No, I Am Not a Product of Western Imperialism, Colonization, or Fetishization.

Over these past few years, I have become uncomfortably familiar with the Theory of Separation. 

Think of it like this: We have people who are racist on the left of the spectrum, people who are neutral in the middle, people who are "woke" to the right of that, and then people who are REALLY WOKE-- these are the people who believe in the theory of separation who have somehow managed to become racist in their own ways, ironically echoing the very people they criticize. 

It is like the horse-shoe theory of politics: extremists on both sides of the aisle end up with more similarities than they realize.

People who believe in the Theory of Separation believe that being White is evil and being White automatically means you are racist and everything else under the sun. Some people who believe in this are White...which is incredibly ironic...

In this theory, you may only have friends or have lovers with people of your own race. To mix with other races is not allowed. If you are black and like a white person, you are a traitor. If you are white and like a black person, you are perpetrating a hateful and historical pattern of oppression. If you are Asian and date a white person, you are a racist. If you are white and dating an Asian person, you are fetishizing them. I could go on and on...Any combination, of any races, means someone is being betrayed or oppressed. There is no sex, only rape. There is no love, only hate.

The thing is, my very existence as a transracial adoptee violates the laws of the Separatist Theory. Adoptees in this environment are never safe because adoption itself is something that was unaccounted for in this narrow view of the world.

In the Separatist Theory, there is a fundamental, underlying assumption that supports the arguments of everything above it: That mixing of races has never occurred and that each race is "pure" and each person is single-raced and that no adoption or surrogacy or what have you has ever occurred. Ever.

Transracial adoption is the definition of what is not "allowed" to happen! White parents adopting an Asian baby? SLAVERY. KIDNAPPING. TRAFFICKING. ABDUCTION. STEALING. APPROPRIATION. IMPERIALISM. COLONIALISM. FETISH. 

It is so very, incredibly stupid.

In the Separatist Theory, white mothers are not allowed to raise non-white babies, for this would be stealing and appropriating and wrong...but what about white mothers and nonwhite fathers who have biracial babies? In the Separatist Theory, this is wrong. Practitioners of the Separatist Theory have harassed biracial adults for having a white mother. And that mother is their own birth mother. It is as if these people think biracial or multiracial people are new! Or unusual! Or rare!

As a transracial adoptee, my family and I have been criticized for existing. Because it is wrong to love across racial lines. Because there is no love, only hate. I have been told that I was stolen and that my parents don't love me because I am only a token. 

People pattern match so blindly. Every tree is not a flower. Every relationship is not ownership. Every act of sex is not rape. Every transracial marriage is not colonialism. Every transracial adoption is not fetishizing. Or colonialization. Or another case of Western imperialism. 

If an adoptee was adopted by the same race, they would definitely have struggles with the very real trauma of adoption, institutionalized care, and separation from the birthmother. You can't blame every adoption struggle on the scapegoat of skin color! 

And yes, POC adopt too, you know! If you think you stand for adoptee rights, but all your arguments rest of the "evilness" of white, then you are completely ignoring the group of POC adoptive parents and white adoptive parents/white adoptees who will also likely struggle with attachment, pre-verbal PTSD, etc. etc.

I have seen Chinese adoptees being adopted into other cultures around the world! Some participate in native practices because their parents are native people. For the adoptees to carry on their adoptive parents' cultural traditions is just normal...but by the Theory of Separation, the adoptee should not be allowed to partake in these ceremonies or these practices or these rites. By the Theory of Separation, the adoptee should just "go back to where they came from!" 

Sound familiar? 

Does it sound a bit...racist? Why, it sounds just like apartheid, where mixing was banned. Where Trevor Noah was born a crime. Where children who were born of white people and black people were removed from their families and placed in communities of people who looked like them. It sounds like hatred and racism and segregation.

Any theory that teaches you that you should hate yourself is one I cannot follow. Any theory that tells you that your existence is wrong is not one steeped in understanding or wisdom or love. Any theory that classifies whole groups of people by the color of their skin has a fundamental flaw. The Separatist Theory, at its core, preaches hate and self-immolation.

As a transracial adoptee, born in the cracks of these ridiculous assumptions about who people are and should be, I whole-heartedly reject this crude analysis of humanity.