a thought

[0mindthegap0]

That privilege meme that's going around? I tried filling it out because these things interest me (and wow, I'm pretty privileged), but another bias besides the whole US-centric thing is the assumption of one family/household growing up. I gave up after a while because it can depend a lot on which parent/home you're talking about. If my parents were

Comments

[bop_radar]

Ah! Interesting point! I hit that a bit too. Like the one about 'if people see you with your parents they assume you're related'? Does that one apply to stepparents? Because I can see it might but on the other hand I don't think that's the same thing as someone's adopted parents being of a different race which I think is what the question was getting at (though who really knows?) The more I think about it the more that meme leaves out. Which is fine because hey, it's just a meme, but it makes me wonder what a good exploration of privilege is.

[0mindthegap0]

It hadn't even occurred to me that they were trying to get at adoptions - I was thinking of being born to mixed-race couples because that was more relevant to me, but you're right, that's another thing to consider. Stepparents are yet another entirely different ballpark, so yeah, that was definitely one very loaded question trying to cover too many things at once.

I've never formally looked into it, but I've gotten the impression that in the UK they have some archaic rules set up to ensure that parents will adopt children of the same 'race' and sidestep that whole issue, but defining race in a 'genetic purity test' kind of way that completely overlooks a gradual mixed race hierarchy and how each individual is able to present to coded norms anyway.

And I have a hunch that if anyone can come up with an exhaustively thorough meme to explore privilege, you could have a pretty decent go of it. : )

[bop_radar]

My guess about adoptions is in part because the question before it is clearly about adoptions (and I thought it was really good to see it included for once!). I'd be surprised if the UK imposed rules about that but I do know that in adoptions from overseas, overseas agencies may lay down preferences for who they select as parents and they often prefer people of the same ethnic heritage if they're candidates. But then Australia has very few internal adoptions so the racial background of the parents isn't a big issue here. Perhaps it would be in a country with more children for adoption and a diverse population.

Ha! I really don't know if I could... it's a pretty daunting prospect! It'd be interesting to research though.

[0mindthegap0]

I shit you not.

I couldn't quickly find any recent articles, but it looks like adoption decisions are in the hands of local councils, and far too many of them still try to do this. The mixed race population of britain is very young, so obviously it's not practical to track down enough potential parents to 'look like them'. So a great deal more children these days grow up getting bounced around in care as a result. I have a few major issues with this.

But then Australia has very few internal adoptions

Just out of curiosity - does this usually happen with East Asian/South Pacific countries since that's what's nearby? I hadn't really thought about the implications of living in a very different part of the world.