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As I will never get tired of explaining - the fact that something is racist doesn't make it wrong or false.
The implication that a "ghetto boy" is a member of a "virulent invasive species" is both literally false, and metaphorically wrong.
I shouldn't have to explain why it's literally false.
The metaphor is wrong because in the typical understanding, the actions we should take against "invasive species" should be extreme, up to and including eradicating them from the "invaded" area.
You can make a nature/nurture point just fine without bringing these kind of implications into it.
That seems like a bad way to judge a metaphor? If you say "wolf in sheep's clothing" or "fox guarding the henhouse" that has very little to do with the typical way farmers respond to animals threatening their own animals (shooting them).
For reference, the quote in question:
Whether accurate or not, I think the crux of the metaphor would be the idea of carelessly planting something that is destructive to the other plants/environment (particularly because they aren't well-adapted to dealing with it), not any particular response. The focus is on the planting/nurturing, on some poor gardener who thinks all seeds are the same (e.g. is a blank-slatist regarding nurture/nature) and then is left with the consequences, not on what he should do afterwards.
Maybe a bit pedantic, but your examples are also common idioms. The "invasive species" thing isn't, so I wanted why I felt it had such a strong negative implication.
But also if the comment implied that every black person in group of whites is a "wolf in sheep's clothing" I'd have the same issue. Those are both also very negative idioms to apply to people.
I think the "ghetto boy, invasive species" bits change the message from "be careful with adoption because you might get a bad seed" (the individual you might adopt could be bad and there's nothing you can do) to "don't adopt a black kid, they're all bad, and they're ruining everything".
No, the actual claim is, “The specific black kids who are up for adoption/fostering in America are, to an extremely large extent, likely to be a huge problem.” They are not a randomly-selected cross-section of the overall black population. There is a reason why they are up for adoption, and it is nearly always a terrible reflection on the parents.
If you accept any sort of hereditarian explanation of human behavior, then it should matter to you that the kid you’re considering for adoption is very very very likely to be the child of A) a drug addict), B) an incarcerated person, or C) a teenage unwed mother. (Or the very common D) all of the above.) The same traits that led such a person to such a lowly state are likely to manifest at least to some extent in the child as well. Even if you don’t accept any hereditarian claims, you still have to worry about things like Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, childhood malnutrition, and even neglect/abuse leading to stunted cognitive/physical development, etc. Again, these things are not guaranteed to make the child a ticking time bomb, but the likelihood is far from zero.
These things are at least partially true of non-black children up for adoption or in the foster system as well, but to a markedly lesser extent. The likelihood of these problems just is higher when it comes to adopting a black child. That could change at some point down the road, and certainly there are numerous exceptions and success stories even today, but that doesn’t mean it’s immoral or misguided to take these things into account.
This is true, but exactly why the claim that nature had stomped nurture was untrue in the original post. It's not an invasive species. It's a damaged plant. It's a small tomato plant that you got from your neighbor who alternately overwatered and underwatered it, the pot was too small and the dirt was mostly bark, and they gave it crazy amounts of plant food and also somehow meth.
You can't draw a conclusion that it's a virulent invasive species when it overgrows its pot and grows tomatoes with blossom end rot. It may not be able to give you tomatoes you can eat. It may simply grow and take up space your other plants might need, but it doesn't necessarily tell you a lot about nurture vs nature. And it's reasonable to expect people to know that. So if they do in fact treat it like it is an invasive species not a damaged one, it does still tell you something about them. Especially when:
Or to put it another way, I've worked in social care, many of the babies taken for adoption or fostering(and this was in the UK so they were mostly white), have huge problems, as you point out, fetal alcohol syndrome being a huge one. And my colleagues would spend extensive time warning prospective adoptive parents and foster parents and trying their best to prepare them for the idea this was going to be a long painful slog in many cases. We're not nurturing an invasive species, we're trying to rescue a damaged baby we have decided we ought not let die or be neglected. Even when we know that it is likely that baby will have many problems and may in fact cause problems and pain for their new parents.
It's horrible for the parents involved and many of them hand kids back when they can't cope with them, but that was the job they signed up for. To give a kid a shot. You are deliberately choosing to trade your time and effort and yes pain in exchange for possibly healing and raising a wounded child. It's not invasive, you deliberately brought it into your home. Yes absolutely do so with open eyes, about the issues they may well be facing, but it's not an invasive species, or even a cuckoo left in your nest against your will (as the most recent clarification by Coil) it's a burden that was chosen. Recognize that it is a burden yes, but you don't then get to pretend it was an invasive species.
The ghetto infant didn't just hop the wall one day and end up in your garden. He or she didn't have a choice where they ended up, you made that choice for them. If you as the adults didn't think carefully enough about what looking after them was going to entail, then that is on you, not the infant.
You understand metaphors, yes? That they aren't literal? Yes?
I don't literally think blacks are an invasive species, or that this congenital felon was literally snuck into their home.
But this poor family made a terrible decision because they've been lied to about reality their entire lives. They thought they could take the fruit of generations of convicted felons, and rescue him from his genetic destiny, because they didn't believe it was real. The moral imperative of blank slatism has robbed two promising young children of their parents time, affection, resources and an emotionally nourishing home. Yeah, it's not as direct as the Cuckoo just leaving it's eggs in an unattended nest. But they were tricked all the same. And they continue to be tricked with narratives like yours that make them feel like they just aren't good enough people if they give up.
Yeah, I know this doesn't only happen with black kids. Yes, I know it happens with flesh and blood too. Right now my mother in law refuses to live in her own home because my father in law refuses to stop harboring their criminally insane 40 year old son. She's damned near 80, the son is a violent psychopath, and the father is not doing his proper duty in actually physically protecting his wife, even if it's from his own kin. But that wasn't the topic of conversation when I made that post. Adoption was, and that's the adoption story I have.
They made a brave decision without realizing why it was brave, i.e. there's a lot of danger involved. That doesn't make it terrible. Had they walked into it with open eyes, it would have been admirable. Insofar as it's not their fault alone that they had a poor understanding of the odds they were facing, sure, they're entitled to some sympathy when things turn out poorly in a way they never anticipated; but not infinite sympathy.
Picture a guy who signed up to be a firefighter because he'd observed that everyone admires and compliments firefighters. One day, things get bad, and as he's being roasted alive in an out-of-control inferno he whines: "man, I thought this job was going to be all about rescuing cats from trees and collecting praise just for existing! I'd never have signed up if I knew it involved actual peril". If the fire dept's recruitment drive genuinely downplayed the hardships and hazards of the job, sure, he gets a degree of sympathy from me for the injuries he sustains. But once he starts saying "no one in their right mind should ever become a firefighter! it's a terrible idea! you could be horribly injured! stop praising firefighters and encouraging people to join up!", no, sorry, gotta stop you there. You have a right to be a coward, everyone does, I'm not a firefighter myself - but you can't start preaching cowardice as an ideal. That's wildly antisocial.
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Again though this isn't the point because 1) You can't tell as an infant what his genetic destiny was or is or how impacted it was by malnutrition, or fetal alcohol syndrome, or a drug addicted mother, or lead or what have you. And how much of that can be overcome. No-one can. Because there are plenty of adopted kids from "bad" parents who do in fact go on to live good if not great lives. No-one can tell in advance. Again someone has to raise them because we are not going to kill them. and 2) Were they lied too? Are you sure the social workers and so on involved with the adoption did not say "hey you know this is going to be difficult? You know adopting someone from this background, they may well have unknown issues? They're likely underweight malnourished that is going to have potentially long term consequences, to health and behavior? and so on and so forth.? Because in my experience the main issue is that prospective adoptive parents don't take warnings seriously, not that they are not given them. 3) You are robbing these adoptive parents of their agency. You claim that they were lied to, that they didn't understand, but they're adults. They made a choice, a good moral choice, that sounds like it hurt them long term, I am sympathetic to that. I spent enough time working in social care to really understand that. The moral imperative of blank slatism did not rob them of anything. They chose of their own free will to take on a moral burden. They sound like good people. But moral burdens have costs. If doing the moral thing was easy, everyone would do it. If they think it is too much for them, and have to hand the child back, then I won't judge them for that, because at least they tried. But the child did not choose to be brought into their home. They chose it. It is their responsibility until that point. He is not in any way invasive. He's damaged by the sound of it. That isn't the same thing. And he may well be so damaged that he needs 24 hour care in a professional setting. That happens. Again believe me, I've seen horrible things, done by parents and by children. I'm not advocating that they must keep the child regardless of the harm he is doing to them.
Blank slatism is nothing to do with this, because you have no way of knowing whether the nurture or nature part was the issue. And you don't know in advance how he will turn out, regardless of his lineage. That's the issue with your position. You build off your assumption that this was predictable. But most adopted kids, even black ones, even damaged ones, do in fact go on to lead reasonable lives. Yes with more difficulties and more criminality statistically. But unless you are literally going to kill them as children, they MUST be raised somehow. And adoptive families seem to give the best possible outcomes of the options we have.
This isn't a situation where we either nurture the invasive species or burn it, like if we were dealing with plants. We either nurture it and hope it grows up to have some quality of life for itself and others around it, or we don't nurture it and it will be even more likely to have lesser quality of life and to contribute negatively.
Or to put it another way, even if blank slatism is 100% false. What else can be done? The child must be raised. It's either going to be (in your scenario), be by the original mother (presumably neglectful or abusive, hence the adoption), the state in a facility, or an adopted family. Which of these is MOST likely to lead to some kind of positive outcome for child and society do you think? How can we tell for sure which is best for any given child as an infant? Our current system is to try and get as many adopted or fostered as possible, as this seems to give the kids the best possible chance, and then if we can't, or if they turn out to be too much for the foster/adoptive family we raise them in a group home or similar. And if they are too much for that, then..well there just aren't great options. Institutionalized and drugged or put in juvie or the equivalent really.
What should have been done with the infant in your scenario do you think? What percentage chance of turning out reasonably does he need to have before an adoptive family should be given the option to try?
I do have sympathy for your mother in law as well. Most of my time was in adult social care, so I am intimately familiar with violent adult children and the various broken cycles of attachment and how reluctant/fearful parents can be sometimes to admit that the behavior of their offspring goes beyond just acting out and is actually dangerous criminality. Getting them into care and treatment can be difficult. And of course many parents don't want to call the cops because they (often rightly) think mental illness is not coped well with by the justice system. It's a horrible situation I am sure, and I am sorry your family is experiencing it. If you were in the UK, I would probably have professional contacts who might be able to help. As it is, I'll simply hope that your mother and father in law do realize the extent of the issues before something worse happens.
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