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This year's #NationalAdoptionAwarenessMonth feels like it began on May 27, when entertainment news outlets broke the story of a famous YouTube family offloading their adopted son into a different home when they didn't want to raise him anymore. https://twitter.com/bekhenson/status/1268138967578415112?s=20
This year's #NationalAdoptionAwarenessMonth feels like it continued through July w/ the U.S. release of a children's book called "The Unadoptables," & #AdopteeTwitter raised our voices to decry the mining of our community's trauma for entertainment. https://twitter.com/bekhenson/status/1268138967578415112?s=20
This year's #NationalAdoptionAwarenessMonth seeped into Sept. and Oct. with Amy Coney Barrett's SCOTUS confirmation and public debate about whether her two adoptions from Haiti during a time children were openly trafficked should be investigated. https://twitter.com/bekhenson/status/1268138967578415112?s=20
Never in my life have I seen more adopted people with the direct experience of *being* trafficked for adoption get personally attacked, reported, and silenced for raising truth and valid concerns as I saw during the confirmation process.
All year long, there have been public conversations and media coverage of various facets of adoption and child welfare that repeatedly ignore the most experienced and knowledgeable voices—the voices of adoptees, foster youth, and FFY ourselves.
Being aware of what adoption is, what it achieves, and at what cost to all the people involved, and confronting ways to abolish the exploitative and rights violating systems we have in place currently is not a November-only practice.
It's year-round education and advocacy around the rights violations and exploitation currently occurring in our public, private, and intercountry adoption systems, and how we can better care for our neighbors so families can stay together with holistic support.
Today might be the final day of #NAAM2020, but the advocacy, education, and amplifying of #AdopteeVoices, adoptee experiences, and adoptee visions for justice and change continues every single day.
We don't need a seat at the table. We need public recognition that we *are* the table. #AdopteeVoices #NationalAdoptionMonth
