When my fourth-grade English class started a newspaper, I knew what I wanted to write about. I’m so proud. I mean I’m just proud. I love hearing her mom and dad talk about her.
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“I feel like they’re defaming my character”, Simone said.
“People who called her my grandmother when I was a child confused me and upset me”.
Enter Simone Biles, the gold-medal-winning gymnast who Olympics fans are screaming for around the globe. “But it just comes down to the day”. Maybe Mom’s your coach. But Ron has some harsh words for her, according to Texas Monthly: “I say [to Shannon], ‘They couldn’t care less about you”.
Ron is not only Simone’s maternal grandfather but also her father – legally, practically and emotionally.
Al Trautwig, an NBC gymnastics announcer for the games in Rio, caused a stir on Monday when he tweeted about the 19-year-old’s family, insinuating that the gymnast’s adoptive parents weren’t her “real” parents: “They may be mom and dad but they are NOT her parents”. Indeed, when her parents adopted her and her siblings, they saved them from being stuck in a foster system where black kids are overrepresented and far less likely to find their way out. OK, it was a little tackier than that.
A woman on Twitter then urged Trautwig to stop calling Ron and Nellie her grandfather and his wife. So many people don’t know how to speak about adoption.
Trautwig’s misstep could have been a teachable moment. When a woman tweeted Trautwig to say that he should call them her parents, he tweeted: “They may be mom and dad but they are NOT her parents”.
Trautwig’s tweet was preserved by many users who re-tweeted or screen grabbed it.
“Not cool, Al Trautwig”. What difference does that make except to a eugenecist?
USA gymnast Simone Biles’ parents are Ron and Nellie Biles.
Seriously, guys, what’s wrong with “parents”?
As I tuned into NBC to get ready to watch, my tiny, beautiful, infant daughter slept peacefully upstairs. That’s because to ask about the family origins of our boys’ lives gives us an opportunity to talk about their birthmother’s sacrificial decision to carry their child to term and give them a chance at a life they otherwise wouldn’t have had the opportunity to live. In a statement emailed by NBC Sports, he said, “I regret that I wasn’t more clear in my wording on the air”. In doing so, he touched on an issue many adoptive parents face. You work to believe that these people are your family. He could’ve been a little bit more classy with it. And they’ve raised an American hero.
But neither statistics nor adoption fees that treat children like commodities adequately address how state adoption interventions acutely target black families. It’s not a secret to be kept from a child, told only when they’re mature enough to know the frightful truth. We’ve patiently responded; we’ve held back tears. Adopted people can’t be spotted, and when that status is revealed, people hurry to put you in your place and remind you that you are not and cannot be like everybody else.
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Adoption groups joined the conversation as the debate continued.
