Obtain Black Baby White Hands: A View From The Crib Executed By Jaiya John Displayed In Mobi

hated reading this book, But immediately upon finishing it, wanted to start it again, But I won't do that to myself,
He has a poetic way of writing, but it is so intense that you often got lost in the words and miss the meaning, A little less beauty and a little more grist could have helped the message along, It almost came off as forced and disingenuous to me like maybe he is still at the beginnings of his selfdefining journey, Was that intentional The perspective he shares is vital, but this really was a difficult, long read in need of edit,

Some bits maybe spoilers:
The first two pages of "The Child Adopts the Family" is amazing and mirrors my own thoughts and experiences with infants in foster care.
Their whole world has changed smells, sounds, tastes, routines, It matters. Even at these young ages,

"Unconditional, unstrained acceptance and regard was all that assuaged and reassured my sense of my value, "

The perspective his youngest brother has as a child of his family is telling, "At his age, it was all about sizes, shapes, colors, and personalities, Life had not yet intruded upon him with social complexities,
"Over time, these complexities came, In first grade, he was assigned the task of writing a sentence that answered the question, "what color are you" Rudy wrote, "I am camouflage, so I can hide in the woods.
" I feel you, brother. "
How do you feel about having two black brothers vs the question not asked of how do you feel about having two sisters with red hair,

"But I was Black from the beginning, This was not only a fact of biology, And I was so in spite of the lack of a Black cultural presence in the early years, I was Black because I shared with most African Americans a common cultural ground resulting from society's reaction to our physical Blackness, I was no different than White children in that I derived my sense of belonging largely from how others who looked like mein my case through scenes brought to me in books, television, and movieswere accepted or rejected.
I lived in a Black outpost, but in dealing with the phenomenon that was my race, I was just as Black as any Black child, maybe more so, because of the constant reminders, My family chose, for the most part, to be largely blind to that essence in the hope that a contrived sense of sameness would help me feel at home, "

His agony when asked in school to place the pin on the map where his ancestors were from, Ugh. So sad. And the lack of representation for anything other than white and Englishcentric cultures, : I fear we're not much better now,
Later "ashamed and confused as I was forced to identify where my ancestors came from, Those ancestors were in a way, through familial spirit and love, the biological relatives of my adoptive family, But my people were also that boundless stream of blood and spirit from which I was descended, . . "

"Early on, my parents may not have thought too often about the possibility that, as I aged, I might feel offkey from the note, and off rhythm from the cadence of our family.
They may have believed that as long as I bonded well as a baby, the emotional attachment ahead would be a downhill road for me, Maybe they didn't realize that ultimately the attachment would have to be mutual, And that it would rest largely upon their effort and ability to bond with even my evolving racial identity, They seemed unprepared for what I was growing into, "
To be fair, though, most parents are unprepared for what their children are growing into,

I actually really loved his father's answer to the question of how are you going to teach this child all the things that a Black child needs to know.
"The essence of Dad's response was his typical, sincere, understated retort, He Said, 'I probably cannot do a good job of that because of my ignorance and limited life perspective, All I can do is try to teach him what my father taught me, and hopefully that will provide him the tools and the strength of character to figure out the rest on his own.
'" Obviously that's not perfect, but teaching kids the skills to find and figure things for themselves is essential and empowering, And kudos to his dad for recognizing his limitations, but not dismissing the need was still there,

The denial of a part of the author as a child equated to his feeling an entire erasure of himself, Even when it was coming out of people's desire to be welcoming and loving, " to facilitate my sense of acceptance, my experience of normality, virtually all involved went about suppressing my Blackness in their minds and hearts, The racial ingredient of my persona was blotted out, But thinking they were only blotting out a portion, a fragment of me that I could exist independently from, they committed an erasure of my entirety, "

"I had stood in the intense glare of spotlight not because I was different, but because of how people reacted to my particular difference, "

I feel for his mother,
"I treated all my kids the same, " "Mom was saying that she had done her best to show that her love for us was equal to that of all her children, And she had done it be relating to us as if the facts of our adoption and race didn't exist, She had whitened them out, "

I literally cried when I read his father saying "Hey, Partner, welcome home" when they meet for the first time, It's a little difficult to articulate why, I think it's because, as a parent, you want to have your children strong and prepared enough for that sort of emotional experience, And you want that for them if it brings them more fully into themselves, You want to spare them any pain of it, knowing you can't and really shouldn't either, And just the loss for him and his bio family! The immeasurable loss, And the scary reminding yourself you would have to do that him expanding his family and those that love him does not diminish the love and family he already has.


I love this truth: "The true impulse of a person is revealed when the overwhelming beauty of nature cleaves social detritus from hearts like fish from the bone, and lifelong racial lessons are for the most part left behind on the shore.
This is the impulse to commune with living things, even with those in the 'other' category, " I think that's true not just across racial lines, but many categories we cast ourselves in,

"So many White people greatly suffered form a prejudice of superiority that had left them blind to human beauty and validity in so many people of this world.
Too many Black people suffered from a prejudice of wounds that had crusted our hearts over with stifling protective layers, A crust that had clogged the passageways for our inherent spiritual lovehonor for others, for each other, and for ourselves, "

"What marvelinspiring forces of nature mothers truly are somehow everything always comes back to and down to them, " There are few adoption books that I have read that I would not recommend and that I have not learned from, I suppose in that regard, this book is not unlike others, There are things to be learned, Even still, I would not recommend it, While I appreciate the author's journey and struggle, he is still dealing with anger and hurt from his past and it steeps into each page coloring the lens through which we see his life.
This book is much less about adoption and more about one man wrestling with his own identity apart from his parents and the culture in which he was raise, July,. It is only three months following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr, and the nation is burning, Black and White America are locked in the tense grip of massive change, Into this inferno steps an unsuspecting young White couple, Neither had truly known even a single African American person while growing up, Now, a child will change all of that forever, In this fateful moment, a Black baby becomes perhaps the first in the history of New Mexico to be adopted by a White family, Here is a brazenly honest glimpse into the mind and heart of that child, a true story for the ages that flows like a soulful riverseparated from his mother at birth, placed into foster care, adopted, and finally reunited with his biological family in adulthoodan astounding journey of personal discovery.
Jaiya John has opened the floodgates on his own childhood with this piercing memoir, Black Baby White Hands, a waterfall of jazz splashing over the rocks of love, pain and the honoring of family, Magically, this book finds a way to sing as it cries, and to exude compassion even as it dispels wellentrenched myths, Destined to become a classic, this stirring account is sure to find itself well worn, stained by tears, and brushed by laughter in the lap of parents, adolescents, educators, students, and professionals.
Here comes the rain and the sunshine, all at once, I heard Jaiya John speak about adoption issues over the summer, This book is one man's journey to find his identity after growing up in a family and neighborhood that was predominantly white, Luckily for him, his biological parents are equally amazing and part of this story, Happy I read it, but it wasn't easy, His writing is REALLY indulgent and it ispages of him repeating that he didn't feel he belonged, Not that I want to diminish that feeling, but it could have used some editing, He writes without much structure, floating from his emotional turmoil to his spiritual life, without grounding these in a certain time or circumstance,

The book does have powerful moments, usually when he actually tells his story in linear time and specific stories, I was definitely brought close to tears on several occasions, especially when he explains the disconnect between himself and his parents when he confronts them as a young adult about his feelings and their inability to speak to racial difference.

Many people have said in their reviews that this book is great for people adopting transracially, I think some people are missing the point it's not about the white parents!!! While they and siblings like me, can certainly benefit from it, I think this book can be a resource to the transracially adopted people who are struggling through similar experiences and are feeling the same isolation.

That being said I sure hope that people who have adopted transracially read books from this perspective for a little extra insight into their grown children's minds, .