Kitty is a beautiful baby…slightly negroid but yet not unattractively negroid.

So apparently when I write solo posts, they are deep ones. This is what is top of mind these days, what can I say? I know that everyone has their own stories to tell, so feel free to mosey along your way. Or start a blog and tell YOUR story. OR EVEN BETTER, WRITE WITH ME.

But … OMG bitches, let me share this wording from my adoption paperwork!

Read it. READ IT.

So yes, my foster kid name was Kitty Connors. This becomes interesting when you learn that my birth mothers name was Karen Carmichael. K and C. How do I have this information? Well, I have had it for a long time actually.

TANGENT ALERT! I was in college when I decided to take one of my school breaks to intern at the Fairfax County Government Center (in Fairfax County, Virginia). I thought I wanted to be a social worker, and since my mother worked in the business of non-profits and social work, I had an “in.” She called someone, and I got to intern with a social worker.

So, I learned about the real work that social workers do in the United States and holy moly it’s hard. I learned this by 1) doing social work paperwork, 2) filing all of the things, and 3) shadowing a few home visits that were really tough. I very quickly realized that I was not destined to be a social worker, because to be a *good* social worker, you need to feel called to the profession. So I moved on and gladly so.

An internship that revealed all…

During my internship, I told my mentor that I was adopted, that I had been adopted through Fairfax County, and that I wanted to find my birth records. She gave me a dramatic look and asked for a bit of time to see what she could do. People, when I tell you that she hooked me up, I don’t exaggerate. This woman handed me a folder of information, most of it barely redacted. Someone had (had she?) left breadcrumbs in the file. A first name here, and a last name there. I knew what my birth mothers name was, and yet I sat on that information for 20 years.

Fast forward to now. The internet was born and Facebook became a thing. I did searches, but never found much because GUESS WHAT – my birth mother didn’t want to be found. Which you know, if you follow this blog.

NEGROID FEATURES

Let me take us back to Virginia in 1976, my birth year. My adoptive mother, who was white, figured out how to adopt two Black kids, my brother and me (not biological siblings), for the equivalent of free. When you think of the multiple thousands of dollars that families pay ($50k+) to adopt babies from private adoption agencies, it seems crazy that my brother was really cheap and I was cheaper. I cost approximately $25.00 in 1976, and that didn’t change in Virginia for a long time.

I guess you can see why adopting us was like hitting up the clearance section of a going-out-of-business department store, from the above clip in my adoption paperwork. Negroid features. Negroid, but not too Negroid. Let that sink in. Black kids were not valued, not valuable, so they cost less than it probably costs to adopt a pet from a local shelter.

I remember being SO CONFUSED growing up. Was I white? no. I had “one drop” of Black blood in me, so I wasn’t white. <Google the “one drop rule” if you’re confused.> Was I Black? Maybe? I was raised by a white family, in a white community, but I definitely looked different. I didn’t belong with the white kids, and I sure as hell felt barely accepted by the Black kids. My pale tan skin darkened up each summer, giving me a hint of my true origins.

Some of this can be attributed to the time when I was born. I was born in the late ’70’s. The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Hell, Loving v. Virginia, passed in 1967, which struck down laws banning interracial marriage. So is it any wonder that my birth mother (see this post) hid her pregnancy, and didn’t identify the African-American man who impregnated her soon after this time period? No.

Pandora’s Box

There have been a ton of studies done and articles written on skin tone and society being more accepting of paler skin and thinner noses and such, so I don’t need to rehash it here. Just think back to me getting my hands on this adoption file in my late teens, and reading everything within. I was already confused about myself and my origins, and then was handed a file of paperwork that just… wow. It’s no wonder I stuffed that file away for 20 years. I wasn’t ready to unlock Pandora’s box, so I stuffed it away until I could handle it.

Thankfully at 45 years old, I get it. It has taken me this long, but I GET IT. And I am proud of my Negroid features, and my tan skin, and my curly hair, and my bountiful behind. I’m half white and half Black. My skin tone ties me back to an incredible heritage that winds into Europe and Africa, slavery, and AMERICA. I was created and I am here.

XOXO – E.