Quote:What is it with celebrities and African babies? They just can't leave them alone. According to reports, Madonna is the latest celebrity to adopt a child from the developing world. If the story is true, the 48-year-old singer has adopted a one-year-old boy from Malawi after a visit to the country. I'm afraid only two words spring to mind: vanity project. Madge wants a baby, so she goes to Africa and "saves" one - that way she gets her baby and scores points for doing a good deed.https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/oct/06/comment.familyandrelationships
I have no problem with philanthropy, or with western guilt, but I am sick of the idea that adoption by white westerners is the best thing for an African child. Adoption is a complex process at the best of times, but when you throw race into the mix the waters get even muddier. The impression given is that by adopting an African child Madonna is somehow "rescuing" him from a life of misery. The implication being that anything is better than growing up in Africa, even having Madonna as a mother.
But no amount of luxury can make up for having lost my family.
It's arrogant to assume the only way to deal with poverty in the developing world is for westerners to adopt a few "lucky" children.
Quote:Where do these babies come from? As international adoptions have flourished, so has evidence that babies in many countries are being systematically bought, coerced, and stolen away from their birth families....Nearly half the 40 countries listed by the U.S. State Department as the top sources for international adoption over the past 15 years have at least temporarily halted adoptions or been prevented from sending children to the United States because of serious concerns about corruption and kidnapping. http://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/06/the-lie-we-love/
It is a sad thing not to have friends, but it is even sadder not to have enemies...(Ernesto Che' Guevara)
