Adoption Secrecy and Truths #flipthescript #NAAM2014

“My problem is secrecy. I believe that perpetually secret adoptions assure un-accountability and lack of transparency. And secret adoptions are only the tip of the iceberg. The secrecy permeates the process: secret identities, secret parents, secret records, secret foster care providers, secret social workers, secret judges and lawyers (all their identities are sealed, typically), secret physicians, secret statistics and, in the case of some adoption-oriented organizations, secret budgets and secret boards of directors. In any social practice, when people in positions of power hide behind masks, one can be pretty sure that they have something to hide.”

-        Albert S. Wei,

-        Special Advisor to the Bastard Nation Executive Committee

“Everyone has a right to knowledge about their lineage, genealogy and identity. And if they don’t, then it will lead to cases of incest...”

-Lord David Alton quoted after married adoptee twins were granted annulment in Great Britain (January 2008)

“Storytelling is an important aspect of Ojibwe culture. My ability to tell a good tale can be used as a tool for teaching and connecting. Even though I grew up outside of my Native community and culture, my stories helped me to become a part of the community that I had lost. Adoption is part of the contemporary tales that Native people need to tell…”

- Tamara Buffalo, published author-poet-visual artist

…Adoption professionals who believed in making adoption work believed that it was a “social crime” to place inferior children with parents who expected — and deserved — normal children. Agencies sometimes required parents to return children if and when abnormal characteristics appeared and laws, such as the Minnesota Adoption Law of 1917, treated feeble-mindedness as cause for annulment.  Medical writers in the popular press warned parents to “be careful whom you adopt.” Adopters faced frightening risks because children unlucky enough to need new parents were also unlucky enough to be genetic lemons.

             [Read about Eugenics: www.darkwing.uoregon.edu]

Excerpt from One Small Sacrifice

Danger was an enduring theme in modern adoption history. The genetic lemon theory was heard around the world, I guess.  I read about eugenics.      

Feeling “adopted” made it seem like they did me a great big favor! How heroic for them to adopt - when I could be dangerous or the “bad seed” of immoral unintelligent people.

I never heard, “Tracy was illegitimate or she is someone’s dirty little secret!” but I knew it’s what people were thinking. Obviously my parents were wildly happy to get us as babies, praised for doing such a selfless act. They hid any uneasiness. Since my adopted sibling and I were not biological offspring, if we didn’t turn out ok, then it can’t totally be their fault. 

Funny, I always seemed to know who was adopted. Our parents usually introduced us or we introduced ourselves as adopted. I had two friends named Kim and another friend Lisa who knew they were adopted. This became our bond, our shared identity.

No "orphaned child" can escape this– it is fact, a heart broken too often turns to stone.

- Trace L Hentz (formerly DeMeyer)

"Get out of the way" & Aboriginal suicide rates will drophttp://thestringer.com.au/get-out-of-the-way-aboriginal-suicide-rates-wi...

16 Nov 14: "Please return our son because my wife cannot go on without him, she will suicide, please return our son," wrote a Noongar father and husband to the Western Australian Government's Chief Protector in 1905.
"The fundamental issues which underpin suicide rates nationally vary from cultural group to cultural group, geopolitically and demographically. The fundamentals that underpin suicide rates of some First Peoples communities are vastly different to those of non-Aboriginal communities. The Western Australian Government’s recent statements that 100 to 150 remote Aboriginal communities should be closed makes it clear that lessons from the past have not been learned. ... " By The Stringer
"Declaration of conflict of interest - the author of this article, Gerry Georgatos is a suicide prevention researcher and a senior national consultant to the ATSISPEP (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention Evaluation Project)"