This is a post that is going to have a lot of wry reflection in it and is a Very Special Episode, so you know, draw up a chair. A Takeaway Lesson will be included at no extra charge.
I discovered a fun website called verydemotivational dot com and I'm not linking it and here's the deal.
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I had a lot of fun making up silly posters like the Tiger Mom one. I would make one, upload it to my hard drive, and delete it. I made a whole bunch, like this one:
And I made this one:
And then I went on with my fabulous life.
Imagine my utter amazement when I received an email from vd saying that my poster had made the top page and CONGRATULATIONS!
Well, okay, whatever. I deleted it--I SWEAR I DID. Check my page carolinagrrl and see that there are no posters there.
But all posters become the property of the website and somehow it didn't get deleted. I cannot delete it. I've sent a piteous email to the people at the site begging them to delete it immediately but they only work weekdays, so I haven't heard anything back yet.
People hate it. They HATE IT. The comments are vicious beyond vicious. Somebody claimed to be 18, from India, and the creator of the poster. It's gotten like 700 or so votes down and 400 or so votes up.
I posted and begged people to stop being mean. That works well on the internet, of course. Just like chanting at the moonlight while licking toad's blood cures fibromyalgia.
So here is the Very Special Episode: Tom Cruise says he doesn't think about color when he looks at his African American son. I get it, because I don't think about color when I look at my kids.
BUT THE WHOLE WORLD DOES. AND SO DO THEY. EVERY TIME THEY LOOK IN A MIRROR.
I just finished reading Sammy Davis Jr.'s biography when he talks about playing clubs in Florida near beaches with signs saying "NO N..., Jews, or dogs" and how he was threatened with death by some Hollywood mogul because of his relationship with Kim Novak.
Dr. Martin Luther King died in vain I think sometimes...like when I heard people in South Carolina joking they'd like to choose between taking a holiday on James Earl Ray's birthday (the cretin who assassinated the father of 4 young children and a hero) and Dr. King's birthday.
And the deal is that you can't brush off your kid's ethnicity by saying that you don't think about color. Because you aren't parenting them. You're tossing off meaningless platitudes.
Being a parent means teaching your kids about hate, and preparing them to face a world where people believe that Asian kids are super smart, African American kids are dumb, and Caucasian kids are....ah, who cares what they are? They're the right color, so they can be anything they want. Fat, skinny, athletic, not, math wizards, not math wizards, good at basketball, horrible at basketball, etc etc etc.
Nobody will ever look at a white kid sitting in an exclusive classroom, walking over a name campus, or sitting in a prestigious office and think, "Eh, the token minority hire. They must be stupid/brilliant."
AND THAT IS WHY WE DON'T NEED A WHITE MISS AMERICA PAGEANT OR A WHITE ONLY COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIP FUND AND SHUT UP ALREADY.
People thought I was making fun of adoption, or making fun of Asian kids, or....I swear, I don't know what they were thinking. It wasn't very funny. I knew that. It wasn't meant to be. It was just a little joke poster I made for us.
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But it certainly taught me a lesson. The average reader of vd still thinks that interracial adoption is ridiculous, bizarre, stupid, etc.
I live in a world where I have enlightened, intelligent friends online and IRL. I have sheltered myself from the type of people who wrote horrible stuff about this silly little poster.
I thought things were nicer out there. They aren't.
Here's the Takeaway Lesson--People, if you aren't Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Madonna, Sandra Bullock, Meg Ryan, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, or Katherine Heigl--and you adopt a child who doesn't look like you, remember.
They will be facing the people who commented and voted on my poster when they go to the movies, out to eat, to school, college, a date, a job interview, whatever.
Prepare them.
ETA: www.verydemotivational.com took down the poster at my request. Thank you! Lesson learned, and thank you Miss Cellania for the suggestion to make a poster and take a screen shot. Save a poster, and the website probably has terms of service that state it owns the rights to the poster.
ETA: www.verydemotivational.com took down the poster at my request. Thank you! Lesson learned, and thank you Miss Cellania for the suggestion to make a poster and take a screen shot. Save a poster, and the website probably has terms of service that state it owns the rights to the poster.
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13 comments:
I thought that Parenthood poster was really funny. And I didn't even consider race as having anything to do with it.
I guess I'm more sheltered than I realized. I hear so much about how racism is alive and well and I don't see it where I live. I guess it's a very different story in other places.
I love your posters!!
I think it really sucks that Demotivational decided they can use them. Thanks for the warning and sharing your hard lesson learned.
Now, if you ever want a personal snark poster, I can probably work up a template you can manipulate to your heart's desire. Just let me know.
Ugh, Lorrie. I'm so sorry. I didn't see your poster in racialized terms either, but that may be because I'm the white mom of a brown daughter myself, so your family looks quite ordinary (aside from the radiant beauty and all) to me. I love the way that you used this horrible experience as an opportunity to educate yourself and others, though. I also live in the south (NC), in a mostly-white community, and am constantly mocked by my friends here for my hyper-vigilance about all things race-related. Thanks for the important reminder that I am right to have my guard up.
I must be thick, because I just saw it as a funny poster. Some people have too much time on their hands and not enough brain cells to think.
People who don't see racism must be a member of the majority or be able to pass for it. Like my roommate who had never heard of antisemitism until she used the phrase "jew a deal" and wondered why I was angry and offended. Sorry it hit you so hard and that you were exposed to it. If your kids have a solid ground, as I'm sure they do, it will help when they hit it hard for the first time alone.
I loved them. I would have created similar ones. You have to laugh. My family are in my life to entertain me! Especially the kids and dogs, otherwise what good would the be?
Too bad people don't have a sense of humor. Ever read Dooce.com?
i thought it was funny. I am adopted, and it didn't hurt my feelings.. didn't see the racism in the poster at all....Maybe if i had thin skin it might hurt that you made light of adoption....but you are adopted so you can make light of it if you want. asians can make fun of asians. blacks can make fun of blacks. adoptees can make fun of adoption ;) ahahaha
Anyone who slagged off on your "parenting" de-mo poster either has no children or is one of those sorts of people who confuse hallucination and reality.
Because parenting DOES suck up your time and money. Because for every lovely moment there's a "Will you PICK UP the damn shoes like I asked you FOURTEEN times already?" moment. It's hard, often grinding work, it never stops, and if you think your kids are grateful for it you're smoking crack.
Parenting is a good thing and a great thing, often a rewarding thing, but anyone who thinks its easy, or that as a parent you're supposed to be going through the day singing because its just a ceaseless parade of wonder and delight has been licking lead paint off old kids toys.
I like your posters, m'self. Keep on demotivating.
I just think they were confused seeing white parents and asian children and thinking I was referring to buying them or something. I don't know. It's not the few wacknuts who commented that bothers me as much as the 700 people who voted the poster down. It wasn't side splittingly hilarious...but it wasn't offensive either. And the fact that 700 people thought it was makes me sad.
And VD.com was very nice and did take it down, so I owe them a huge thank you.
Thank you guys so much for commenting. I LOVE COMMENTS!!!!!!and your support, too!!!!!
Whenever you're tempted to forget this, Carrie, think; "American Idol" was the most popular TV program in the U.S.
American Idol.
For like, what, five years?
The public is an ass. If you want to figure out the American public, remember that the intelligence of a group of people is the IQ of the smartest person in the group divided by the number of people in it. 700 people slagged off on you? How many people voted for Sarah Goddamn Palin in the last presidential election? There are probably 700 people who believe in reincarnation, dianetics, the moral innocence of Dick
Cheney, virgin birth, space aliens, and that Hawaii is an independent nation.
The public is an ass.
Just remember that.
OK, WE don't see it in racist terms because people who have adopted and those who read your blog are used to "families of variety". Outside the group, though, that's the first thing people will see. Your funny and personal posters were totally misinterpreted by people who assumed these were pictures you FOUND. Because most of these posters are made with found pictures that people make fun of. And how were you supposed to know that?
OK, I use online generators all the time, but I never "save" them. A lot of generators trick you into "saving" your creation because you can't download it normally without saving ...but "saving" them will enable their TOS to kick in, meaning they own the work. What I do is create something, then take a screen shot, then trash the unsaved work. Never "save" on someone else's site unless you've read the TOS.
Thanks for the suggestion, Miss C! I will certainly do that in the future.
anon, yes I've heard of dooce. She can be very funny.
But, see this:
http://cluelessincarolina.blogspot.com/2010/04/dear-dooce-our-biological-mothers-didnt.html
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