As a Caucasian person I had never really had to face racism directly. So when we chose to adopt a child or children of color, racism never really entered my thoughts. I never would have expected to encounter it. Maybe it was me just being naive but I never thought that we would have to deal with it.
Unfortunately we have been confronted with racism, hatred and bigots. I am not sure why a person can have such strong views about something that has nothing to do with them.
I must say, I do know one of my sons is biracial with strong African American features; I do not need someone to tell me this. I have eyes but honestly all I see is the smile of a child I love. I see the sweetest boy who gave me unconditional love and deserves nothing less.
When my son was about 2 my husband took him to a local fast food restaurant to play on their play equipment. Everything was great; they had some fries and an ice cream cone great father – son time. There were a couple other customers in there; one of them was an older Caucasian man. This man started a conversation with my husband my saying “What a nice looking boy you have” this was returned with a polite thank you. The next comment that the man said still makes me wonder to this day. He said “I aint never seen a white man raise no N boy”!!! He did not say the letter N he said the full word. My husband being the optimistic man that he is said “Excuse me” thinking he misheard it and the guy rephrased it by saying that “It just isn’t natural for a white man to raise an N”.
How do you react to that? This was not a situation that we were prepared for. All the training that we took to adopt a child this was never covered. First let me say I give my husband so much credit he handled it much better than I would have. He just said “Man you are so lucky my wife didn’t hear you say that”. Darn right I would have let him know what kind of woman would raise a wonderful son.
There was a wonderful customer in the restaurant that day, one that I would have expected to see on an episode of “What would you do?” This man was a wonderful stranger who stood up for my little boy, he came over and said hi to my son and gave him a high five and told my husband that he would take care of it and that my husband should take our son outside. He walked over to the man and said “ What the H—“ he kindly helped that older man sit down and told him they were about to have a little chat.
I cannot say for sure what that man said I can only imagine. It took a few moments for the older man to make us question humanity and another man to renew our faith in it.
What would you have done if you were the other stranger in the restaurant? Would you have stepped up for people you did not know?