Racism is like a slow disease that spreads throughout the body and affects all parts whether the whole body realizes it or not. As a nation, we are that diseased body, and have been since the beginning, and it will not stop until we all come together to bring about change.

            There is a local organization called Building Bridges that is working diligently for that change through 9-week sessions using dialog and awareness as the bridge between blacks and whites. Last night I attended the first of this nine-week session. They have already done 28 of these session groups. I was quite impressed with their deep commitment.

            There are about 80 of us in this session. The first hour we are together, and the second half we break into small groups to discuss the topic of the week. Last night’s topic was “honoring our diversity”. We were shown a video on a study that the show 60 Minutes did years ago regarding racism. The video showed us two young men that are equal in every area of their life. They both have a great education; middle class; great personalities; and they are known to be hard workers. The only difference is the color of their skin. They were asked to go to find housing and jobs with a camera attached to them. The treatment they received from the same people was quite obviously different. Over and over again racism show up in so many ways throughout this video. This video only shows a small fraction of what a minority person experiences on a day-to-day basis.

            Unless we are a minority or involved with a minority most of us do not even have a clue about the feeling of discrimination in our life. It wasn’t until I adopted my children who are biracial did I even begin to feel this in my life. I was very naïve and believe that racism did not exist in our country anymore since the civil rights movement. So when we were asked to adopt our children, we gladly accepted, and didn’t even think that race would be an issue.

            In the 16 years since I have adopted my children, race has become quite forefront in my mind. I have become aware of how people treat my children when they are with me versus when they are not with me. I have watched teachers change their attitudes about my kids when they see that they have a white mother, and I have watched my children as young adults not get the same treatment or opportunities as a young white adult.

            I have also experienced a lot of racism from the African American community against me in regards to my children. Some of my children have been told that I am not their real mother because I am white. One woman even told my daughter to leave me so she can raise her properly. I have been harassed, looked at in strange ways, and pushed away when I have tried to raise my children with more diversity. One of my daughter’s has been told by her African American boyfriend that she should not have anything to do with us because we are white.

            So yes, my life has been more directly affected by racism than a majority of whites, but the truth is we are all affected. Whether we are taught to be afraid of someone or we treat someone different because of the color of their skin , we are not acting from our true nature. As long as there is no equality than there will always be a nation of exploiter and prey. In order to know true peace and have true freedom, we must all feel safe and welcomed. Immaual Kant who was a philosopher in 1700s said “ Every man is to be respected as an absolute end in himself; and it is a crime against the dignity that belongs to him as a human being to use him as a mere means for some external purpose”.

            We can see that our society has become a place of seeing others as a way to achieve the intended goal. This thinking not only allows for racism to exist but it creates an empty society of people using each other for their own desires. I believe that it is important to take the step towards a greater and healthier society, and Building Bridges has some great tools to get there.

There are currently over half a million children in the foster care system in the United States today. On average, a child who enters care will remain in foster care for 32 months, and only about half will return to their parents. Of the remaining half 49,000 children get adopted, and 118,000 remain in the “system” waiting adoption. Of which many of them will never experience. Most of the US orphan kids will be moved from foster home to foster home until they are 18 years old, and then they are simply on their own without ever having a real family that they can turn to. Some of these children have such poor social skills that they end up in group homes until 18 years old, then they are let out, and on their own to figure out how to survive with the little social skills they had in the first place.

The term orphan has been banished from our US language because orphans usually refer to children that are in orphanages, and we have the foster care system instead. However, our children are still orphans because they have no real family, and are waiting to be adopted by a family, but now they are less invisible to the public eye since they are tucked away neatly into foster homes.

When I was 25 years old, I was very involved with the foster “system”, I was married, and together for 3 years we fostered 17 children, and at 28 years old, we adopted 5 children with various levels of challenges. We were on the foster care review board, along with the foster parent association. The lack of concern and apathy that we saw from the community is similar to what I am seeing today in regards to our countries orphans. I will hear many people ask, “isn’t it hard to adopt children from the US”? It is only difficult if you only want a newborn, white baby. Most of children that are awaiting adoption are older and minority.

There were two main excuses that we heard from others on why they were not interested in becoming foster parents. At the time we were living near Sedona, AZ. We had one foot in the foster “system”, and the other in Sedona thinking. Sedona had a high rate of abused children that needed foster homes, and when we would ask our friends to help, they would simply say that they did not want to get involved with the system. Yet they seemed perfectly willing to drive on government roads. So if very few want to get involved with “our” children, then who will?

Another common reason that we heard often was that , they were afraid to get their heart’s broken when the children left. Yes, Our hearts did get broken a few times, and at other times we were really ready for them to leave, but we were not foster parents for our own selves. We were foster parents because we felt that it was our responsibility to help “our countries orphans”.

It has been a while since I have been a foster parent, and some ask me, would I do it the same all over again? The answer is absolutely. Not only have I been given the opportunity to touch at least 23 children’s lives, but also they have touched my life in ways that I could not have imagined or created for my self. The person that I needed to become to stand up to the plate for their needs, instead of only considering my own, has affected me in ways that I will always be grateful for.

So if you are feeling a bit of a calling to make a difference for “our” orphans”, then please consider being a foster or adoptive parent. And a very important thing to know is not to do it alone. Get the support and training right from the beginning so that the pain and suffering these children have endured don’t become your personal pain and suffering. There are support groups available, along with lots of training. And if you don’t feel called to work with the children, remember that the ones that are certainly can use our loving support.