, she became a Catholic nun. In the 1950s, nuns wore habits, Mass was said in Latin, and the sisters received male names. Their work was assigned within the church confines. Sister Helen taught middle school English and was a religious education director.
With the liberalization and modernization of the Catholic church known as Vatican 2, nun habits were abandoned, original names restored and, much to Sister Helen’s dismay at the time, roles changed to working out in the service of the community at large. Her response to this was “we are nuns, not social workers!” Indeed, she was resistant to these changes from the traditional, but these changes led her into a whole new world, and her life’s work.
New Life Experiences
In the early 1980s, Sister Helen attended a retreat with her religious community, where the presenter, a sociologist named Sister Mary Augusta Neal, addressed the Gospel of Jesus, Luke 4:18, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,” New International Version (NIV),
presenting that idea that the Good News is that the poor will be poor no longer. This was a defining moment in her life as she realized the need for human compassion among all people. She moved to a housing project in New Orleans, where she dedicated her life to working with and helping the poor and underserved.
She was living in low-income community that was 100% African-American. She realized that those folks who served her home as a child were only familiar to her on a first-name basis. Her new neighbors were providing her with a new perspective into the “other America”, and woke her up to a new way of seeing all people as she learned about them and their different life experiences.
Helen in front of Hope House in the St. Thomas housing project ~ Courtesy of Ministry Against the Death Penalty
Her work in this community involved improving literacy, and working with a prison coalition. The director of the coalition asked if the sisters would write letters to Death Row inmates. That is how she came to know, and become spiritual advisor to Patrick Sonnier, the convicted killers of two teenagers, sentenced to die in the electric chair of Louisiana’s Angola State Prison. Pat Sonnier’s case was the one that involved his brother, Eddie, testifying against him in exchange for a life sentence. Eddie died in 2013 and Sister Helen had continued to visit him on a regular basis in the years since Pat’s execution in 1984.
Looking back on this connection with Sonnier, Sister Helen jokes, “The problem wasn’t writing to him. It was that he wrote back!” And so, this pen pal began to reveal himself to her, then asked her to visit him. She made the 3-hour journey to the Louisiana/Mississippi border to the death row facility where he was being held. There is not much information to prepare one for this experience as much information about facilities of this nature is deliberately kept secret. This was a completely foreign experience for Sister Helen, and one that proved to be an enormous light bulb moment. She spent several years as Sonnier’s spiritual advisor, helped him secure a new lawyer and was present at his execution.
Activist Life Lessons
“People are more than the worst thing they’ve ever done in their life.”
There have always been light bulb moments and the reveal of new perspectives for this humble and amazing woman. When she met Sonnier, she saw a human being. Her service means being present with people where they are. It means having empathy and reinforcing human dignity. There is more to these people, who many view as nothing but monsters. That is the bottom line.
A regret that Sister Helen in the case of her role in Patrick Sonnier’s life was that she didn’t connect with the families of his victims until they happened to meet at a parole hearing. They are not on the opposite side of this, and she doesn’t have to choose a side to be present with people.
Human dignity is not only prisoners, but everybody. Developing, reinforcing and applying general awareness daily.
How to be an Activist
“Ignited passion can happen at any age.” We are so often paralyzed by the injustice of a situation. Once you’ve made that realization, do something. If Sister Helen can accomplish coming to this understanding at 40, imagine what young people can do. The sooner you start, the easier it is to apply human dignity to your work daily and effectively. There are different levels of commitment, but every person has the ability to do something.
Write a letter
Contact an elected official
Attend a march or rally
The sooner you start, the easier it is to apply human dignity to your work daily and effectively.
The Death Penalty
For a very long time, the political framework of the death penalty put all parties on the wrong side. As time has gone on, everything from subjective faith-based beliefs to financial concerns. Democrats added abolition of it to their platform in 2016.
It is a widely held belief that it is more cost-effective to put an inmate to death than to sentence them to life in prison, without the possibility of parole. That is not the case. The counterintuitive Truth is that it costs more to house and kill a death row inmate. Though Republicans may not publicly oppose it, Democrats and Republicans have formed a coalition on this important social issue, for independent reasons. Even the very Republican Koch Brothers are in support of Social Justice Reform!
Most people don’t know much about the death penalty because a lot of information about the process is kept secret. That’s the only way that the death penalty continues to be propped up. It would be very difficult to defend the idea of taking a defenseless person, shackling them, marching them into a room, putting them on a table, and pumping them full of poison. It’s the most premeditated of killings. It’s the most premeditated of killings. Rather than defend the indefensible, our governments do all they can to hide the realities of capital punishment. Laws have been passed to hide just about everything about the process. We know more about how veterinarians euthanize pets than about how our government kills human beings. -Griffin Hardy
Today
Sister Helen has 35 years in her line of work with Death Row inmates and her work in under-served communities. She was present for 5 more Death Row executions. She is the public face of the Ministry Against the Death Penalty, and is currently spiritual advisor to 2 Death Row inmates and also works with the families involved. She is releasing a new book in the fall, River of Fire: My Spiritual Journey.
As Ella & I count her heart as her biggest blessing each day, my hope is that she is inspired by the work of activists like Sister Helen Prejean, whose heart is surely her biggest blessing.
Helen visiting with Dobie Gillis Williams. Helen was Dobie’s spiritual advisor. He was executed at Angola in 1999 ~ Courtesy of Ministry Against the Death Penalty
My deepest gratitude goes to Griffin Hardy for taking the time to talk with me about this crucial issue in our American society. The work of the Ministry, and all its staff, are instrumental to the education around all of the complexities of the death penalty. I’m certainly inspired and more informed now. I hope that you are as well.
To donate, purchase her books and support the continued work of the Ministry Against the Death Penalty, please go to https://www.sisterhelen.org/ .
I have been reading this online publication for some time now, and I love it. Today, they published an essay that I wrote from my heart, about the day that we met our daughter. Thank you, Motherly, for sharing this piece of our journey.
As I look back so fondly on our adoption experience, I want to share some lessons that have come out of our multicultural family, created through transracial adoption.
As I learn more, I will do more. We work hard every day to be the best and most supportive parents that we can be. As a mother, a middle-Eastern woman, an activist, and a Citizen of the World, I have a base knowledge and first-hand experience of the issues surrounding racism but adopting our daughter was a new experience for both me and my wife.
We approached our decision to adopt a Black child easily because we believe, like many people, that “love is love”, “all you need is love” and that “love has no color”. Love is undeniably important, but it is not enough. In the case of our transracial adoption, it quickly became apparent that these sentiments are naïve, and lined with a cozy layer of privilege.
We need much more than love to be the best parents that we can be to any person. I’m not talking about money. I’m talking about a resourceful awareness, the willingness to foster the growth of the child as an empowered individual, and the ability to use our own experiences to make life the best it can be for the future of our adopted children.
We must push our own boundaries, go outside our comfort zones, and help our children build their own racial identities, with all of the complexities that come with that, from day one. That is how we honor them.
In this article, using my own family as an example, I will highlight 7 ways in which you can honor the identity of your adopted child, our daughter, Ella, in my case. As I do not intend to lump all people of color into the experience, I will speak only from the perspective of our cultures/ethnicities.
1. Learn the Facts.
As a multicultural family who adopted through the foster care system, we received little training from our agency regarding transracial adoption. We were given book suggestions about the subject, but the lack of emphasis left us ignorant to what it all meant for our child. Focused insight is necessary and crucial to prepare families appropriately to raise a child who is not of the same ethnicity and/or culture as them, or who is a person of color that is not the same as the rest of the family. As a result, I had to learn ways to honor this need for my child and our family.
Our children are adopted into our families, and that is often not their choice. Providing a safe space for children to find their own identities (in my daughter’s case, as a Black woman) would be egregious to ignore.
We read books about adoption, tell stories of the day we brought her home, and talk about how special her Adoption Day was. Keeping her birth parents in her story is crucial. They are where she came from. They gave her life! This will not ever be ignored. This is part of honoring who she is.
2. Understand the issues surrounding our child’s ethnicity.
I must be direct when I say that when adopting transracially, it is crucial to be educated about the issues of ethnicity (perhaps one about which you know a little beforehand), and an understanding of ethnic-racial challenges both now and potentially, in the future. Adoptive parents need to make the extra effort to allow their adopted child an opportunity to experience people who can be mirrors for them, and where they can feel a true sense of self and community.
In order to do so, learn the correct language/terminology (racism, cultural appropriation, transracial, for example), and use it, openly, as a mirror for others. Depending on where you live, this can be a real challenge.
Adoptive parents have fears that the child will identify so much with people who are the same ethnicity as them that they will leave their adoptive family. When our children grow up knowing that they can trust us to put their needs first, that will not happen. This is the best way to offer that knowledge.
3. Make community connections.
Give them racial mirrors. Children need to see themselves in others. This includes people who are the same color as them. I will go anywhere and do anything if it is in the best interest of my child. I attend a radically inclusive church. It was started by a gay man, is attended by same-sex, adoptive, and biological families, transgender people, people of color and those with diverse backgrounds. They celebrate diversity at every service.
Since I am a stay-at-home-working-mom, and my daughter does not attend daycare or preschool yet, my wife and I have joined programs that provide child development and enrichment classes across our city. This has given us the opportunity to meet many different families and experience diversity in safe settings.
I have joined parent groups that enrich our experiences. For example, we participated in Black History Month events at our LGBT Center this year.
Now that our daughter is a mobile and aware toddler, I watch her notice when she sees mirrors of herself. I watch her love it. If you don’t have these kinds of activities in your local community, drive the distance.
4. Empower yourself to be a Change-Maker.
I cannot emphasize this enough! Join in-person and online support groups. There are many amazing groups out there, and many more families like yours than you might realize. I am a member of some incredible online transracial adoption groups. TAP 101 and Transracial Adoption Perspectives are two of the best that I’ve found on Facebook. If there is a shortage of the type of support group that you need, start one! You can be a change-maker.
As with any online engagement, consider the history/politics/conflicts of these groups by having dialogues with the admins and founders. If they are open, honest and willing to engage, you’ve found your place.
Gaining the education and tools you need can be the enrichment your child needs to face the challenges that come with being a transracially adopted person. We have the power to empower. Read. Research. Do.
5. Provide the opportunity for open conversation about race, culture, racism, and community.
For our very verbal 2-year-old, conversations are simple but meaningful. We talk about the different types of families that we see (two daddies, two mommies, a mommy and a daddy, siblings, one very strong mommy or daddy). We read books about the colors of us. We talk about different things that other cultures value and care about, and we ask her lots of questions. It’s amazing how much she answers back with her own thoughts! When she notices someone that is also Black, she feels comfortable sharing this, and we encourage it.
Our hope is that discussing adoption and ethnicity, and all that comes with it, is so natural for her that she won’t remember some big talk about these topics.
Get books with characters that look like your child. We have some wonderful books that provide mirrors for Ella, and they help encourage her to express thoughts and feelings in a way that we cannot. She loves to pick out which hair looks like hers. She’s starting to pick out people who have the same skin color as herself. I knew it was time to start styling her hair with twists and pigtails because of the conversations during story time.
Share other adoptee stories. There are many online and written opportunities in the form of blogs, memoirs, online spaces, and transracial perspective groups. There are spaces online to begin and advance knowledge.
6. Every family is unique. Have your own traditions.
Along with engaging in our own local community, we travel, learn about the world, and are developing our own family traditions. When we travel, we look for experiences which are unique to the culture of where we are visiting. The experiences have been rich and plentiful for all three of us. It has special to see the world through the eyes of a child.
We live in a major metropolitan area with a multitude of opportunities. We have the privilege of living in a diverse neighborhood, playing with children of color, have multicultural experiences, and will send her to a diverse school, when the time comes.
We also honor our family unit. We are unique in our own ways, and that is something in which my girl takes pride and joy. We have traditions around the family table, our own backgrounds, cultures, and ethnicities. We take pride in these traditions and our toddler already acknowledges how much that means to her.
7. Discuss Challenges.
Use examples from their own experiences, those of the people of color in your world, as well as those out in the world at large, and throughout history. As I hear more and more about the racism and civil injustices of the Black community in our country, I realize just how important this is. We have books about the challenges and successes in the Black community, from slaves to civil rights activists to lawyers, doctors, scientists, and artists, and we have already begun reading them.
I anticipate many more lessons as our daughter grows up. Steps toward knowledge and empowerment allow us the opportunity to minimize the challenges, or at least allow her to feel heard and supported as she faces and embraces them. We want our daughter to know about herself as a Black woman, where she came from, and to make her own decisions about where to go with it all. I hope that she becomes an empowered woman, with a strong sense of Self.
This article was first published in theParentVoice.Com, an online magazine for multiracial, multiethnic, and multicultural families on (date). It is republished here with permission.
