General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Looks like Maria will be back in the loving arms of her family soon [View all]moriah
(8,311 posts)But there are a lot of religious and "cultural" practices that piss me off that way, and I can't do very much about them, either.
It also irritates me to see stereotypes come out in full force and hurt innocent families, and it especially irritates me to see practices done by both rich and poor called by different names. American couples buy babies all the time. They pay exorbitant fees to "charities" which are often just as corrupt as any group the tabloids refer to as a "child trafficking ring" -- and are often probably the same groups. Adoption fees being paid were part of my old company's benefit package, it's that accepted. Kids suffer here in foster care because everyone wants the youngest baby, and poor families have little chance of adopting.
A private adoption between poor people that don't trust authority and who happen to be of darker skin, however? If they shared a meal, some would call it child trafficking. God forbid them possibly deciding to pay what she was asking just to help her out when they would have taken the child for free, out of love. Family, togetherness, belonging, is *very* important to the Roma, as they are in any group that has been persecute and had families torn apart by those in authority, and especially among cultures that have origins in "shunned" groups. No one mentions that, but the minority living in abject poverty struggling to survive are treated to victim-blaming on a massive scale and used to paint the largest ethnic minority in Europe with an incredibly broad brush.
The bitter irony of the situation is that white people have stolen kids from minorities for centuries, yet we are so paranoid they're going to steal ours.