Adoption as the Anti-Politics Machine
How the depoliticized concept of adoption enables political action
Hey, so I suddenly have a Substack! Hi! I have no idea what I’m doing. But I wanted to write some long form stuff about adoption and this seems like the place, so here goes nothing.
This week in adoption politics, SCOTUS is hearing oral arguments on the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). ICWA is the landmark 1978 federal laws that aimed to stop child removals of indigenous children and give tribes control over the future of their own children. ICWA’s preferred option for child placement is within the tribe, which has become the gold standard for child welfare. Cherokee writer Rebecca Nagle has been doing tremendous reporting on the SCOTUS hearings. (I strongly recommend following her on Twitter.) And we’ve learned how little SCOTUS actually understands or doesn’t want to understand the concept of tribal sovereignty. Their recent decision on Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta doesn’t inspire a whole lot of confidence that they’ll uphold ICWA.
The conservative movement has been gunning for ICWA for some time now because it provides an easy way to dismantle the current system tribal sovereignty. I suspect that conservatives would like to remove tribal control of natural resources and land for extractive industries.
So why try to undermine tribal sovereignty with a child welfare case?
Here’s why: EVERYONE LOVES ADOPTION.
In the United States, adoption is such a deeply cherished cultural practice that most people, even those with little or no connection to adopiton, will fiercely defend it against even the mildest criticism. We (the big WE) all love adoption because it’s grounded in the other things that people will also defend with that same intensity: white supremacy, colonialism, racism, classism, ableism, patriarchy, extractivism, and heteronormativity, just to name a few.
Adoption-land is filled with lovely euphemisms : forever families, “giving a child a loving home,” “brave love,” “adoption journey” (we are going on a trip?), “family building” and other fluffy catch-phrases. These euphemisms ease our collective consciousness and distract us from the underlying brutality of our present twin systems of child removal and relinquishment. The sugary sweet positive language of adoption has become so standard that earlier language of “illegitimacy” or “bastards” or “bad blood,” common language about adoptees prior in the pre-WWII period, sounds heartless to us now. Of course adoption is beautiful; adoption agencies, social workers, clergy, the media, politicians, adoptive parents and sometimes adoptees themselves have taught us to talk about it that.
The idea of adoption as an unqualified social good has been drilled into us so thoroughly that to even question its benevolence as a system, institutution, and social practice is tantamous to annoucing that you kick puppies. Everyone loves adoption and may the good Lord help you if you say otherwise. I found this out yesterday with a tweet that wasn’t much different from what I’ve been saying for years on Twitter. But this one went viral for reasons I can’t explain and I had to mute it as the comments devolved into a hateful mess. (Don’t read the replies. They are awful. I’m still afraid to look at my mentions. People have very helpfully told me I’m a monster.)
People were apparently so shocked (SHOCKED) that I’d said this that came out of all corners of Twitter to say hateful shit to me or to let me know that they thought I was wrong. (Look, get in line, willya?)
So, what’s the anti-politics machine? Isn’t this Substack supposed to be about adoption as politics?
The concept of adoption in the United States has become so thoroughly depoliticized that we can’t even conceive of it being used to make political demands, like overturning established federal Indian law. Adoption is one of the few issues that gets immediate buy-in from almost everyone. (I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: the only things that Americans can currently agree on are Dolly Parton and adoption.) Getting public buy-in on overturning tribal sovereignty is a hard sell. Getting the public on board with giving a child a loving home though adoption? Everyone’s suddenly in support. We’re so in love with the concept of adoption that we can’t possibly imagine supporting tribal sovereignty over the interests of some nice white people* who just wanted to adopt a baby.
For the academically inclined, the idea of the anti-politics machine comes to us from James Ferguson, who applied Foucault’s notion of govermentality to the realm of international development. International development, of course, is notorious for its cyclical and predictable failures to produce any kind of concrete benefits for people in underdeveloped places in the world. In some cases, international development initiatives are so fraught with problems actually harm local communities. And yet the machinery of international development continues despite its repeated failures because it has become an anti-politics machine. Who could possibly oppose an anti-povery program? A hunger reduction program? An infrastructure development program? Processed through international development discourse, these initiatives continue because they have become so utterly depoliticized. They sound so nice; we can’t oppose them. Even if (especially if) they don’t work.
Applying Ferguson’s anti-politics machine to adoption politics shows us what happens when a political act (international development, adoption, etc.) becomes so depolicized through language and discourse that we don’t even question it. Moving children from one family to another for arbitrary reasons is an inherently political act. (Nope, adoption isn’t just “another way to build a family.”) But run through the anti-politics machine, we’re suddenly so thrilled with the idea of adoption to the point that we won’t act, or even object, when adoption is used for blatant political objectives, like the annihilation of sovereign tribal nations.
Of course conservatives are using a heartwarming adoption story that we’ll all love to overturn tribal sovereignty. We won’t say a word. Maybe we’ll just call it beautiful.
*I don’t actually think the plaintiffs are nice people. But I was thinking about the podcast Nice White Parents and about the titular nice white parents nonetheless engaged in some incredibly racist and classist thinking. Same vibe from these people.
Very well said! This is exactly what they did with Dobbs in focusing on adoption rather than (unpopular) criminalization of abortion. They did miscalculate somewhat, as people were initially horrified by Amy Coney Barrett's baby boxes, followed by Sam Alito citing the need for "domestic supply of infant" for infertile people in his argument legal abortion is unnecessary because the infant supply would be sure to find "suitable homes" in adoption. But the industry is currently flooding the media with adoption propaganda and beaming celebrity adoptive parents, including liberal ones, acting as if Roe didn't just get overturned.
Brackeen v Haaland is more insidious as most Americans are unfamiliar with tribal issues and our nation's history of violence and predation against indigenous persons and families. When the SCOTUS majority (as I sadly predict) upends ICWA it will likely receive little national attention. I agree adoption is a trojan horse for the forces of corporate greed and extraction here and I also see these cases as advancing the interests of the adoption industry itself. The court is creating an entitlement for those deemed "suitable" to adopt children and an obligation on those deemed not suitable to parent to create them. Meanwhile pro-choice white liberals continue to think adoption is a charming Hallmark movie.
Love this. There was a time in recent history where religion was systematically immunized from criticism too, but that has shifted in small ways. It took very courageous people of faith as well as non-believers being willing to challenge the de-facto "gag rule" to begin to create space for debate and criticism.
Adoption needs those voices too. People willing to be controversial and to continue to speak in the face of withering backlash are what's needed, but more than that, there needs to be a forum or platform from shock to speak, which will be difficult to create. Without a Sam Harris or Christopher Hitchens type voice overcome the inertia, it's going to be challenging to get this message out there.