[KarynB]

Originally Posted by AutumnMom

I mean no disrespect at all to Ethiopia and its wonderful people but if international adoption were to halt entirely in Ethiopia so many children would be without homes or could even face an untimely death. To me it is inconsequential whether the adoptive parents skin color is blue with pink polka dots. Adoptive parents go through an extensive (and I know I don't need to tell all of you) amount of paper work, classes, back ground checks, and a slew of other paper work to adopt a child from Ethiopia. The Ethiopian government is not just handing out babies to anyone who wants them. It makes me very sad to think that some people in Ethiopia are not pleased with "whites" adopting "their" children. I think it is pathetic that new parents have to "hide" in hotels with their children so as not to upset the locals. It is a very sad sad thing to witness discrimmination like this........

It look like you need to do a bit more reading on African history. Africa has been raped at the hands of whites for centuries - slavery, colonialism - and now we continue get richer while they get poorer due to unfair trade laws, patents that allow our drug companies to get rich while they die, and I could go on here for about ten pages. Of course they are sensitive to the fact that Westerners have enough money to come in and adopt their children while they live on less than a $1 a day and often have to make the gut wrenching decision to relinquish their kids. Read "There is no You Without Me". Ethiopia has a proud history and was the birthplace of culture and civilization, it must be brutal and beyond heartbreaking for them to see their greatest resource, their future generation, shipped out of the country.

To you it is inconsequential if the parents are any colour - to them it isn't. To your kid it won't be either.

I've posted on here about how the US has historically been the ONLY country to "import" and "export" children - as in you as US citizens are allowed to adopt from overseas, but you also (Until the Hague, although it is starting again) allow Canadians, etc to adopt your babies. I can tell you, people were VERY sensitive to that. And in my opinion, rightly so.

And you know what? Not every adoptive parent goes into a country with sensitivity on their minds like most of the people here are talking about. People are rude to locals, and sometimes treat them terribly. They act like they have a "right" to these kids. So you know what? If there is some backlash by Ethiopians - maybe it will force people to be more respectful and realize the shame and tragedy it is that these children are available for adoption in the first place. And maybe do more for Africa as a whole then just remove kids from their birth country/families...

80% of the Ethiopian adoption here are voluntary relinquishment - so they are NOT orphans, just the families are too poor or too sick to raise them. Sick from diseases that we here, in our cozy homes, rarely if ever die from. THAT is what is heartbreaking to me, not the "discrimination" you feel is happening to whites.