Poo Pipe Pirate reminds me...
I'm normally quite PC myself - but I tend to frame it in terms of intolerance of lazy thinking. And quite a lot of the PC brigade is guilty of just that.

The story I have in mind here was on the news at about the time that Madonna and Angelina Jolie were playing "adopt-a-darkie" poker ("I see your Cambodian and raise you Malawi!"). Interviewed on the radio was a woman who had adopted a child from overseas.

I don't doubt the mother's sincerity and beneficence when she said that she would, as her daughter grew up, make sure that she was aware of her own culture. But given that the daughter was only a year old at the time, I can't help thinking that "her own culture" would be that of... well... a middle-class Briton. In effect, what this mother was saying was that she intended to bring up her adopted child in such a way as to ensure that that daughter was always aware that she doesn't quite belong, and that skin colour is important.

Fucking Hampstead liberal identity-politics. See - it's lazy thought, not malice, that's the problem.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 22 Nov 2007, 16:03, 6 replies)

*Claps loudly*
I grew up with two black kids who'd been adopted into a white family - they didn't get any of this "own culture" crap and are perfectly well-balanced individuals.
(TheWeeWitch hasn't been here much recently .., Thu 22 Nov 2007, 16:07, closed)

Personal experiance
My mother adopted a daughter from Sri Lanka 18 years ago.(Best thing she ever did). We have always left it to her to dictate how we bring about the subject of her origin. Being very, very dark skinned it was obvious she was going to realise she was adopted. At first she wasn't happy about the subject of her culture and heritage being brought up and the fact that she was different but now after a couple of visits to Sri Lanka, she's proud of her origins.

She's also the only black girl I know who tries to get darker when she goes abroad. She's as dark as an African to start with.
( girlinthehole, Thu 22 Nov 2007, 16:12, closed)

BGB
Sounds sane. I'm genuinely puzzled as to why origins should be seen as important. I've never been able to make that out. Love see no colour... But that's easy for me to say as a straight, male, middle-class, brought-up-Protestant, honky goy cunt.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 22 Nov 2007, 16:16, closed)

Clarification.
What I was trying to say is that as a child who wanted to fit in with everyone around her she hated people asking her where she came from originally. As a teen she began to see her difference as a positive and not a negative aspect.
( girlinthehole, Thu 22 Nov 2007, 16:21, closed)

That's what I don't get about African-Americans
Never been near Africa. Wouldn't want to. Same with those tossers who say "I'm one fourteenth Navajo Indian". My great grandfather was Irish. Think I give a toss, or sing Danny Boy while smoking a shamrock?
(frankspencer, Thu 22 Nov 2007, 16:23, closed)

@BGB
That was how I took your meaning...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 22 Nov 2007, 16:25, closed)