by Mariette Williams

I am irreparably broken. My adoption was an earthquake that shattered my life. When I was three, the ground beneath me suddenly rocked and heaved me into the air, shards of concrete and glass pummeling my body. When I finally landed on the broken earth, I was another child with a new last name in another family.

by Deonna Anderson
In 2013 Rev. Stacey Edwards-Dunn, health educator and executive minister of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, founded Fertility for Colored Girls (FFCG), with her husband Earl Dunn, Sr. FFCG is a nonprofit organization whose mission is “to provide education, awareness, support and encouragement to African American women/couples and other women of color experiencing infertility and seeking to build the families of their dreams.” After experiencing failed in vitro fertilization (IVF) seven times and a miscarriage within seven years before their daughter in 2014, the couple was inspired to change the culture of silence surrounding infertility, particularly in the Black community, and the concept of FFCG was born.

MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry  (MHP) and her panel was recently criticized for their comments regarding a Mitt Romney family photo in which his newly adopted black grandchild was included.  First let me say I love watching MHP, the show is a weekend ritual for me and I will continue watching.  When viewing last week’s show and this particular segment I was anticipating a commentary but very different from the one that was conducted.  I was hoping Melissa and her usual brazen panel would have opened the discussion of how Black adoption by white families is still a head turner and not because of the yearly family photo!  Here’s what Melissa and crew should have said.

I am writing out of anger, fear, caution and concern for your sense of being. Right now you may be to young to understand but I’ve seen you around. I’ve seen you in the airport, I’ve seen your pictures in the media, your father, the son of my mothers brother, has shown me your picture that he keeps in his wallet and today I saw you on the train coming from a Cubs game. And I wonder, how did you end up in the care of that white woman? Did you come through her womb? Were you adopted? Or Are you the daughter of a friend? I wonder what you are thinking? I wonder if you are safe? Are you a victim of micro aggression from other white people? Are you envied by other brown people? Are you bullied at school? What do you think of your self? Do you use that white woman, whose care you are in, as a standard to measure your beauty against? 
Are you whole?

Growing up in my community there was never much talk of anyone adopting a child that they were not already related to or knew through some communal relationship. Even if a woman could not have children of her own, choosing to adopt was never seen as a viable option; only those who were close enough to have already been considered “family” were acceptable.