orphan: a lesson in stereotypes

we've gotten our medical exam figured out! i found our tax statements! we got our forms notarized! now, we are waiting, waiting, waiting until house closing day...

i feel like maybe i blog more than the average blogger, but then again, i don't think that's true. i probably blog more than most of my friends who have blogs, but i have a lot to say. i tend to get really impassioned about things. and you can ask jamie (or my parents)...when i get really impassioned, i start talking a hundred miles a minute in a very loud voice. jamie calls it my "mean voice."

something that's made me talk in my "mean voice" lately is the new movie coming out called "orphan." seriously, who thought it was a good (let alone, politcally correct) idea to make a movie about a demon-possessed orphan? if you've seen the tag-lines, the movie's premise is based on an older child who is adopted and then brings hell to her adoptive family. apparently, before people rightfully protested the movie, one of the tag-lines seemed to suggest that older children aren't adopted because they are evil, and it would seem the movie functions to warn people what might happen if they adopt one of these supposedly evil older children. i invite everyone to read this wonderful article written by melissa faye greene (who wrote there's no me without you) pointing out the damaging effects of a movie like this: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-07-15/demon-orphan/

why am i so annoyed? well, i think that's a no-brainer, at least from an adoption perspective. once again, hollywood prevails in making a profit by using stereotypes to its advantage. the reality is, many people are afraid of adopting older children because they fear they're too damaged (i addressed this a bit in my last post), and in there's no me without you, melissa faye greene notes that even children as young as 3 fall into this category. if those misconceptions weren't already preventing so many children from finding forever families, hollywood rolls out this ridiculous movie and further exacerbates this tragedy. the truth that must be proclaimed here is that older children are as much deserving of loving families as babies, and so help me God, jamie and i will fight these misconceptions with whatever power we have, starting first with the willingness and desire to bring home siblings -- one being one of those supposedly "damaged" 3-year-olds.

but here's something else to consider: there are so many other people groups that hollywood uses to its advantage that not enough people take up the cause and fight for. if you know us well at all, you know that jamie is visually-impaired. you also know that jamie is an indepedent, determined, intelligent person with an inordinate amount of talents. he is not weird. he is not incapable. and he is certainly not defined by his blindness. yet, if you look at how people with disabilities are portrayed in hollywood, one might think that jamie is exactly the opposite of everything i just described. you may remember the big stink SNL caused in the blind community when they did several skits "featuring" new york governor david patterson, who is visually-impaired. in all the skits, he was portrayed as incompetent and weird. what's tragic about this is that not only is the disability totally misrepresented, but they didn't focus on anything else about patterson except his disability. certainly, he must have some other qualities that are important to his personhood -- he is the freakin' governor of new york.

people might think it's OK to indulge in hollywood's humor as long as they don't really believe the message hollywood is sending. if you feel that way, it's likely you don't find yourself touched by one of the people groups i've mentioned or even some of the ones i haven't (ie, almost every minority group you can think of). what's actually most ironic (and sad) is that there are plenty of people who would fight for the adopted child, but who would totally drop the ball on a person with a disability. just last week, i observed a girl at church staring at jamie as if he was some kind of circus freak. she then proceeded to get up and make annnouncement petitioning for help to financially support a muslim family in our community. and i wondered how she would feel if the muslim family came to our church, and someone stared at the wife like she was a circus freak because she was wearing the traditional muslim veil. my point isn't to castigate the girl at church because i'm sure she was just processing that jamie was blind, but all i'm trying to get at is that when we seek to love our neighbors and fight for justice on their behalfs, we must do so for everyone, believing that what is at stake is the dignity of all humans. we cannot complain about the prejudice one group faces while perpetrating prejudice against another group. all humans were made in the image of God, and that truth must be at the core of every interaction we have with another human being.

as the mother-to-be of at least one, hopefully 2 adopted children (who will also happen to be black, which is a whole other blog in itself if you want to talk about prejudice and discrimination), i plan to fight on my children's behalf when they are forced to come face to face with the stigma associated with being adopted and being black -- a stigma that has just been exacerbated even more by hollywood and its irresponsible excuse for entertainment. and i hope i teach them to become empowered individuals who know how to defend themselves in the face of injustice. and as the wife of a person with a disability, i will fight forever and ever against people who refuse to see beyond disability. it's no wonder so many parents who have children with disabilities struggle to cope. they have been told over and over again that something is wrong with their child, that their child is weird, that their child isn't normal. and let me say, there is nothing further from the truth. hopefully, i'll get a chance to write some more later about disability-related issues because it's something very close to my heart.

i'll leave you now on 2 positive notes, 2 videos in fact. if you didn't get a chance to watch the video i posted last week of the "gotcha day," i'm re-posting it because it's just that good. the other video is one i've been meaning to post for awhile and just haven't. it was made by a couple who lost their son after 99 days to trisomy 18, a genetic disorder that writes faulty DNA to all the body's cells. many babies die in the womb of this disease, many don't make it must past a day or 2 after birth. but this little boy defied odds and lived 99 days, and the video is about the 99 days of his life. both videos stand boldly in opposition to the evil wisdom of this world, proving that the least of these truly are the greatest among us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duyL9UjLrdM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th6Njr-qkq0