[E162] Navigating Nuance: Transracial Adoption with Rhonda Mae Roorda

[00:00:11] Speaker A: Welcome to the Empower to Connect podcast, where we come together to discuss a healing centered approach to engagement and well being for ourselves, our families and our communities. I'm JD. Wilson and I am your host. And today on the show, one of our favorite people, it is Rhonda May Rorda. She is going to be with us to talk about a litany of things within the world of transracial adoption. And so we had Rhonda on Gosh three years ago and talked with her specifically just about transracial adoption. And the conversation was really fun and fascinating. If you've not heard that episode, definitely go back and listen to it. But this one today, we have been noticing, as I'm sure you have in the world, how many times this conversation within transracial adoption gets pulled one side to one specific angle and stays there. And if you are a transracial adoptive parent or adoptee or you are familiar with the transracial adoption narrative at all, you know that no part of that conversation belongs only in one side of the sphere when it comes to talking about it. And so we want to talk about the nuance, the both and the good and the bad and those things kind of holding harmony together in this conversation. And Rhonda is definitely the person to do it. Rhonda is an author of multiple books, award winning books, including In Their Voices, where she went to talk to African American community leaders and communities around the country to talk about the dynamics of black youth, specifically being adopted into white families and what that meant on the black community side. And it's a must read. And I said that once the interview started, so sorry. I said it twice. Sorry, not sorry. You should definitely go read that book. Secondarily, we just talked about a lot of those different dynamics that are hard to wade into and that really have to be addressed by an adoptee because their experiences are so unique that it is a viewpoint that is hard for parents to be able to understand or have. And so I hope this conversation is as much of a blessing to you as it was to me personally when we had it. You'll hear Tana on the episode for about half the episode and we had a little computer battery issue and a little lack of a charging cord anywhere issue. So Tana bowed out halfway through. And so if you're watching, you'll see that and it was kind of funny. If you are listening, you'll just be like, hey, where's Tana? And that's where she went. Lastly, I'll just say as a footnote, most of you, many of you have heard the story of Michael Orr resurfacing recently with a lawsuit with what we all thought was an adoptive family and the conservatorship that was placed there. There are so many sides that conversation. We weren't trying to duck that conversation today. In fact, I planned to bring it up at some point, but we got so deep into the conversation with Rhonda where we were and it was so rich and so good, I didn't want to deviate from that. And so maybe we will have an episode at some point to talk through that. But if you follow that story at all, you know that is going to require about six guests, a panel and 17 hours of discussion. So that was not one that ended up coming up today and not because we were scared to have the conversation or wanted to avoid it, just because it is so wildly complicated and the conversation was so good with Rhonda, we just decided to leave it there. So that is all. Before our interview, I will remind you, if you have not been listening to this part of the podcast, if you're just skipping ahead and if so, how dare you. We have our first ever Global Connection event coming up, November twelveTH, here in Memphis, Tennessee. And we have been holding on and waiting to announce the special guest publicly. But we are finally able to say we are super excited to have the one and only Nate Bargatzi, who is a Grammy nominated comedian. He's got multiple specials on Netflix, on Amazon Prime, has just completed what I think is about 18 straight months of touring. And just one of the funniest human beings on the face of the planet is going to come and be with us at our first ever Investing in Hope fundraiser here in Memphis, Tennessee, November twelveTH. So the reason I bring that up, nate is going to come and share a brand new hour of comedy. It's unreleased. If you've watched all the specials, awesome. You should watch them again, that's great. But when he comes, new hour, new jokes, new content. And we wanted to do something different for this fundraiser. Rather than just have a gala or just have kind of a generic fundraising event like we have all been to before. We wanted to have this kind of thing that would represent us and just to have fun. Share where empowered to Connect is where we're going. Be excited about that. Raise the money so that we can begin new waves and new places of investment with our resources and time as we go out. So I hope you will make the choice to be with us that night. You can go to Empowertoconnect.org Investing Hope to buy tickets there. Yes you can. And you can also, if you don't want to have to type that in, just click the link in the show notes below to go to Empowertoconnect.org slash Investing in Hope. You can let us know who's coming with you. Bring a friend, bring eight friends, whatever. Buy tickets, show up. It's going to be at the incredible Peabody Hotel in downtown Memphis. The ducks will be there. It's going to be amazing. If you don't understand a duck comment, you should look up the Peabody Hotel. So that's all I've got to say. This is maybe the longest introduction I've done in show history. So come see us november twelveTH with Nate Bargasi in Memphis, Tennessee. Do it, make the trip. It's so worth it. It's going to be an incredible, incredible, fun night. Dinner and drinks on us that night, literally. I'm not joking. Come on. We'll see you November twelveTH. And now, without any further ado, finally our interview with Tana Odinger and the one and only Rhonda May Warda. Okay, well, we're here with our old friend Rhonda May Rorda, and Tana is here with us as well. And so if you have listened to us from the get go, rhonda was one of our first guests back in 2020, which that is wild too, by the way, because that does not feel like it was that long ago. [00:06:48] Speaker B: No, that feels like it was yesterday golly. [00:06:50] Speaker A: But Rhonda was with us and we wanted to have her back on again today to talk about just the nuance that exists in the conversation of transracial adoption. And before we get started in the conversation, let me just eliminate you naysayers who I know are already saying this in your head. You cannot talk about all the nuance of transracial adoption in one podcast conversation. Well, yeah, we know that, thank you. But we're going to try. We're going to start today and we're going to know as far as we can. And so Rhonda is an award winning author, speaker, contributor, mean what feels like half of society at this point in culture. And now we can add CNN contributor to her list as well. But Rhonda, why don't we start with this for people who are not familiar with you or your work. Do you mind just giving us just a brief overview of kind of who you are and what you do? Yeah. [00:07:42] Speaker B: So first of all, I want to thank Empowered to Connect for having me yet again on your very successful podcast. You're doing great work. My name is Rhonda Rorda. I am a black transracial adoptee. I was raised in the Washington DC community with a father who originated in Friesland, which is northern part of Netherlands. And then my mother grew up in the Midwest. So I was adopted in the early 70s when the whole conversation around whether a black child raised in a white home was moral, ethical, and whether it should even happen. And the controversy was surrounded by many of the concerns Native Americans had when their children were pulled out of their communities. They were concerned for the child, that they would be separated from their legacy, their birth family, their community, their language, their rhythm, their religion, values, just their spirit. And then also for the communities, they were concerned because you pull out children, children are your future and you're pulling them out of communities, leaving pockets of voidness. And that's the same sentiment the national association of Black Social Workers had in the early 70s. So me, along with many other adoptees of color, are living life today, still living out whether transracial adoption is effective. And so my books, which right now are four books that speak to the experiences of black and biracial transracial adoptees, white adoptive parents who raised the adoptees in the first book and then also white non adopted siblings. Those three books basically made the case for why it was critical that if we're going to talk about nuance and transracial adoption, we need to hear from many different voices. And we never had heard from the communities in which these children were coming from. So in 2015, I published the award winning book in Their Voices black Americans on Transracial Adoption. And this is the first time that we have ever talked to members in the black community through the Jim Crow who grew up in the Jim Crow era. Civil rights and post civil rights got to hear from them how they grew up, what their values were that they were taught, what made them laugh, what made them cry. What were the challenges around race and discrimination that they had to navigate through? These are conversations that many of them had, whether it was the first mayor of Philadelphia, W. Wilson Good Senior, who is also my godfather, or the great grandson of WVB devote boys, or. [00:11:50] Speaker A: World. [00:11:50] Speaker B: Renowned folk, social workers, et cetera. A lot of these conversations that these individuals had in their homes were lacking in the white homes that adoptees across the board were dealing with in their white homes. And so what were those lessons that we could learn and what were the truths we could embrace? And when you start talking around those areas, it's not just black and white, it's nuanced. [00:12:32] Speaker A: Fascinating book, by the way. Like, if you don't have that book, if you haven't read it yet, go pick it up. We'll have a link to it in the show notes below. And I think I told you this last time that you were on, so it's not new to you, but if you have not listened to that interview, you should definitely go back and listen to it with Rhonda. But it is a perspective that I am embarrassed to say I had never even thought of before diving into the book. And so as a transracial adopted dad with two kids, like, I would say, if you're in that same boat at all mandatory reading, you should definitely go read it. It is powerful. Rhonda, maybe before we even jump into what we said we were going to start with, maybe we could talk about the formation of that book. And maybe, I don't know if there are stories you can remember from when you were writing it that dealt directly with this topic of nuance and stories that might, to the majority culture community, seem like they are very black and white. One way issues. But then when you were writing the book, you found a whole kind of whole new side of the story as you talk to those communities. [00:13:40] Speaker B: Yeah. So I will draw from the late Cyril Pender, who in the played for the NFL. I know he played Chicago Bears, Philadelphia Eagles, but he, after the NFL, developed a very successful career doing sales as an executive for NBC Network as well as ABC Network. I met him when I was at ABC, and I included him in the book because he became such an extraordinary mentor to me. And he said some things in the book and to me personally that I never thought of. So when I first met him, I was a junior in college, and I was studying in Chicago and television. And what was extraordinary is that the mentors around me were all black executives, professionals, people who stopped and poured into me and didn't have to. Sarah was one of those individuals. And what he said to me after he got to know me and taught me about sales and television and how to present myself was similar to what I heard at Harpo Studios when I was in Chicago. And Oprah looked at my hair know, questioned how I was caring for it in the sense because I was black in a white family, I didn't understand, really that I was black, and I just was trying to figure out my identity at that point. But first, Sarah said to me, Rhonda, you are black. And that means that you have to work twice as hard to get a position in corporate America. And that is so that when there's access, I'm ready. I'm ready to enter those doors. [00:16:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:07] Speaker B: And then he said, you need to know who you are and where you came from. So going back to transracial adoption, when I was adopted, this was pre open adoptions, pre some of the conversation, but still very similar to what's going on today. But my story, my narrative began when I joined the Rorda family. So my past and this is what I said on ABC Live my connection to my legacy, my mama, my daddy, where I got my eyes, my wide nose, my lips, my sassiness, my self, all of that was built into my DNA. And so when I came to the table, I came with way more than loss and grief. I came with an intelligence. I came with a rich legacy. And people just want to look at circumstances. Oh, she's black. She was in foster care. Look at we're saving her. That was my narrative. But Sarah is the one who said, and this may hurt to some of the adoptive parents out here, but in my case, he said, you give your white adoptive parents too much credit. I was mortified when he said that. But right now, I'm finishing my memoir, and it's basically a balance sheet of where credit is due love it. I love my adoptive parents, but I gave them 100% credit for who I was, and I was like, oh, my goodness, I would be worthless if it wasn't for them saving me. That's how, as an adoptee, and I'm sure a lot of adoptees translate, I need to be grateful. So when Sarah said, you give your white adoptive parents too much credit, and he said, Rhonda, you have to look in the mirror and see what you bring to the table. You are smart. You are determined. You have had to fight out here without the assistance of your parents. They're not black. They don't know how many times you're going to be called the N word and how to navigate. So what he said is, you need to know who you are and where you came from so that you can keep moving forward. When somebody tells you, you're not good enough, we don't want you. You're not worthy to work over here. You're just the negro in the streets. That's how he taught me. And then about nuance, he said, Rhonda, you need to know how to play on grass, and you need to know how to play on turf. [00:19:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:30] Speaker B: Now, I'm not good with sports. I had to look up, what does that mean? Why is it so hard to play on turf? Know? And he's like, underneath that turf is a yeah, and he was a running. So, Rhonda, don't plow through everything. See, that's sort of what we've done in this transracial adoption discussion. We have plowed through everything without recognizing nuances, the soil and the foundation underneath you, the context, the specific situation, et cetera. We look at transracial adoption solely from one perspective. That is, white adoptive parents are saving these black and brown children. And so the only posture you have is to be grateful as an adoptee. And that's why when I was on CNN talking about Colin Kaepernick, when he said in his book Launch that he loves his adoptive parents, he was sitting right next to them when he said, but he experienced racism. That takes courage to say that because of the narrative that we need to be grateful. And what I needed to tell black and brown and white audiences is you should be able to tell your truth as an adoptee. Now, on Facebook, you can see white adopted parents telling their adopted children's truth, whether it's posting a photo of their kids head and showing their scalp and a rash developing, whether it's saying, know, they messed up and we just can't deal with them anymore. I mean, I read a plethora of stories where white adopted parents feel the license not all some the license to tell the stories and make the case of why they're better than if these children were in their birth family, right? So we have to be honest when we have a conversation and realize there's value in all of these voices. White adopted parents have a tremendous value in telling their stories, their narratives, but so do the adoptees, so the non adopted siblings, and so does the community. And telling our truths doesn't mean that you despise or that you're not grateful. I'm grateful that, first of all, I'm grateful that, yes, I was adopted, but I'm grateful that my mama chose in the early, late sixty s to have me in the midst of social angst and economic angst. I'm thankful she chose to give birth to me. I'm thankful that she had the right mind to say, these are the things I want for my daughter. I want her to have a college education. Because a college education for so many who did not have opportunity in the past was the pathway through. And this is why in the black community, so many families say, you must get an education. You must be two times stronger. So Sarah was this inspiration that was a part of my life for 25 plus years before he passed in 2021. And to be there to pray for me, to push me forward, to guide me. This is what mentorship looks like when our families give our children to people we trust, if it's my Godmother or if it's a mentor, and to get both narratives. Because in my white home, they never told me I had to be twice as good. In fact, they didn't necessarily encourage me to go to college. That was me. I was determined to say it and to actually make the way to do things, to believe it or just to say it. Because the white kids, that's an expectation for them. So there's nuances on so many levels. [00:24:12] Speaker A: So many levels. I think one thing that I think from that story, just the graciousness of somebody else to be able to speak some hard truths to you and to say some things to you that he was not sure how you were going to receive those right. And then your graciousness to receive those things and to be able to take them in and go look and work on them. Obviously, I'm thinking of 10,000 things to follow up with on you right now. I want to talk about Colin Kaepernick and that situation for a second. And so the context, if you're not familiar with the story, when Colin published his, I think his graphic novel a few years ago, he talked about an experience where he experienced racism in his home. He had his hair done in cornrows, like braided back to the scalp. And his parents, I think his mom particularly, said, hey, that's not professional. You look like a little thug. And at the moment, I don't know if in that moment Colin thought that is racist, or if in the moment he internalized that with a big question mark, like, well, I don't know what to do with that. A lot of a lot of adoptive parents are going to hear that and get insecure and feel like, well, there's a moving target. This is revisionist history, and she's just looking out for him and all that. How do we start as adoptive parents? Through your eyes. Rhonda how do we avoid getting stuck in that insecure trap of being too fearful to say anything to our kids out of fear of offending them or being too outspoken and provoking that narrative of you should be grateful and we're here to help you, and all that. [00:26:06] Speaker B: So there is a Nigerian word called amachi. It means, who knows what God can do with a child? I strongly believe that as parents, through birth or through adoption, we are all entrusted with these incredible little people. And we, as a person of faith, we are here as parents, as mentors, to inspire them to soar into who they are meant to be and be able to grab hold of their own God given purpose. So when you look at it with a context like that, and in this case, when you adopt a child like Colin Kaepernick, like me, or any other adopted child of color, the goal is not to create white people that have the exact same values and the exact same morals and the exact same isms as you do. We come to the table, like I said earlier, with our own DNA, with our own rhythm, and it runs deep in all of us. Just go on ancestry.com and you will see and look, I'm as African American as they come and freezian as they come, but I'm going to embrace my Swedish roots and my one what is it? 3% European Germanic roots. All of these things are a part of us. And so when they are a part of us, that's what we come to the table with. So, getting to specifically your question, colin, from what I understand, he wanted his hair and cornrows, the same thing. I traveled to Africa to visit relatives in West Guinea, and I had an African woman from Guinea, West Guinea, braid my hair. There was something spiritual about this black woman from Guinea, Africa, touching my scalp and braiding my hair. I took so much pride in that my spirit was full. And then I come home, fly into Dulles Airport, and my father picks me up. Blonde hair, blue eyes, tall, and he sees my hair and he gives a disapproving look. And then I get to my home and he's married. My parents separate a divorce and remarried to a Vietnamese woman who I do love. But she looked at me and was disgusted because of the braids and my hair. And both my parents sat me down and said, rhonda, you need to take your braids out. They do not look professional, and this is in 1997. They do not look professional. And it's not becoming of you. You're a professional woman. So I don't know what Colin Kaepernick was thinking, but my parents turned prideness beautiful. I was joyful. My spirit was full. They turned that into me feeling shameful, ugly, unworthy. And then the I should be grateful kicked in. And what I did is take out those braids, and I buried the experience until much later. So you can feel, when I tell you that story, how that would make you feel. Now, when my father, adoptive father, wanted me to wear wooden shoes that he had to wear when he was in Friesland, Netherlands, and he wanted me to say prayers and friesian and buy into his values and cultures. And my mom wanted me to read the Today meditation. It couldn't be our daily bread. It couldn't be a devotion from an African American woman that I would have wanted to read from. It had to be precisely what they wanted. [00:31:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:40] Speaker B: By the time we as adoptees come of age, when Sarah met me, I didn't know that I was black. I know my hair mattered because it wasn't cared for while I was under the roof of whiteness. [00:31:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:59] Speaker B: I didn't know that I was worthy, beautiful, smart. In fact, I believed I was, quote unquote, retarded because that was the narrative that I came into the family with. And so Sarah had to really single handedly say, you need to know who you are and where you come from. And when you look in the mirror, you need to see a beautiful black woman, smart, capable. And he says, look at what you've been able to produce. That's how you need to think of how I'd recommend thinking about what don't we say? Because when you understand the assignment, everything else falls in order. [00:32:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:56] Speaker B: Thank you for sharing that. I'm wondering about when you said you were writing your memoir, and I think you may have said did you say balancing the checkbook? You said something about balance. I wonder if you could expound on that a little bit, because I'm thinking we need some balance here. Like, I'm hearing that story, and I'm like, there's no nuance in that. To me, that just plumb up. Needs some reedit. Sometimes you got to write notations. Come on. Why you're taking money out of one account and putting it in the rightful bank and you go back years. So in my career as a fund manager, I'm surrounded by fiscal reports, balance sheets, income statements. So my memoir is, in a sense, combining all of myself and talking about balance sheets, because one of the things that I have experienced as I have spoken on this issue for decades is that people can understand the work it takes to pick out your favorite corporate bond or your CD or your car or your house. That's sort of the same intensity, if not more, that should go into how we care for our God given children. And trying to balance to make the balance sheet right. There it is. That's right. Yeah. Is by taking note of what Sarah had said to me, you gave all of your power, all of your power to your adoptive parents. Everything you do, he says as he's giving them credit for, is what you said that was so powerful. Too much credit. Too much credit. Yeah. Not saying that they don't get any credit. That's right. They get 100% credit, right? No, they do not. Yes. And so there's an interview I did on ABC Live with Kyra Phillips and it was a fabulous discussion, but I had finished talking about the impact of my African American godmother, the impact of my black mentors on my life. I finished talking about the value of finding my birth family and how they have poured into me. And she ended it. And I know she meant well and I just valued the conversation I had with her. But the natural instinct and how she ended it was, your adoptive parents must be so proud of you. And people were like, but she just finished talking about all these African Americans. Do you see what I'm saying? She didn't. It out of malice at all. And certainly they should be proud of me. I would hope that they're proud of me. [00:36:28] Speaker A: Right. [00:36:28] Speaker B: But that's not the goal, is it? Go back to right. The white parent should get all the credit. Well, what about my mama who prayed into me, who wrote down what is expected of me that I actually listened to, and that's why I pushed as hard as I did? [00:36:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:53] Speaker B: What about my godfather? That the minute he became my godfather, has prayed for me, has pushed me, has written recommendations for me, has sat with me while I've cried, has told me, wipe your tears and get back up and keep moving forward? Well, what about them? [00:37:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:15] Speaker B: What about these mentors that did not, nor should they, had to, clean up any of my mess in my white family, but quietly with class and strength, sat down with me and talked with me, prayed with me, pushed me. What about them? But it's always going back to white adoptive parents, which rang a little hollow since my adoption is fragmented for the reasons we're talking about here. [00:38:00] Speaker A: Yeah. Rhonda, I think I'm fascinated by what you described in the last few minutes of talking, just them and thinking about Colin Kaepernick adoptive parents are sitting by his side at his book release in the midst. It's not like the first time they read that book was when they're hearing questions about right. So clearly he had had to talk with them about that, knowing this is going to go public and it's going to become a firestorm because writers love to have the word Colin Kaepernick in their title to get clicks. Right. So we know that anything or even more recently I'll ask about this in a second, the Michael Orr story. We know there's going to be lots of eyeballs, lots of opinions, but yet his choice. Is still to have his parents by his side on that day. And I think one of the things that I'd love to expound upon more is exploring how can we and I was going to say as adoptive parents, how can we as parents? Because some of these same nuances are obviously different roots but exist within biological family structures as well, right? There's both ends in all of our lives that exist where there are really crappy parts and really beautiful parts and neither one is untrue because of the other. Right? I will be embarrassed one day to stand to account for some of the things that I've in anger said to my kids at different times or out of frustration done. And then I'll stand really proud and tall for other moments where I was there for them in really beautiful ways and I can be proud of how I loved them and cared for them. Right? Based on the day you will get my kids being very proud of me and then wanting me to go jump in a hole, right? So there is both end amidst all of our conversations. I wonder if you would speak to that and how can we begin to embrace both those things? To elaborate within that both end without shying away from taking responsibility for the bad and then embracing the good and the unknown and the hard. [00:40:06] Speaker B: So I think with everything there needs to be grace and compassion and forgiveness, some basic fundamentals and that should be applied to what adoptive parents and Lord help us please, we deserve as adoptees grace and compassion too. Everyone non adopted siblings in the community deserves this. Once you have that fundamental, now we have to look at some of the things that the point was driven by reading the Simon Rorda trilogy of books on transracial adoption. And that is when we bring in an adopted child, a child from a different ethnic background, racial background, how are we preparing for them in our homes? Are we still living in predominantly white spaces? Are the people who come to, who are welcome to our dinner table, do they look primarily like our white parents or are there reflections of people that look like us when we go to places of worship? Are we welcoming to people that look like our children? What are the assumptions we have? All of this stuff needs to be checked. All of this stuff needs to be checked. And when we do the right things, adoptive kids are going to say mom and dad, mom and mom, dad and dad are seeing me in the picture. We have moved in too many of our white transracial adoptive families in a way that is not flexible to embrace somebody like me. And so this is why fragmented families happen. If my parents don't think that me connecting to my birth family is important enough, even if it's important to me and they don't go with me on that journey. They don't take the risks with me. They're not there in the emotional turmoil. They're not there. I'm funding it financially, emotionally, spiritually, and they're nowhere in sight. And then wonder why our relationship is fragmented. [00:42:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:42:55] Speaker B: If all of the family reunions are in white spaces and there's no reflection of somebody that looks like me, why am I going to continue when I'm 30, 40, 50 going to these reunions? [00:43:13] Speaker A: Right? [00:43:15] Speaker B: And then let me also say this, and this is something that I did put in my memoir. Why this impacts people like Colin Kaepernick or anyone who is adopted, transracially, whether they're aware of it or not, is because when we get out here in society, people don't see me walking along with my blonde hair, blue eyed father. I don't have that white umbrella of privilege. They just see my wide nose, big lips, dark skin. And so my solutions can't just be, I have a white father. Society doesn't care. They don't care. So we need more strategies. And so what so many adoptees are realizing is that the journey to find self and to care for self and to embrace our worth takes us in a different way than what my white brother and my white sister have to deal with or my white aunts and uncles and cousins. Like, for instance, as far as the balance book, I'm off their balance sheet. My brother and my sister and my dad, my mother, they don't even have to remember that they have a black sibling or a black family member and they get to go out in this world with a full tank of white privilege. But for every transracial adoptee that got placed by the sole decision of their white adoptive parents, we're out here trying to figure it out, taking their mistakes, taking their risk, and having to pay the price for that. And that's not fair. That's not fair. So when you look at that balance sheet, they're getting a lot of these benefits. We're adapting. Adoptees are adapting to their comfort level, to their values, to their norms. And as long as we do that, then they're not going to get anxious and they might keep us longer. But I knew at a very early age, god was leading me to a place of wholeness and I had a long way to get to that place. [00:45:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:57] Speaker B: So I couldn't rely on my parents because they were not going to go there with me. They were not prepared to go there with me. They did not want to go there with me because I asked, I begged, I cried, I paid for, I offered. They didn't want to go. They didn't want to go to my wedding with a black man. They didn't want to go. So many adoptees are left without networks of diverse people that will support and lift them up and inspire them as they take this journey many times alone. [00:46:38] Speaker A: Yeah, it's the second part of what you said that caught me. I was struck early on in our parenting journey at how wildly unprepared I was to raise children of and how, you know, I was very comfortable beginning the process. Very comfortable in the middle of the process. Like rhonda I grew up in Atlanta and we all went to a high school of 4000 people. It was barely majority white. Most of man, this is a very white thing about to say. Most of my good friends that I played sports with growing up were black or from a different ethnic background than me. And because we were growing up in such a thriving kind of metropolitan like a gigantic city as it was exploding in growth. I didn't know other people from like I was living in Atlanta but I didn't know other people who were from Georgia if that makes like we were living in Atlanta which was sort of this melting pot city in and of itself where most of my friends'parents were from California or Chicago or Boston or St. Petersburg or whatever. So we didn't have a geographical identity as much. And a lot of the Southern stuff didn't really penetrate that bubble because there was not Southern norms in the culture I was being brought up in in the suburbs. It was sort of like almost a geographical blob like, of nothing. And so I felt very comfortable because of my exposure to black culture. And Atlanta is a very black city and my first love was hip hop and I used to hide the radio under my pillow at night. So I felt in a lot of ways I felt very connected and informed of like, okay, there's some things that I don't know experientially but I feel like I know sort of a roadmap to help. And, I mean, maybe we were two or three years in and I remember just having this hopeless feeling of like, I don't stand a chance at this. I don't even have the first idea of how to walk this road. So the idea of not being prepared for it I think is an inevitability for anybody who chooses to walk this journey, be it white families, black families, et cetera. If you are adopting transracially to some extent outside of prior knowledge you're probably unprepared to walk that journey, right? It's the want to and the willingness to go there where I don't believe you have an excuse as a parent. [00:49:09] Speaker B: And I look at it. A journey is an adventure, right? You don't have to know everything but you need to have the curiosity to want to learn. You need to have the courage and the boldness to move forward along with your child if you want to have a relationship with your child as an adult and if you want your child to be fully proud of who they are in all of their worlds. And we have too many adopted children who are and adults that are walking around horribly wounded and too many adoptees that are 6ft under prematurely. I would not be speaking on this topic if I did not see the benefit, if I did not see the beauty in our transracial adoptive families because we have so much beauty and power and abilities in our transracial adoptive family. But we don't look at that because we don't see the whole picture. We don't want to. We're afraid to in some cases. So you have to just like for me, I had to learn to look myself in the mirror and embrace all parts of me. And when you do that, you are a force. You are a force of nature and you hold power, you hold beauty, you hold humility, you hold vision and you hold an understanding of the value of your ancestors. [00:51:05] Speaker A: So how do we equip our kids and how do we equip parents to go there with their kids? [00:51:13] Speaker B: Well, first of all, ask yourself as an adoptive parent, when you look in the eyes of your child, you need to ask yourself what kind of relationship do I want with my black and or brown adult child or a child who is going to become an adult? How do I want that relationship? Do I want to put in the work to keep it? And when you say you want to put in the work to keep it, then you've got to understand transracial adoption is bold, it's complex and it's context tied. It's a lifelong journey. A parent shouldn't be going to their daughter's house at the age of 40 something and saying it's too hard to have a black daughter. You have to decide what kind of relationship you want and are you willing to look at yourself for life as a multiracial family. So when it's time for you to retire, you're not just going to these gated communities that are all white and don't want black or brown folk in there, right? You've got to make your decisions. If I had a deaf child, I'll tell you right now that child will be my life and I would learn how to navigate in a visual world and a hearing world and she is a part of who I am, my legacy. And I would be there with her as she navigated these worlds and celebrate with her in these worlds and grapple with hard issues in these worlds. But if you're propping, if I shouldn't say propping your feet up. But if you look at a map of your life and there is not an adequate, a plentiful example of your entire family and your life, there's a yeah, yeah. [00:53:51] Speaker A: What about for kids? Rhonda I'm thinking about know who are beginning to come of age number one. This idea of go in there with your kids also relies on you being patient to wait until your kids are willing to ready to go into these hard places, right? So for kids, maybe they're teens. Tweens kind of starting to really view the world and maybe get mad, maybe get scared, maybe get super pumped to be out on their own where they don't have to be tied to this white family's identity anymore. Whatever. For the teens who are starting to wrestle and starting to really work through this, how can we support them to take that journey or to take some of those first personal steps in healthy ways instead of ways that might lead to bitterness and resentment? Only if that makes sense. [00:54:47] Speaker B: Yeah. So I can tell the story, I think, but I'm not going to say who it is because talking about a Tween, this couple is just an incredible transracial adoptive parent. They're white transracial adoptive parents, and they go to the culture camps. Well, let me back up. They have two African American boys and they are Tweens, and they have exposed themselves to the African American culture. They have friends, long term friends in the African American community. They go for guidance, but they also share their experiences as a transracial adoptive family. So they're investing in the African American community and vice versa. So their sons have seen the commitment of their parents. And what that does for our young people is that it slowly builds trust that our parents have our back, that they are rooting for us, that they love us, that they have resources in the African American community and vice versa, where it's real, it's tangible, and it's sustainable. And so recently, to get to your very good question, I got a call, an urgent call from the mother, and she said, I need you to talk to my son. He's questioning why he's not part of his birth family. He loves us, but why isn't he part of his birth family? There was a loss in his birth. He lost his father, and he questioned these things, and he was going into depression. The good news was he was talking about it. So some of that pain was coming out of his being to give him some. But she asked if I could talk with him because I have mentored him. I have been in that family's life. So I got on the phone and I told him I, too am adopted, as you know. And I told him that I would be there for him and I'm here for him and I'm willing to listen only as if he's comfortable sharing. And then I talked about my life, about loss and about my love for my adoptive family. And that you can have. I talked about the nuance. See, when we talk about the nuance, then it gives us permission to tell our truth. Because this young man, I call him young man, but he's a Tween. He loves his adoptive parents deeply. Those are his parents. But he feels deeply about his birth family. And that's what I told him I said, sweetheart, you can have both, and it's okay. You can be ecstatic that you're going to culture camp, and then you're going to go see a real football game, and you can mourn the loss of your birth father when you can have these conversations. It's building trust and continuity. That's what tweens want. That's what they're checking to see. Are my parents strong enough to handle this? And when I talked to this young man or this Tween, he shared with me what was on his heart. We talked for 45 minutes, and his mother was there in the background. And what I said to him is at the end, how proud I was of him that he thought about these things and what it shows of his heart that he cares deeply and that his parents, his adoptive parents, are there for him and for him to share with them what is going on now. I'm always going to be there. Like I say with my Godchildren, I am always going to be there. But you also have your parents who are a great source. [01:00:13] Speaker A: Gosh, it's such a hard road to walk. What I keep hearing you say is just that the willingness for parents to fight off the insecurity at every parent, regardless of your source of parenting, right? Like whether that came biologically or through foster care, through adoption, through other means, every parent wants to be able to shield their kids from pain, shield their kids from hardship, to keep them from having to walk through hard stuff. And at some point, every parent also has that reminder or that moment of going, yeah, but I can't, right? I can't. So if we can't shield our kids from every hard thing they're going to have to walk through, how do we make that daily choice to grab their hand and just make sure they're not walking through it alone? Right? [01:01:05] Speaker B: And that's what this is about. It takes a village. It takes a village because not everybody has all of the answers. And that was one of the gifts, I think, in their voices. Black Americans on Transracial Adoption gave to the transracial adoption community is that living room conversations with incredible African Americans that you're not having in your living room, but you get a chance to by reading this book, and it's collaborating. But we as adoptees need to see our parents model that, do you know what I mean? And what happened with the family I'm talking about, what this Tween black adoptee saw was his adoptive parents modeling. They were there, they were listening, they were supportive. And they came in tandem with me to give him encouragement, guidance and support and reminding him he's not alone. When you do something like this, you keep these kids not just alive, but you give them the tools to begin navigating out here. And that is gold. That's platinum. And then we put in place he's going to therapy. You put those resources, but you also have these connections. But if this couple didn't do their work, there wouldn't be Rhonda Rorda talking to this young. [01:03:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. All right. You've got a book that's going to be coming out sometime in the future. You've written it's, done a know the balance sheet. So to you, I know you talked a lot about it is if somebody asked you, like, Rhonda, what's one thing about this book you're most proud of? What is something that came out of it that you're most proud of as you get ready to launch it here in the future? [01:03:30] Speaker B: I think because what's most important is I finally listened to the inner child within me, and I saw her, I heard her. And as the adult, Rhonda, I promised her that I would love her, care for her and support her. And so my memoir is a tribute to the little girl within me and also to my. [01:04:07] Speaker A: That love. That when it becomes available, not asking and telling you we've got to have you back on to talk more about it and to do a giveaway or something. But, Rhonda, thank you so much for your time and sharing everything. I will tell you, if you're listening to this, you're like, well, where the heck did Tana go? Her computer battery died. Okay. We didn't have our quarter today, so her computer battery died. But she also said, thank you for jumping on with us. And so, Rhonda, we appreciate you so much. Let people know where they can find you, information about you, your books, all of that. [01:04:43] Speaker B: You can go up to my website, Rhondamrorta.com. There's also an author page with my first and last name on Amazon, just Amazon in my name. And you will see the trilogy of books on transracial adoption and in their voices, black Americans on Transracial adoption. But again, website is probably the ideal place because I have a team of people who will look at and I will look at any messages that come through there. [01:05:17] Speaker A: Okay, before we go, last thing, we got some quick hitter questions for you. Okay. So just kind of first things that come to your mind here. What is something that you are reading, listening, or listening to or watching right now that you love? Or it could be all three. [01:05:34] Speaker B: Something that I'm reading is A Thousand Lives by Julia Shears. It is a book that you have to it's about Jonestown. You have to read and set down. I just adore her as an author. She's also a non adopted, white, non adopted sibling. She has two black brothers. But it is a very compelling she's a New York Times bestseller. [01:05:59] Speaker A: Okay. [01:06:00] Speaker B: She's selling work. [01:06:02] Speaker A: Awesome. [01:06:02] Speaker B: And my devotions. [01:06:04] Speaker A: Yeah, of course. Anything you're watching right now that you love? [01:06:12] Speaker B: Let's see. Well, see, I just sort of got done writing a book. So I've been watching girls, I've been watching squirrels. I have been watching all sorts of birds. I have been in the woods, I have been the mountains, I have been by the beach to bring out the story within me. [01:06:33] Speaker A: Creativity. I mean, that seems like a much better thing to watch than TV these days, right? That's pretty good. Okay, let's say you can have a dinner guest, dead or alive, over to your house and you can have whatever meal you you. Who are you having and what are you cooking? [01:06:51] Speaker B: I am having Sterling Brown and his lovely wife and their children at my house. [01:06:57] Speaker A: All right. And what meal are you going to bring? [01:07:00] Speaker B: I'm going to bring oxtails okay. With jasmine rice, asparagus, and I'm going to have peach cobbler. [01:07:13] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. Well, I'm going to come as well. I'm just going to invite myself. [01:07:18] Speaker B: You're welcome. [01:07:20] Speaker A: And then last question. What's giving you life right now? [01:07:25] Speaker B: I think what's giving me life is that I'm a child of God and I know it and I embrace it and I love all of who I am and I think from that place, I'm hitting it hard with purpose, with passion, and I'm loving life. [01:07:45] Speaker A: I love that. Rhonda, thank you for joining us. [01:07:48] Speaker B: You are welcome. Thank you. It's been a pleasure. [01:07:56] Speaker A: Just love Rhonda. And so thankful for her coming on with us and sharing so vulnerably like she did. And I will say and I shared this with her after we recorded so many of the questions that we asked today just have come straight from our experience in our community here in Memphis of other adopted families. She has been so gracious with her time and her willingness to share stories and share her experiences. We're just really thankful for her and she's become a great friend in the process and so really thankful for her coming on today and just really want to encourage all of you who are listening to take your kids hand and to walk through hard places together and to show them experience that you've got their back. I'm preaching to myself, too. So as I say that, I'm saying that to myself, too. This is not me pointing that out for you. I'm saying it to me as well. But we got to take our kids hands, walk through the hard places together, and be there for our kids as they get to embrace all of who they are. So for all of the people here at Etc, for Tana and Modinger, for our whole team, for Kyle Wright, who Edison Engineers, all of our audio, and Tad Hewitt, the creator of the music behind the Empowered to Connect podcast, I am JD. Wilson, and we will see you next week on the Empowered to Connect podcast.