Thankfulness

Maya Angelou has always said that the most eloquent prayer is, "Thank you." Whenever I hear her say it, I think of my favorite chapter in the bible, Philippians 4.

Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. Philippians 4:11-13

From the Contemporary Translation:

I know what it is to be poor or to have plenty, and I have lived under all kinds of conditions. I know what it means to be full or to be hungry, to have too much or too little. Christ gives me the strength to face anything.

Something that I remind myself about time and time again. Now, when I think about the children in Ethiopia and read the passage it has even more meaning.

Thank You...!

New Beginnings

When I started on this adoption journey I was talking to a young 30 something minister named David. The funny thing is that many years ago when he was a teenager, David was one of my teen Bible study students. He would hang arrive at class early, he would always stay late to continue talking about the scriptures and how they applied to his life. I remember the first time I was a keynote speaker for the Annual Children's day and he unlike the other teenagers sat in the front row. He was always attentive, always listening, always asking questions. I watched him grow up and accept his call into the ministry. Now, he is the Christian Youth director holding the position that I did many, many years ago.

David is a tall, strong, handsome minister of the gospel but he and will always be one of my "kids". What I love about these young people who are still present in my life is that they now share, minister, and encourage me. I was talking to David about the adoption and all the things that had gone on and all the things that I could see coming.

David said, "God has led you full circle. You know when you go full circle you get a new beginning." I thought that was a simple but profound statement. So, today when I came across a post on one of the adoption blogs I remembered that conversation.

Read this amazing full-circle story of a little girl adopted from Ethiopia.

The Voice of Young Ethiopian Americans

A site that I enjoy reading is Abesha.com. It is a blog that presents young Ethiopians living in America and abroad in their own voices. There are good articles and I particularly like the personal profiles of individual young men and women. It really shows how they see themselves as Ethiopians living abroad and how their upbring has been influenced by the traditions of Ethiopia and the pull of their new homes. As our children will grow into teens and young adults, I've found this site gives me great insight. Check the archives.

Here is an article that I think deserves a look: The Politics of Identity. Below is an excerpt.

The Politics of Identity

My prayers consisted of a vision of a utopian society, whereby people would hold hands and lift them in an upwards direction towards the sky and stand in a line. Okay not exactly, but they would have the option to play under the sun, frolic in the rain, sing songs, and trade colouring books. In short, I was asking for a crayola paradise. This desire for a world that doesn’t take into account which part you come from echoes the dreams of many, but reflects the reality of few. For example, racism abounds in many industrialized countries, discriminating which jobs are available for which sectors of the population. Likewise in many underdeveloped nations, the struggle for access to scarce resources is often drawn along ethnic lines.

Growing up, I don’t remember being told once exactly what my specific ethnic group was. ...we stayed in Addis and spoke Amharic, and my mom had grown up in Jimma and understood Oromiffa.

It is perhaps lucky that I came to ask this question at a time when I was dealing with identity politics on a very personal, day to day level in the small, southern Virginia town where I resided. Having moved there at the age of 13, my identity inevitably changed from that of an individual coming from a relatively economically privileged background in Ethiopia to being a black, hence, African American student in a majority white high school institution. And, as any one who’s experienced it may tell you, living in a practically all white Southern town doesn’t usually turn out to be the most pleasant experience for any up and coming black individual, unbeknownst to their white counterparts.

W.E.B. Dubois conceivably put it best in his book The Souls of Black Folk where he posited that the average African American cannot have the same things to say about living in the United States as a white person, as a result of his or her ‘double consciousness’. By this, Dubois meant that black people, by virtue of their skin color, are forced to carry a double identity in the United States: that of an American, and that of an American with dark skin. These two experiences are not interchangeable. For example, what experiences black skin affords one in the United States are such things as being pulled over for the most common felony among African American circles—driving—and, turning a simple trip to the mall turn into a peek a boo game played with overly suspicious salespeople. This is a privilege that most White Americans take for granted—that they never usually have to think twice about their cultural identity in relation to their economic well-being.

Likewise for those of us who may find ourselves perplexed at the various manifestations of different ethnic groups freely expressing themselves and their culture in ways that may not seem inclusive towards the average, Amharic speaking, Addis residing Ethiopian, perhaps the aforementioned paradigm might be helpful. Although one always hears of Ethiopia being a diverse place (over 80 some languages spoken), I find that most people never actually sit down to fathom what all that means. Neither did I actually. I approached it more like a figure to brag about to foreigners when asked. But never did I actually sit to think there are potentially 79 other groups of Ethiopians I had little means of communicating with—or perhaps even shared a dissimilar view as to where we fit in the country/history of Ethiopia.

We must understand that any group crying out against humanitarian injustices dealt to them does not deserve our mockery because of it’s particularity, but rather, our active support that these injustices, regardless of who it’s affecting, must be stopped, period.

When Sunday Comes

Finding strength in my old time church favorites like Daryl Coley. This is how I'm feeling and I just love great singers. There is a little interview intro first.

Two Americas Meet

A month or so ago I watched a documentary called Meeting David Wilson. It was the exploration of the history of two David Wilson's one white and one black. They didn't only share the same name but they shared a history where one set of Wilson's were owned by the other. It was an interesting historical story that in the end united to ends of one family.

After the show ended NBC sponsored a dialog with thought leaders about the continuing issue of race in America. That is the first time that I heard of Tim Wise. Below are a couple of short video segments from the after - program.

You can also check out David Wilson's blog.


How Can We Transcend Race?




Who's Problem Is It Anyway?




Can't We Just Get Over It?

Introducing Tim Wise

Below the video clip is an excerpt from a Tim Wise article -- What Kind of Card is Race? Tim Wise is the author of two new books: White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son, and Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White (Routledge: 2005).



On the video he talks about how studies on race from the 1960s and 2004 both show that 70-80% of whites believe that black and brown people in their communities are treated equally and fairly.



TIM WISE WRITES:

So, for example, what does it say about white rationality and white collective sanity, that in 1963--at a time when in retrospect all would agree racism was rampant in the United States, and before the passage of modern civil rights legislation--nearly two-thirds of whites, when polled, said they believed blacks were treated the same as whites in their communities--almost the same number as say this now, some forty-plus years later? What does it suggest about the extent of white folks' disconnection from the real world, that in 1962, eighty-five percent of whites said black children had just as good a chance as white children to get a good education in their communities (12)? Or that in May, 1968, seventy percent of whites said that blacks were treated the same as whites in their communities, while only seventeen percent said blacks were treated "not very well" and only 3.5 percent said blacks were treated badly? (13)?

...in 1963, three-fourths of white Americans told Newsweek, "The Negro is moving too fast" in his demands for equality (14)?

What does it say about whites' tenuous grip on mental health that in mid-August 1969, forty-four percent of whites told a Newsweek/Gallup National Opinion Survey that blacks had a better chance than they did to get a good paying job--two times as many as said they would have a worse chance? Or that forty-two percent said blacks had a better chance for a good education than whites, while only seventeen percent said they would have a worse opportunity for a good education, and eighty percent saying blacks would have an equal or better chance? In that same survey, seventy percent said blacks could have improved conditions in the "slums" if they had wanted to, and were more than twice as likely to blame blacks themselves, as opposed to discrimination, for high unemployment in the black community (16).

In other words, even when racism was, by virtually all accounts (looking backward in time), institutionalized, white folks were convinced there was no real problem.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, has to do with race nowadays, in the eyes of white America at large. But the obvious question is this: if we have never seen racism as a real problem, contemporary to the time in which the charges are being made, and if in all generations past we were obviously wrong to the point of mass delusion in thinking this way, what should lead us to conclude that now, at long last, we've become any more astute at discerning social reality than we were before? Why should we trust our own perceptions or instincts on the matter, when we have run up such an amazingly bad track record as observers of the world in which we live? In every era, black folks said they were the victims of racism and they were right. In every era, whites have said the problem was exaggerated, and we have been wrong.

Oprah Winfrey -- Legend

Is there anyone in America that hasn't heard of Oprah Winfrey? In this international adoption process a constant theme is transracial identity and how parents help their children of color become strong and independent proud of who they are? I believe to know who you are or even to know the people you see like Oprah you have to know how they came to be.

A few years ago she had her Legends Ball to honor the women who shaped her, the women who showed her what was possible, the women of standards that she hoped to meet. I remember watching it and how emotional it was for me too. The women who I most remember wanting to be like were Gladys Knight, Maya Angelou, and Nikki Giovanni. I remember being mesmerized as a little girl by the grace and class of Gladys. I read everything by Maya and Nikki impressed with their ability to communicate such strong messages that I felt were meant just for me. Then their were men like Sidney Poitier and Langston Hughes.

Anyway, here are few of the YouTube videos that capture how eternally connected we are to the people who carry our history and culture and what we must do to continue those traditions throughout the generations. Remember Oprah is OPRAH but, but no matter how big she has become, she is still very humbled by her history. OPRAH shows how important it is to HONOR our elders -- the black women who paved the way. Even more she shows how and why it is necessary to connect the young generation that comes behind her. These are the cultural truths that need to be continually shared.

Don't miss the poem: We Speak Your Names at the end of the first video. My favorite is the singing at the gospel brunch in the last video.