[LisaCA]

my family is pretty much like most middle class aa families: we talk a good game about how color doesn't really matter, but we know it does. many family members discuss "good hair" as if it were a fact, regardless of my lectures . I know much of my privilege in the white world stems from my light skin (and other things). I guess i'm concerned that my next child will feel alienated by the idea that his/her sister, also adopted, doesn't "look" adopted. Add to that the darker skin tone (a less valued skin tone) and you have some issues. anything we may say may sound like all your rich relatives telling you, the poor one, that money doesn't matter. Or a white family telling you, a black person, that race doesn't matter. the idea of us telling her/him that all shades of black are beautiful in a world (and in a black world) that values lightness, rings quite hollow.

I do know from my discussions with adoption personnel that many black families don't want a "dark" child, often asking for a "biracial" child. i do know that when we visited bdad and others, the many comments from his family were commenting on her coloring and her hair. This internalized racism is what I think will be problematic. I do agree with kelli that what made bmom pick us included a number of things that were similar between us, and that probably included, consciously or unconsciously, coloring.

and funny about the cosby show. I just saw the coloring issue as a lot of crap, as well as the idea that he was a doc and she was a lawyer, but they did no work and had no nanny, but were the typical middle class family-right.

the caribbean is riddled with issues of race and hierarchy, each island with its own problematic cocktail. I do know about haiti, the domincan republic, puerto rico, the bahamas and antigua, all have hierarchies based on coloring. don't know about trinidad.

anyway, just thinking aloud. I know we've been asked if dd was biracial, I just firmly say "no". We've also wondered what we'd do if the next child isn't viewed as attractive like dd-though less of a problem since I have many unattractive relatives (not dh and I of course ).