Much chatter has arisen lately regarding the extremely high-profile and seemingly ubiquitous adoptions of several Third World children by Hollywood celebrities. To the casual (and perhaps astute) observer, it would appear that Angelina Jolie's relatively positive press, which in some instances practically sanctifies her efforts to forge a multi-racial family, has been the impetus to spur on others such as Meg Ryan, Madonna, and even the likes of Jessica Simpson to consider looking to those countries once (and still) ravaged by colonialism as the new all-in-one stop-n-shop for women who either can't or won't have any more children biologically, but seek to be mothers nevertheless. I won't deign to speculate as to the many possible reasons why these celebrities have chosen to adopt these kids from these regions specifically. Indeed, the adoption of any child, regardless of his/her background, is an intensely personal journey, both for mother and child. Thus, I would like to give these women the benefit of the doubt and at the very least assume they have chosen to go these routes with nothing but the best of intentions.
What I take issue with, however, are the more problematic and extremely complicated ethical issues inherent in this new phenomenon of white, affluent, and famous women of the Western world traveling to the poorest nations on the planet in order to cherry pick their new sons and daughters.
Before I proceed any further, let me make abundantly clear: I am not questioning these women's motives, of which I am willing to believe are sincerely altruistic. Angelina Jolie has reiterated numerous times to the press that she is often incredulous at her own position of wealth and privilege. Her continued efforts to call attention to the relief needs of Third World peoples would seem to substantiate her apparent humility as genuine. And Madonna's recent trip back to Malawi (supposedly to work on the establishment of her charity organization) would suggest that she, too, is a truly concerned global citizen, resolved to use her powers of influence- and affluence- for the greater good. What is troubling to my mind, however, is what gets silenced amidst the dialogue, what gets completely bypassed or overlooked by those who would be satisfied to merely lavish these stars with praise without looking more critically at the culturally ethical issues at hand. Here is what I find disturbing: the project of arbitrarily picking out certain regions of the world from which to adopt your next child merely to "balance out the races" is inherently racist in its attitude, no matter how well-meaning the intention behind it is.
As a matter of course, it is temptingly easy to view Jolie's adoption of Third World children as a natural, if somewhat misguided, extension of her humanitarian work. No one is questioning her feelings of love or attachment towards these kids. Jolie's resolve to help those in need around the world has presumably played an important part in her decision to save global transients one child at a time. However, let's look at the facts: Maddox, Zahara, and Pax Thien (the most recent addition to the Jolie-Pitt clan) will all grow up to be some of the wealthiest and most privileged kids on the planet while millions of people-- both in the United States and around the world-- will continue to suffer from the blights of poverty, AIDS, cultural genocide, disenfranchisement, and government oppression. I don't doubt that Angelina and Brad will raise their tots to be sensitive to the issues which plague the various peoples of their native cultures. Yet, when the kids are all someday old enough to begin understanding their places in the world, the question of how their family came to be as well as the positioning of their respective homelands in their parents' worldviews will also become trickier to interpret.
Jolie has acted thus far as the main spokesperson for the clan, consequently explaining to the press her reasoning for picking out certain specific races to adopt:
"You know, now the questions are more when you have a mixed-race family, do you balance the races so there's another African person in the house for Z? So there's another Asian person in the house for Mad? Shiloh has Brad and I she can look at.... What's best for the children as they grow? ... We don't just want to have different children from different countries. That's not the point."
On the one hand I understand that Jolie and Pitt are looking out for the kids, that they want Maddox, Zahara, and Pax all to be well-balanced individuals. Yet something about the idea
of adopting a person just to have a matching "set" in the family, so that one of your kids can have another person in the house to "look at" who looks "the same," strikes me as both distasteful and astoundingly superficial. Furthermore, it clearly reveals that neither Brad nor Angelina have even the slightest idea what racism is truly all about. Have Brad and Angelina not even stopped to consider that there might be something dehumanizing about the concept of having reign over a virtual palette of colors of people to pick from? As if the poorest nations of the world comprise bushels of different types of apples from which to be picked? Or that human beings can and should be reduced to simple colors for another person's (or persons') viewing pleasure? Really, the implicit message here seems to be that different people's colors somehow correspond to their natural "essences," like flavors, or shoe brands, or the models or makes of cars.
Thus, simply because one is powerful and wealthy enough to be able to pick and choose from whatever countries one might feel like visiting (or whose laws one might be able to bypass), that gives them the right to do so? While I think it's great that Brad and Angelina's kids will now have boundless opportunities afforded to them, something about this attitude just doesn't sit quite right with me. No one has even mentioned the thousands of kids who currently reside within our own nation's borders-- children of color, mind you-- who are being shuffled about to and fro within our American foster care system, and are suffering significantly for it. What about these displaced children with "black and Asian (and hey, Latino!) faces," who have no voices of their own? What about their need for advocates? A chance for social and economic mobility? It seems to me what they (and their kindred spirits overseas) really DON'T need is another celebrity to adopt them, but rather a more systematic approach to the social ills that have landed them where they currently are.
