Washington Post Reviews Reunion Porn

I haven’t followed the Washington Post much since last year’s election. At any rate, I didn’t see Tom Shales’ review of ABC’s latest offering of reunion porn, “Find My Family” until this morning, and only then because Elizabeth Samuels, a law professor whose written several trenchant histories of sealed records adoption, got a comment/letter to the editor published and Bastardette tweeted the link. Samuels’ letter contains a link to Shales’ piece.

Shales doesn’t think much of “Find My Family”. Too weepy and a bit creepy for him. Intrusive mini-cams thrust up the nostrils of people in the midst of moments played for hyper-emotionalism are not his cup of tea. Me either, truth be told, but for different reasons. Shales thinks some families might be better off lost than found, but that’s his normie-wannabe-a-bastard fantasy. I’ve lived that one and it sucks.

Adoption gets represented in mass media in two contexts; sensational (think “Orphan: the Movie”, or every Lifetime Channel movie of the week with a psycho killer birth mom or adoptee) or sentimental (for instance, the recent film “The Blind Side”, which posits that remedying the social pathologies of African American youth is as simple as having rich white Christians adopt them).

And then there’s reunion porn. Reunion porn is real, as opposed to fictional, search and reunion narrative carefully edited and presented for maximal emotional response. Reunion porn used to be the province of daytime talk shows, Montel Williams, et al. Norms, that is non-adopted folks, seem to eat these up. Reunion porn produces a reliable ratings bump in daytime talkers. Reunion porn is like Paula Dean wrapped up the ham of sentimentality in the bacon of sensationalism, carelessly dropped them into her stovetop deep fryer and then went out on the lawn to chug mint juleps while her mansion burned down. It’s no wonder TV producers want to capture this lightning in a bottle and transfer it to primetime, where the real money is… They stumbled with “Who’s Your Daddy”, but began to hit stride with Troy Dunn’s half hour self-advertisement and now have perfected the formula with “Find My Family”.

None of these primetime reunion porn shows focus on the fact that folks can’t find their families because of our idiotic sealed records laws. These shows succeed by creating empathy with the audience, who are the not-adopted. The not-adopted can, for a half hour at least, imagine what it would be like to lose ones family and then find them. A neat bundle of instant catharsis. The fact that our government creates and regulates the crisis just complicates things…

Tom Shales doesn’t miss this point though. He writes of the Steinpasses, who initially hired a private detective to search for the adoptee they relinquished when Mrs. Steinpass was fifteen years old, “Then the Steinpases decided to forget about the legally binding agreement they'd signed in 1979, pledging not to search for their former baby or upset her home life. Why should Scotty and Sandy let a nasty old contract get in the way of their whims?”

This is an interesting point that Shales doesn’t probe too deeply. But I’ll do it for him, when are contracts signed by fifteen year olds legally binding? To whom or what are the Steinpasses bound? To the state, that’s who.

They're Baaaack!!!

The last word from CARE was a poison-pen memo from Executive Director Stephanie Williams, dated May 18th, blaming the failure of AB 372 on others, sort of a prequel to "Going Rogue". The CARE website has been deader than a door nail since then, the last update was a announcement for the hearing date at the House Appropriations Committee in May, the hearing at which AB 372 was quietly slipped into the suspense file.

CARE was never particular interested in keeping California adoptees abreast of its activities, that's where I came in. And here I go again. The AAC is bringing its annual conference to Sacramento next March, and plans to kick it off with a reception with Assm. Fiona Ma and a walk, "time permitting", to the Capitol... This will be followed by a keynote by Jean Strauss and they'll show her film. The "time permitting" is a nice trope, an action as a throw-away... It's this sort of support that's the reason I'll never, ever, become a member of the American Adoption Congress. Let's just say that if you're in a foxhole and the shells are falling all around, you can count on the AAC to have your back, "time permitting"...

Now, I haven't gone to a lot of AAC conferences, but I've gone to enough of them to know how they operate. In 2008 they held their conference in Portland, OR, with a theme celebrating the 10th anniversary of Measure 58 (the successful ballot measure that affirmed the right of adult adoptees to access their original birth certificates). So far, so good. However they scheduled the panel workshop on M58 on late Saturday afternoon, the last day of the conference, when half the attendees were heading for the airport. The panel was scheduled at the same time as my workshop on LDAs and Fred Greenman's (the person in the AAC who had the most direct role in M 58's success) panel on birth fathers. They celebrated M58 by burying it and excluded persons with a direct role in its passage. Oh, and Helen Hill, the chief petitioner, the person who devoted time and treasure to M58? The AAC said they couldn't locate her. Bastardette bumped into her on a Portland streetcar the day before the conference and told her about the conference. An organization filled with search angels couldn't be bothered...

Next year they are "celebrating" CARE and AB 372 by scheduling a reception with Fiona Ma on Thursday afternoon, when the bulk of the attendees will be checking into their rooms at the Sheraton. This is what is known as "damning with faint praise".

The adoptee who forwarded me the announcement was alarmed by the vision of several hundred AAC activists marching to the legislature demanding passage of AB 372. The way the event is scheduled guarantees that it will get a light turnout. AAC conferences, which are top heavy with adoption professionals and wannabes, are not exactly hotbeds of activism. There are few things more dampening to direct action than an AAC conference, because they don't want to UPSET ANYONE!

I've been asked if I'm going to attend. I might, just to keep them honest. I'll be the one on top of a table, spitting venom and wearing a "AAC doesn't speak for me" T-shirt...

CARE admits it lacks an implementation strategy

I’ve been sitting around waiting to see what kind of legerdemain CARE was going to use to pull AB 372 out of the suspense file of the Assembly Appropriations Committee, and doing my daily perusal of the CARE website to see if they were going to acknowledge the pickle that they’re in. Instead, they published a summation of their effort thus far entitled “Keep Your Eye on the Ball”, which is an apologia for the compromises they were compelled to make and a half-hearted indictment of folks like me, who think they’re basically clueless.

Achieving adoptee rights by amending the laws that seal records is more than simply revising statutes. CARE acknowledges this in EyeBall, inadvertently indicting itself:

“Asking a state which has selected a policy that is unbalanced on the birthparent right to privacy to completely disregard 32 years of regulatory practices and revert to a balance that errs on the side of adoptee rights lacks an implementation strategy.” Stephanie Williams.

This statement wraps CARE’s effort in a big red bow and then sends it straight to the recycling bin. It’s been evident from the beginning of 2009 that CARE was oblivious that to the fact that their effort required the skills and tools necessary to effect social change, not simply revise statutes. They had and have no strategy to effect the social changes necessary to reverse decades of discriminatory law and practice.

I wrote on February 9th that CARE had no answer to the ACLU and the adoption attorneys. CARE minimized the opposition of the ACLU, “they haven’t been around much in Sacramento…” CARE found out, much to their surprise, that the ACLU has a lock on the Judiciary, just as the adoption attorneys have a lock on interpreting family law. What exactly was CARE’s strategy to deal with these groups, other than to roll over and pant?

CARE’s strategy for dealing with the DSS was to tell the Judiciary Committee that social workers and shrinks were leading the charge to open records, only to have the state’s own social service department oppose them from the ground up. Again, CARE’s strategy was to cave and cringe.

All the time CARE was telling the adoption community to not worry, that AB 372 would get better, that we should trust them. EyeBall finally levels with the adoption community, AB 372 is as good as it’s going to get. All that talk about amending it over the next two years, well, those were just words coming out of their mouths and those words don’t mean anything.

EyeBall closes with a plea for incremental change. On its face I have no problem with incremental changes leading to full rights. The problem with AB 372 and CARE’s effort is that their increment doesn’t lead anywhere. They have looked at the existing social dynamic of power and thrown up their hands. This is the BEST THEY CAN DO.

It's lonely being incompetent; success has a thousand authors, failure only one. EyeBall bemoans the fact that they have no allies... well, get used to it.

AB 372: The "Birthmother Privacy Rights" Bill, moves out of Judiciary

AB 372 sailed through Judiciary yesterday laden with sweet disclosure veto deliciousness and the suggestion of added contact vetoes. It now heads from the policy committee to the fiscal committee, where Asm. Ma will explain how the process by which adoptees may send a letter in a bottle to their "birthmothers" will be funded. Three guesses: The state will fully fund a program to do due diligence to find these women, leaving no turn unstoned; the program will get nominal funding, enough to pay for postage, but not enough to pay for staff to apply the stamps to an envelope; or adult adoptees will get the bill to do the due diligence.

Proponents of AB 372 are still shopping the notion that it will benefit 99.5% of California adoptees. I suppose so, if the state has or will be willing to obtain valid addresses for 100% of women who relinquished in California. Otherwise this "statistic" is worse than meaningless, its intellectually dishonest and insulting.

Proponents are also busy writing that they had to include a disclosure veto so the state could CYA for the past issuance of said vetoes. That the State Supreme Court would tear it up. Fair enough, but what's the rationale for making them prospective? If this is a bill to benefit adoptees, what principle is at play to not only continue the usage of disclosure vetoes, but to tune them up and make them the default in cases where contact is not made? I'll tell you why, political expedience.

A look at the list of supporters and opponents of AB 372 is enlightening, not for who is on it, but for who isn't. The ABA, the adoption attorneys, the ACLU. The agencies. All the folks who are inimical to our interests didn't show up. That's because they got what they wanted. Because that's the way they roll and they rolled over us.

But you know what, I'm folding my hand on AB 372, cutting my losses. I may blog on it as it moves forward. At this point I don't see any chance of stopping it in the Assembly. If the opposition organizations suddenly wake up and smell the coffee and grow their capacity, they might be able to do something in the Senate.

At this point I'm assuming that this bill, with some modifications, will pass and become law. What happens on January, 2011? Not much. It's not like thousands of California adoptees are going to apply for the OBCs the first month, like in Oregon or New Hampshire. Why should they? If the default is non-disclosure then the benefit will be marginal. No, California adoptees will do what they have done for years, hire search consultants that specialize in California and do a name search through the Birth Index and by doing so they will assert the right to their information that California will still deny them. A few adoptees may drink the kool aid, but their narratives of migraines and frustrations will pepper the internet and dissuade others from using the state system. In other words, the status quo will remain.

C.A.R.E. will meet the press, and AB 372 Hearing Drinking Game Rules

C.A.R.E. is finally doing some media outreach, they’re holding a press conference. There has been some confusion regarding its time and location…

I heard some buzz that they’d scheduled a press conference for last week, but then nothing happened. Then there was a rumor that it was going to be held in the Governor’s Office. Then it switched to the Assembly Speaker’s office, leading to general consternation among AB 372’s opponents that this was a tip o’ the hat from the Speaker to the C.A.R.E.

C.A.R.E. finally announced their press conference on their website:

Please Join Us on Monday 4.27.09
Press Conference 9:00am
Assembly Speakers Office

That announcement was up for about a day, and was replaced with this one, which was up the last time I looked [10 am, Sunday April 26, Pacific Time]:

AB 372 Press Conference
Speakers Press Office
11:00
(916)-718-1178

No date... Different time... In the Speaker’s Press Office, which is a room, folks, not an endorsement… So it's either happening tomorrow morning, during the hearing or today in about an hour...

I had assumed that they were going to hold their presser last week, to give the media the chance to air or publish a story in time to have some sort of effect on the outcome of the hearing... Theoretically you hold a staged event for the press to announce the bill a month out, to build a narrative leading up to the hearing... Having a presser the day before, or the morning of, the hearing doesn't do you much good, the "news" is the hearing itself, not someone blabbering talking points about what may or may not happen... It's not like the Sac Bee is going to put out an extra edition between the press conference and the hearing. ABC isn't going to interrupt GMA to go live at C.A.R.E.'s press conference.

It’s possible that C.A.R.E. will use the presser to announce a deal with DSS, ACLU and other opposition groups going into the hearing. That would actually be “news”. The lamb will agree to lay down with the lions, or more precisely the lamb agrees to surrender a couple of its tenderloins to the lions in the exchange for a promise to live to limp another day... That’s one of the few scenarios that makes sense in terms of the timing of the press conference. But this is just my idle speculation.

Ah well, busy couple of days for CARE, they have to act as beards for Asm. Ma's fundraiser tomorrow night after they face a grilling at Judiciary…

AB 372 HEARING DRINKING GAME: Take a shot every time a committee member calls adult adoptees “children”. Bonus double shots for every mention of “rape and incest”.

Peace, Love and Soul!

BB

"Skin in the Game"

C.A.R.E. sent out an action alert today, I guess to whip supporters to turn in their letters to the Judiciary. It's the same mumbo jumbo they've been pushing since they started down this road, so I don't feel the need to republish it. If you're interested in their take on things, please visit their website.

However I did want to address this statement:

"The opposition to this legislation is coming from many people who have no skin in the game. Adoptees from other states, birthparents from other states, adoptees who already have their records, are not the ones who should be influencing this decision."


Excuse me? Listen, I am a California adult adoptee and my records are sequestered by the state. This legislation would directly impact me. I have as much right as any of the C.A.R.E board to influence this legislation. Try and stop me.

How many of the folks serving on the C.A.R.E. board are reunited adoptees or reunited first parents? Does C.A.R.E. feel they aren't the ones who should be influencing this legislation? Shouldn't they recuse themselves from legislative lobbying on AB 372 since they "have no skin in the game"? Over the years I have met hundreds of California adoptees who have successfully obtained their information outside the legal framework. I have met a handful that have not. This is reality, folks.

Of course all California adoptees have an interest in legislation that changes their relationship with the state in which they were born and adopted. C.A.R.E. doesn't think so, if you have your information, SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP.

Listen, this is legislation that will change social policy. Every citizen of California has a stake in it. Certainy every adult adoptee born in California has a stake in it. Putting aside ideological differences, my main criticism of C.A.R.E. has been that it has not performed its primary duty to educate the community about the impacts of their proposed activities. It hasn't even tried. And statements like this reveal their contempt for the community that they purport to represent.

Comments on the Funhouse

Someone implied today that I was moderating or censoring comments on this blog, and someone else told me a couple of weeks ago that they had spoken to someone else who had problems posting comments, leading them to believe that I was acting like a gatekeeper or something.

I'm not. I don't moderate comments on the Funhouse. If a comment is posted, I get an email notice, but that's just so I know it's been posted automatically. If folks are trying to post comments and they're not showing up, then there's a problem somewhere else, either with your browser or with Blogger...

I like free speech. If you have a problem posting, document the time and date and let me know, my email address is now in my Blogger profile. If it's a problem with Blogger I can try to address it with them. Otherwise I have no idea that there is a problem and assume everything is okie dokie and everyone loves me...