Proximity Does Not Mean You Know More | Musings of a Black Female Adoptee |

This blog is going to start with at a simple statement and it is: 

Your proximity to someone doesn't mean you know more.

This seems pretty obvious, but sometimes it just needs to be explained and addressed. While I am going to frame this specifically around adoption, it honestly, this applies to anything you don't have the first-hand experience in (ie: you are LIVING IT).

Using proximity to invalidate transracial adoptees looks something like this:

"Well, I have a black friend who is adopted so..."

"My kids are transracial adoptees and they never..."

"My coworker is black and adopted so…"

And one of my most recent favorites brought up in a conversation about racism:

"well, I'm white and grew up in the hood so...”

Listen, it doesn't mean ANYTHING. It is not the same.

First of all, you cannot take ownership of an adoptee’s experience to make you an expert on topics surrounding transracial adoption. Most definitely don’t do this when another transracial adoptee presents you with their personal experiences with adoption. It’s invalidating. Adoption is complex and very uncomfortable. It brings up topics that most people can't wrap their heads around because it’s so far left from their frame of reference.

For example, when Angela Tucker from the Adopted Life was on Red Table Talk, there is an intro clip of Jada Smith asking her daughter Willow: ‘How do you think you would feel if you had been adopted by a white family?”

Willow, “I literally have ZERO idea.” 

She tried to liken it to living in a predominantly white community and going to private schools that (at first) were predominately white. But Jada quickly inserted, “Yea, but you come home and you have black people.”

And that shatters a lot of the comparison. Because to take Jada’s statement further, there’s a family you’re biologically related to and then there’s a family that you’re not biologically related to. It makes a difference.

Which means if you know someone who is adopted, how much have you listened to them? Scratch that. Did you even give them the support for them to speak honestly and vulnerably about their feelings about being adopted? Or did you, as a non-adopted person, still use your proximity to someone who is adopted to narrate all adoptee’s experiences? Details are why each adopted experience is unique. Yes, you may find common themes or feelings, but you can’t stereotype adoptee lives. Just like with any marginalized group, there is no one way to live the group’s experience. 

This brings me to lengthen my opening statement to be more specific. 

Proximity to black/brown people doesn’t mean you understand more about being black/brown than the transracial adoptee you are whitesplaining racism and discrimination and racial identity to.

Because they know. They are living it.

I have seen this happen many times in discussion groups when people try to “relate” to the struggles of marginalized people of culture by proximity to black/brown people.

“My sister in law is black.”

“My best friend is Latinx.”

“My boss who worked closely with for years was biracial.”

When you use your proximity to black and brown people you are practicing tokenization. And speaking from experience TRAs are tokenized A LOT. For me, it was because I represent an “acceptable” or “comfortable” form of blackness.

But here’s the deal.

It’s 2020, you don't get a pass for ‘knowing’ transracial adoptees and people of other cultures, and not know better. Because it means you really aren’t listening to their experiences, you’re just collecting them to feel comfortable.

Because that speaks more about your character as a person and your commitment to deconstructing your racial bias as a white person. Your proximity means you should have stored knowledge and context to use as inference in conversations with other transracial adoptees or people of culture. It should not be a weapon you use to silence.

So let me repeat it. Your proximity to black and brown bodies, adopted or not, doesn't mean you know more, it means you should understand better.