NAAM Day 24: Adopted Woman Speaks Out; Haters Hate on Her. Part 1

JJust in time for National Adoption Month 2004…again. Adopted woman speaks out, gets shit thrown in her face.

A couple of weeks ago Business Insider published an “as-told essay” based on a conversation with podcaster Lauren Cosby Medlicott. that featured transracial and transnational adoptee Crestelle Pellelcuer I don’t read much adoptee memoir or confessional material, but I was attracted to this one: I was adopted into a white, middle-class family and never felt like I belonged. It impacted how to show up at work.

Sound familiar?

Pellecuer, now 46, is from Madagascar. Her mother died when she was 7 and she was adopted at age 10 by a white couple in southern France. She does not say much about her adoptive parents, (despite what her “critics” claim) but her relationship with them, or rather what they read into her statements, is what got them to run for their hoods and pitchforks Things like:

The only time I clearly remember my adoptive family telling me “well done” was when my school grades were perfect.

This, and one other allusion or so to her adoptive parents launched the ugliest hate storm on adopted people I have ever seen anywhere m calling her ungrateful, racist, mentally ill, and worse (more about that in a minute), If she were white most of the shit-throwers would have stayed in their big fat rat hole.

Pellecuer says she never felt that she fit in with her French family and left home at 18 to study dance in England where she still lives. She holds an MA in Education and has worked in university administration, makeup artistry, theater, communications, and community engagement, She is the host of the podcast, Black Adoptees Identities and is articulate,self-reflective, and and critical of the psychological impact adoption has had on her life: a sense of not belonging and fitting in, loss of family acceptance, inability to advocate for herself (work is her example here), and her struggle to gain self-worth. How dare she! Watch this 2017 fire interview where she covers everything from adoptee identity, language, and cultural erasure, adopter motivation, the adoption industry, and adoption theory and practice,This Business Insider piece is short, conversational in tone, and she does not go into detail about the particulars. As adopted people, though, we know exactly what she is talking about. Her feelings and opinions are not controversial. I don’t know how I missed her until now.

Focusing on her work situations over the years she says: :

Being adopted has massively impacted my career. I’ve had to learn over time to separate my work habits from my childhood experiences and learned behavior…

…Self-worth is fostered as a child when people affirm us. When I was growing up, I never felt validated. No one — not the missionary, the orphanage staff, or my adoptive parents — felt like they were in my corner…

Any time my capabilities have been questioned, I retreat rather than push through because I didn’t learn to believe in myself.

…As someone who was adopted, it was ingrained in me I should be thankful for what I have and content with what I’d been given. It’s another reason I’ve never put myself forward for promotions.

I can identify with that. It’s always been easier for me to advocate for others than for myself.

In light of the ugly racist and adopteephobic response Pellecuer generated, I commend her for speaking the truth. If she had known what the reaction would be, maybe she’d not have done it. I wouldn’t blame her. If you think Twitter is bad, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Think of a gang of hilljacks in bedsheets.

I am afraid that even though we know the isolation and disengagement created by adoption, not to mention the lack of morals and ethics, we still sit in that adoptee-friendly choir loft where we sing only to each other.

I intended to post a few examples of the hate mail the shit-throwers posted, but after going through all 81 pages of it, I decided to post a longer list in tomorrow’s blog. It is something that, no matter how awful, needs to be read to fully comprehend the hatred that uppity bastards generate, especially if they are Black, in the general public. Be grateful shut up, die. Even adoptees dumped on her.

The Business Insider article is behind a paywall. I could read it on my phone through Newsbreak, but not on my computer, and I went around Robin Hood’s Barn trying to download it for free. After I did that I found a free link on MSN. The rotten comments, though, are only on the Business Insider site.

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