The New York Times: Gatekeeper, Censor

(It lives! It liiiiives!)

I’m coming out of blog retirement briefly to join forces with others who are seeking to excise a diseased mass growing on the U.S. news media. Specifically this month, The New York Times, continuing on its supposed quest to foster a thoughtful discussion about the complexities of adoption, is instead censoring the discussion.

As part of its monthlong online series, “Relative Choices: Adoption and the American Family,” the NYT website has published a blog post from author Tama Janowitz entitled, “The Real Thing.”

In this post, Janowitz writes:

A girlfriend who is now on the waiting list for a child from Ethiopia says that the talk of her adoption group is a recently published book in which many Midwestern Asian adoptees now entering their 30s and 40s complain bitterly about being treated as if they did not come from a different cultural background. They feel that this treatment was an attempt to blot out their differences, and because of this, they resent their adoptive parents.

So in a way it is kind of nice to know as a parent of a child, biological or otherwise – whatever you do is going to be wrong. Like I say to Willow: “Well, you know, if you were still in China you would be working in a factory for 14 hours a day with only limited bathroom breaks!”

(Razor-sharp wit, no? And such well-thought-out literary critique!)

This is exactly the kind of lazy and irresponsible writing that dismisses adult adoptees’ voices as well as forces adoptees of the younger generations into emotional submission. Poorly executed “snark” such as Janowitz’s isn’t funny, especially when it reveals this kind of ethnocentric attitude toward the so-called Third World countries that serve as source cultures supplying children to the wealthy, white and privileged.

<retort>*snort* Where’s your sense of humor? Ignorance is great fun! Her piece is irreverent and cheeky!</retort>

Or would that be that juvenile and racist? Predictable and flippant? Insensitive and obtuse? Hmm. I’ll get back to you on that one.

Funny, also, that Janowitz dismisses the authors of this nameless book as “complaining bitterly.” I wonder if the same description couldn’t be applied to her own piece. My suspicion is that TJ hasn’t even read said book (as she hints by using her friend as a scapegoat). Or if she has, then something about the questioning and direct nature of the authors’ writings has apparently left her feeling so threatened, she decided to include her oversimplified little book review in some weak attempt to further her point that adoptees should be seen but not heard unless they’re clasping their hands at their chests, squealing, “Oh, Mommy! I’m so grateful to you for saving me!”

We already know that the NYT is censoring its blog comments big time, and has suggested that many of the more critical, outspoken adoptees in our community are undeserving of being given equal voice alongside such supposed adoption experts as Jeff Gammage and Ms. Janowitz.

I am among the many censored adult adoptees and adoptive parent allies who have been gagged and deemed unworthy of inclusion in the discussion, in favor of commentary that is judged less “disrespectful” to the adoptive parent writers.

Not only as one of the censored adult adoptees, but as a journalist and newsroom veteran, I question the NYT’s editorial agenda, as well as its gatekeeping tactics, particularly when many of the NYT editors and staff writers are themselves adoptive parents. Granted, this series is running in the Op/Ed section, where the opinions and expressions of the blog posts’ authors are just that. But who gets to judge which aspects of the ensuing discussion deserve publication space, and which go unheard?

In this case, considering who is at the gate, I think editorial objectivity has faltered and declined into that gray area where the personal becomes political, and vice versa.

My fellow adoptee friends and I have to wonder, when adoptive parents’ voices are allowed to dominate the discussion at the expense of adoptees’ perspectives, as they so often are, in what shape does that leave the so-called “adoption triad?”

And, just as importantly, does anyone else wonder why is there only one birth parent represented among the chosen writers?

And why, as adults in our 30s and 40s, are we still referred to as “young adult adoptees” (referring not to Janowitz’s post, but to other frequently made comments in discussions of adoption), patted on the heads, and relegated to the kids’ table off in the margins? We are not speaking out for fun & games. We are working toward variegating an otherwise two-tone discussion and upgrading an outdated system.

I think it’s a cryin’ shame that such a flip, careless post had to follow up a thoughtfully written, well-composed post such as Sume’s, that actually illustrated the complexities and nuances of adoption. The two aren’t even on the same plane.

Please explore Sume’s blog, Ethnically Incorrect Daughter, if you haven’t done so already, and also tune in to some of the other blog noise my fellow adult adoptees and our allies are making about this “Real Thing” of a journalistic cancerous mass:

Jae Ran’s keeping tabs at Harlow’s Monkey.

Lisa Marie’s got their number at A Birth Project.

Susan says what we all want to say at ReadingWritingLiving.

Sun Yung Shin is a rock star.

Sarah Kim moves me to dainty little kitten tears (OK, fine, full-sized ones.) at Outside In … And Back Again.

Kev Minh joins the censored adult adoptee masses at Borrowed Notes.

Paula gets a word in, but still feels the collective sting at Heart, Mind and Seoul.

Ungrateful Little Bastard summons the power of the internets. (Check out her last link; it’s a doozy!)

Carmen has spoken over at Racialicious. (Please Digg this story!)

Resistance resists at Resist Racism.

Jen performs a masterful dissection at Reappropriate.

David of the Columbia U Asian American Alliance tunes in on The Blaaag.

My Sky wonders where all the other outraged adoptive parents are.

Chicago Mama and Third Mom and cloudscome say, “Over here!”

I urge you all to hold the NYT and other media sources accountable for this kind of bias and censorship. Make some noise!