September 30, 2024 • 36 mins
"The way that fascism triumphs is if everyone goes silent and becomes quiescent." - Mark H.
EPISODE SUMMARY:
In this episode of Unraveling Adoption, I, Beth Syverson, welcome Mark, a transracial adoptee from Korea and a passionate advocate for adoption-related issues. Together, we delve into the often-overlooked intersection of politics and adoption, particularly in the context of the upcoming U.S. presidential election.
As an adoptive mom of a 20-year-old son, Joey, who is navigating his own path, I feel a deep responsibility to address the complexities surrounding adoption and how they relate to broader societal issues. This election is particularly significant, as it touches on critical topics such as racial justice, women's reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and the preservation of our democratic systems. With Joey preparing to vote for the first time, I am acutely aware of the stakes involved and the long-term impact our choices will have on future generations.
Mark shares his unique perspective as a transracial adoptee and a gay man, highlighting the challenges he faced growing up in a predominantly white environment. He reflects on the societal norms of his youth, where discussing politics was often taboo, and emphasizes the importance of speaking out in today's climate. Mark articulates the existential nature of this election, particularly for marginalized communities, and the need for individuals to engage in political discourse.
Throughout our conversation, we explore the implications of having a woman of color, Kamala Harris, as a presidential candidate. While Mark expresses excitement about her candidacy, he also addresses the racism and misogyny she faces, which resonates deeply with his own experiences of being “other”ed. We discuss how the political landscape has shifted, particularly within the Republican Party, and the urgent need for individuals to recognize and confront systemic racism.
Mark and I emphasize the importance of activism, not just in the traditional sense of protests and demonstrations, but in everyday conversations with friends, family, and neighbors. We encourage listeners to engage with those around them, especially in swing states, to ensure that their voices are heard and that they participate in the electoral process.
As we wrap up the episode, I invite listeners to reflect on their own roles in advocating for change and to consider how their political choices impact the lives of those in the adoption community and beyond. We urge everyone to vote, to educate themselves, and to have open discussions about the critical issues at stake in this election.
This episode serves as a call to action for all of us to be brave, to stand up for what we believe in, and to work towards a more equitable society for everyone, especially those affected by adoption. Thank you for joining us in this important conversation.
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RESOURCES:
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to this episode of Unraveling Adoption, an intentional space to
delve into adoption's complexities together. I'm Beth Syverson. I'm
an adoptive mom of a justice-seeking 20-year-old son,
Joey, who is struggling to find his path. I'm walking beside him
while working on my own personal growth and healing. Joey and I are committed
to helping anyone impacted by adoption, and we want to help the general public
(00:23):
understand adoption's complexities better, too. I'm also a
certified coach helping seekers who want to move their lives forward. Now,
listeners, I don't normally talk about politics in our unraveling adoption
space. I know there are families who listen to this podcast that
have widely diverse political views, plus there are listeners from all over
the world who tune in. But today, I want to take
(00:44):
Taylor Swift's example and use this platform to
encourage other Americans to vote in the upcoming presidential election
and to encourage folks to vote for Kamala Harris. The stakes
are just too high to play it safe. This particular
election seems like it intersects with many aspects of adoption and
high-level issues that will affect our country deeply, namely racial
(01:07):
issues, especially for our transracial adoptees, women's reproductive
freedom, LGBTQ plus rights, and the small item
of the continuation of our democratic systems. Just that little
thing. This election, the first one for Joey to vote in, is
an existential imperative for our country and how we all
show up this time will impact our world for many generations to
(01:28):
come. Well, with me today is Mark. He's a
transracial adoptee from Korea who has been a leader in adoption spaces
for decades and on his personal social media is
an outspoken Democrat. I've learned so much from him by
reading his informative posts. In fact, I thought he was
at the Democratic National Convention because his posts were
(01:48):
so, I thought he was sitting in the front row. He was just watching TV
and paying very close attention and writing about it beautifully. So
I asked him to come on to discuss this multi-level intersection
of politics and adoption. We are leaving off Mark's
last name, but many of you in the adoption community might
know who this amazing man is, especially if you're in
(02:10):
the transracial adoption world. This episode will be
a bit of a coming out by two gay Democrats who care deeply
about our country and about people impacted by adoption. We hope
to encourage those who've lost hope in our electoral system to vote this
time around. And if anyone is possibly, I
don't know how you could be, but if you're still undecided, we hope
(02:30):
today's episode will help you confirm your choice for this election. Welcome,
welcome to this episode of Unraveling Adoption Mark. I'm so glad you're
Thank you. So let's unravel this political
piece that rarely gets discussed in the adoption spaces we
inhabit. Why did you say yes when I asked you to
(02:57):
So I am in a really interesting headspace
these days, Beth. I was born in 1960. I was
adopted as an infant by white American parents of
Northern European descent, and I grew up in Wisconsin. When
I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, which I
know seems like the Pleistocene era, but anyway,
(03:19):
in the social milieu or environment I
grew up in, the idea was that you should never talk
about politics, right? You never talked about sex,
politics, or bodily functions. Those were like the three rules,
right? Especially not at the dinner table. And
I grew up in that environment, but I've been on
(03:41):
multiple journeys in my life. One is
as an adult transracial and international adoptee related
to being a person of color. And the other is as a gay man. And
for me right now, we're looking at a situation in this
country, in the United States, where we're correct
in your introduction. This is an existential election
(04:04):
for us. So at least on a personal
level, I feel I need to speak up and speak out.
I have three marginalized identities. I'm
an immigrant. I was not born in this country. I was naturalized. I'm
a person of color and I am a gay man. And
I don't know if people know this, I don't want to dive into the deep end right away, but
(04:27):
one of the elements in this Project 2025, and
if you're not familiar, please familiarize yourself with
it. Yes. Scary. Yes. One element
specifically is the idea that it
should be possible legally to strip naturalized
citizens of their citizenship. Oh my gosh. So that would be
(04:48):
me. Right? And I mean, who knows whether
this would ever happen or not. But we are in a situation now
where, you know, we're being forced to look at very
kind of apocalyptic potentialities. So
that's why I'm speaking out now. And all of
this relates for me to coming out of
(05:11):
a number of different fogs. We talk about the
fog and adoption. And there are actually several fogs
here that I would cite. There's the fog of adoption,
and related to that as a transracial adoptee, the
fog of whiteness, growing up in near total whiteness. Another
fog for me was coming out as a gay man and
(05:33):
walking that journey as an LGBTQ person. And
I think, I don't know if this is a fog or it's just how
our society was, but as I mentioned, you know, when I was growing up,
the idea was that one did not talk politics and
play society, that it was something reserved for special
rooms, right? Like there were times when
(05:56):
one could talk about politics, but only in a certain context
and only, you know, with very strict rules. Everything that
is happening now is political. And
when I hear people, and fortunately fewer people
say this nowadays, but when I hear people say things
like, I am not political, I think that's
(06:18):
privilege to be able to say no
person of color, no LGBTQ person, for
that matter, no immigrant, no disabled person
can say, Oh, I don't need to pay attention to
policy because we are affected by it. So that's why we're conversing
Yeah, for sure. And that's always been the case, even
(06:41):
back in the 60s and 70s when we all just didn't talk about it. The
personal is always political, but it seems like we
can't avoid it any longer. We're coming to this head and
we have to reckon with it. So this is America's great
reckoning. I'm slightly terrified of how it's going to turn out.
And I just, I don't want to get to the other side of this election and
(07:02):
say, I didn't do everything I could do. So this is
And what I would say, Beth, is I am very glad to
speak up in the context of being a member of
the transracial adoption community. I think that
for us, transracial adoptees, there
(07:22):
are layers here. There are layers as transracial adoptees and
or international adoptees. whether you're one or the other or both, and
I'm both. Those of us who were in the early waves of
international adoption and the early waves of transracial adoption,
we were essentially raised to be white. I was
in the first wave of Korean adoption, which was the first wave of
(07:44):
international adoption. And they basically just
handed the babies or children to the white parents and
said, there you go. You've got a child now. I
mean, my parents did an amazing job considering there was zero resources. But
where I'm headed with that is all of the adoptee friends
I know who were in that first wave were raised not
(08:07):
only in overwhelmingly white spaces, but
in overwhelming whiteness, meaning they had
no access to any cultural or
social settings or contexts that were not
totally white dominated. And so for
many of us, we'd emerge out of the fog of whiteness. Yes.
(08:30):
And I will say I was raised to be white, but I was not allowed
Yeah, well, it's the cognitive dissonance I
grew up in and so many of us grew up in. So
Yeah, it does. It's very important for us to hear, especially white people, to
hear the voices of the transracial adoptees and how
(08:52):
being a person of color, but a different type of person of color, you
know, you're in a very unique situation. What is
it like to see one of the presidential candidates as a person
Yeah, I'm thrilled. I think for me,
I've mixed emotions and let me explain why. I'm thrilled that
we have a woman of color. She is the first black
(09:13):
woman and the first South Asian person to
run for president. So I'm absolutely thrilled, full stop. What's
hard is that she is having so much
racism and misogyny thrown at her. And
in the context of being a Black woman, I
love the use of the term misogynoir to describe what
(09:36):
happens to Black women specifically. And so
I'm thrilled about her candidacy, and she's a wonderful
candidate, but there is the mixed emotion all
of us with marginalized identities feel
when we know that the person who shares one
or more of her marginalized identities is going to
(10:00):
So that's, that's, that must make you a little nauseous just to go, Oh
crap, this is gonna come up and it comes up every
It comes up every single day. And I'll just plunge
into the deep end of the pool. To have her
constantly be ridiculed and mocked for
(10:20):
her identity and called names that are
racist and sexist, right? You know, we use
the term other and othering. When you make someone feel
bad about themselves by pointing out their difference, right?
You know, like you're the only redhead in the room. Let's other you. Let's say,
oh, look how crazy that is. This person is a ginger or
(10:42):
whatever. So when that happens,
it's very triggering for us because, well,
for one thing, it reminds us of our own being othered. So
I'm thrilled at the candidate and I
think she's a wonderful candidate, but it brings up a
lot of stuff because unfortunately, again,
(11:03):
this goes speaks to the whole issue
of coming out of the fog of whiteness. White
people who grow up in the fog of whiteness and
never leave the fog of whiteness, And not everyone is
like that. You know, many white people have left that fog. But if
you're still stuck in the fog, it all seems very strange,
(11:25):
right? Because racism in that
context is some individual transgression by
an individual that is offensive, right? Calling
a Black person the N-word, like you individually
did a wrong thing that is bad. And
what people, and for some people, it isn't even bad,
(11:48):
but that's another whole issue. But as opposed
to understanding that we live with systemic racism in
our society. And one of the things that
this presidential candidate's candidacy is
bringing up for people is the extent to which
(12:09):
Oh, OK. You're still seeing white people being shocked, like,
And in many cases, they are so embedded
in whiteness that they don't
want to to use your term, unravel, right? They
don't want to unravel or unspool their own
(12:30):
inherent bias, right? So they
might come up with all sorts of not
intellectually honest reasons for opposing her, or
it might simply be too difficult so they don't want to think about it, and
yet they would never question their biases and they won't vote
for her. So it's a whole web
(12:54):
White people, we need to do our work. I think that I've heard you
endorse the book White Fragility. Yes, I love it.
That was very helpful for me. I think I
now try to go toward people of color's writing,
but it's a great entry point for
those of us that are clueless. That's a great place
(13:19):
Well, and I just have to say something, and I'm not going to get any commission
or anything, but Robin DiAngelo is fabulous. And
there was a debate when her book came out, or a
discussion among some people of color, and it went something
like this. Oh, this is terrible. Why should a
white woman benefit by writing this book? It
(13:41):
should have been a black person or at least a person of color of
some race, non-white. And what I
said, and they're wonderful, many, many, many, many
now wonderful books written by Black and brown people. How
many white people read them? Like, you know, it's minuscule.
And so what I said, they needed a quote, unquote, nice
(14:02):
white lady to explain all this to them.
And even so, I have had friends and
acquaintances whom I had to handhold. White
people, you mean? Yeah, white people, yes, of course, whose
hands I had to hold because they were
so freaked out. I'll mention one person, of course, zero names here,
(14:26):
but someone who I was connected to through a mutual friend, and
we've become good friends over time. And she had started
Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility and was
freaked out by it. And I want to be clear, it wasn't that
she resisted it. She wasn't like, oh, this is nonsense. I
can't stand this. No, she agreed with the premise, but
(14:47):
it was so hard for her to read the book that she had put it down. So
I walked her through it. And over time she picked it up
and then she was able to read it and spin
around and dance and everything. But what I found funny was
how for us people of color, every person
of color I know who read that book, you know, they turned the page, read
(15:08):
a page, okay. read another page, okay. And
every white person, or most white people I know, they turned
the page, started reading, gasped. They
needed the smelling salts to revive. And
the funny thing about that is this is what we
(15:35):
To all my very dear friends of color, I have
said it took a white woman to write it
because that's whom white people
Yeah, for sure. And whatever gets you into the conversation, just
go, just get into it. However you can do it. It's
all good. It's such an important piece of
(15:58):
this because the racism is just so blatant. It's
just constant in this election and
in our culture, and it has to be addressed. We cannot
Right. It's all connected. When you look at
the support for the Republican Party right now, what
(16:20):
is the core support? It's really based on race, racial
identity, and people being threatened. Within
40 years, we're going to be a majority minority country. So
we'll have a majority of people of color. And I know that
there are many, many white people who are very threatened
by that. Some are so threatened, they can't even express it.
(16:43):
And if you look at the qualifications and
the qualities, personal qualities and capabilities, you
know, there should be no question about who you would vote for.
But the irony is that many right-wingers in
this country will say, well, those liberals play identity
politics. Well, we just feel candidates
(17:07):
who don't happen to be older white heterosexual men
sometimes. And that is deeply upsetting
to people. And it's all connected because the moderate
version of the Republican party that existed 10 years
There's nothing left of it. And there are people, and I want to be very, very
(17:29):
clear. There are many people in this country who
still, to some extent, identify as Republicans on
a personal level, who are decent people, who are not racist.
However, they've basically been pushed out of that party
now. And that's another reason to speak out
because what is left is extremist. And
(17:52):
again, it's related to Project 2025, which
has so many terrible elements, but the core is anti-immigrant. You
know, and the authors of Project 2025 put it right out there. They
want to push out all undocumented people in this country. First
of all, even if you completely set aside the
humanitarian aspects, that would be an economic disaster
(18:14):
for our country. Who are the maids in our hotels, right? Like
they're almost all undocumented workers. Basically, we
would have no housekeeping in hotels. But
the core issue there is, who are we including and
excluding? And that's why I am always,
(18:36):
and there are people of color who need help getting more work
too. There are a lot of them. But I feel right now
is a time to speak out and to be
clear. We no longer have the luxury. This is an existential
election, as you pointed out. We no longer have the luxury of
politeness, you know, in the old-fashioned sense. I
(18:58):
do remember my childhood. I remember how it was considered
impolite, again, except in very specific contexts,
like maybe you would go off to your debating society or
something like that. But in the normal social
context, it was considered impolite to talk about politics. Well,
we've had generations of people raised that way and look what has
(19:19):
happened. We also have had generations of people raised who
actually literally don't understand the history of the United States. So
I think one thing that some of us who are transracial and
or international adoptees can do, we can hold
a kind of a mirror. our society and say,
this is what it's really like. I was told the entire time I
(19:42):
was growing up, I don't see race, right? Like
everyone said, I don't see race. It was obvious to me they saw race. I
mean, the kids who taunted and ridiculed me that, you know,
there were so many ways in which I could see
They weren't telling other white kids, I don't see your race. They were telling it to you. They
(20:05):
And that's kind of the thing about being raised in
near total whiteness as I was, that I internalized
racism towards myself. And that's taken
a very long time to work through a lot of issues. for
a transracial adoptee raised by white
(20:25):
parents in whiteness. And it's somewhat different now for
many families in 2024 than it was in
1961 when I arrived. Although, amazingly, there are
transracial adoptees two, three, four years old who are still being raised
in near total whiteness now. For many, it's different,
but it is devastating for us to be raised in
(20:47):
total or near total whiteness. And I know adoptees
who still have not made their way
out of the fog of whiteness or the fog of adoption. And
they end up in
very, very tiny social spaces,
(21:09):
usually family and then a
tiny cluster of close friends whom they
can trust because if they haven't moved out of those spaces, both
literally and figuratively, they are experiencing
racism. And so their comfort zone gets smaller rather
than larger. The only way to shift that
(21:32):
is to find friends of color, you know, and
Yeah, to expand instead of contract. Wow. Yeah, that's
really tough. So besides the
race piece, which is huge, are there other types of
ways that adoption intersects with politics? What other
effects for adoptees particularly could you imagine with
(21:56):
Well, here's another thing. The white parents
who have adopted and raised or
are raising children of color they very
well might be voting against their children's interests as
people of color. Absolutely. Right. And their families, family
members and relatives and their neighbors. So
(22:19):
it's all related because no human,
you know, unless they're living in a cave in the woods or something,
is completely alone. They're interacting with people. And
We need to speak out. And I'll add
in my other identity as a gay man. I think it's really important for
LGBTQ people who can to speak out, to be
(22:41):
present. Silence will kill us. And
I think that for many of us who are of color,
what I realized It took me years. It
was a very, very long unspooling, a very long journey. But
I realized that had I stayed in the social environment
(23:02):
in which I was raised, even with very loving parents, it would
have been devastating for me across a lifetime. So this is
all related because we need to mobilize people.
And to do that, we first need to educate people. And to do that, we
have to engage with them. Now, I
don't ever want to put more responsibility on
(23:23):
anyone else. But what I will say is that
we transracial adoptees have an incredible opportunity, potentially,
because we were raised in whiteness. We speak white. We
speak the language of whiteness. You know, I know white people. And
so we can speak to them in ways that, for example, an
(23:44):
immigrant person of color can't. Right. It's
not a matter of ability, it's a matter of background. I would summarize by
saying we're not just individuals, we're potential advocates,
you know, we're potential activists. And a lot of
people are immediately frightened when they hear the word activist. They,
you know, they picture someone, you know, in
(24:07):
a demonstration or even a riot or something, you know, and they imagine
conflict and confrontation. The
most simple activism is having a conversation with a neighbor. Yeah,
Yeah. But yeah, that's it. Just talk
to your friends. Make sure they're registered to vote. Make sure they're engaged
(24:29):
in the process, because I bet a lot of people have just given up and
People are exhausted also. We've gone through
years of just exhausting politics. And I
Yeah, it's traumatizing. I'm thinking of one close friend,
all of her instincts are good. Her politics is very good.
(24:53):
But day to day, she just doesn't want to hear about it at all.
And I understand she is going to vote correctly and all that. So
that's okay. I understand. But here's the thing, she
and I have conversations all the time and I try to
gently encourage her to speak up and out because
she has a lot of people in her life who are
(25:17):
either right wing or somewhat conservative and
she's someone who is non-threatening to them, right?
So if someone turns on the TV and sees someone who is instantly threatening
to a person, the person will shut down. Oh my
gosh, that's just crazy, scary, radical. My
(25:39):
friend, who knows a lot of people on the other side, has
the potential to do some persuasion. Now, is
she going to change a million people's minds? No. But
in this election, and she knows people in key
Yeah, in certain states, it matters deeply, each person.
You're right. Literally, in the last two presidential elections,
(26:03):
and then that's not to even mention the midterms, but in 2016 and 2020, states
turned on 7,000, 10,000, 11,000 votes. And
when you have a state with 10 million people or
more that turns on 10,000 votes, you
know, that's a tiny number of people. And literally
(26:24):
every vote counts. I cannot remember which election it was. It was a
local election, I think for mayor, that literally turned
on one vote. Like the candidate who
won and they had to do a recount and everything, literally won by
one vote. So every vote
really does count. And I just feel, I
(26:45):
feel a moral obligation. And I'll never put
that on anyone else. I'll never put an obligation on anyone else.
But as an adult transracial and international enopte,
and a lifelong student of history and politics and all those things, I
feel that to whatever extent I have any abilities, I
do need to use those to persuade. Sometimes it's also
(27:08):
persuading people on our side, people who might be
dispirited or discouraged, like discouraged voters, right?
And say, look, this election is important. This is why you
should vote. These are positive reasons to vote, not just
negative. And so honestly, it's all
connected. We are faced with an
(27:30):
unbelievably stark series of choices here. Yeah.
And the two presidential candidates, the two parties across
Congress and state legislatures are so far
apart that to say that there's no choice is
ridiculous, right? They're like from two different planets
in the solar system. And so my feeling is
(27:52):
this, the bottom line is if I have a voice and
I can reach a small number of people and I can help them
to see what the issues really are and
help them to understand things in a more awakened
I share that obligation with you. I feel that for myself, like
(28:14):
you said, telling anyone else what to do except to vote. But
we all need to use whatever power we have,
whether it's just to talk to your family members, to talk to your kids,
friends that are turning 18 any minute here, or,
you know, to just help keep this
country afloat. It's not a trivial thing.
(28:36):
It's this major turning point. We have an option
for a major turning point in our country. And I think especially as
an adoptive parent of a person of color, you know, if you have anyone in
your family that's a person of color, if you have any LGBTQ people in
your family, if you have any women in your family that might want to
have some sort of reproductive freedom. I mean, that intersects with
(28:59):
Our choices for reproduction and... Yeah, and
if I may say, Beth, I also think that transracially adopted
parents have a special niche, right? You
can speak to another transracially adopted mom and you can say, look,
we both have kids of color. What is important for them? It's
important to live in a society that isn't racist. It's
(29:21):
important for them to have equal opportunity. It's important
Yeah, or at risk of being deported. I mean, this happens to adoptees,
literally. Or to feel othered, even
if they don't get deported. But that feeling of feeling othered is like a
(29:41):
Here we are in the year 2024, and
we have made progress compared to You know, when I was born, certainly
1960. But every bit of progress that we make in
terms of racial equality in this country is
like pushing a boulder up a hill. Yeah. So,
again, this is all related. It was a terrible thing that
(30:05):
people are falsely accusing immigrants from Haiti of
eating people's dogs and cats. And it's a terrible thing to say and
ridiculous. But it's a good example of
what we're up against, that there are people who believe this,
that there are people who are spreading the lie. And so back
to your being an adoptive mom and my being an adoptee, we
(30:28):
can bring these things up to people. And the way
that we can do a little bit of jujitsu or something like that is
by saying to your friend, Did you hear about
this? Isn't that ridiculous? And then drilling
a little deeper and saying they would never say that about Norwegian or
Swedish immigrants, right? And what does
(30:48):
that say about us and the fact that we have still
in this country tremendous unquestioned bias?
And I just feel an obligation to challenge it.
And I know many friends of color who are so traumatized by
everything that's happened. They do just kind of want to crawl into a cave.
And I understand that. And I'm empathetic to a certain extent.
(31:12):
But I also would say the only way we're going to get out of this
situation in this country is so much polarization. And
the only way we're going to get to the next level, we're really
starting to remove some level of racism. you
know, as well as xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny,
all the things, is if we talk about it. And
(31:34):
I really do think having the little conversation with
your elderly aunt or your neighbor or your coworker or
whatever, that can actually be the most persuasive
thing you can do because they know you. Yeah, it's really effective. Your
next door neighbor, you say, hi, you know,
how have you been? And you end up talking. And then
(31:56):
you can help that person peel apart the layers
a little bit. Again, I'll just say the word activist and
activism is very threatening to many people.
As soon as they hear it, they think radical and they think, you know,
burning buildings down or something like that. I would never call
myself an activist, but some might call me that in
(32:17):
the sense that I am very active, you
know, and I do speak out in certain forms. So we all
have something we can do. And I think just because
of my three different marginalized identities, certainly
I'm aware, I'm aware of what the possibility is.
I feel a sense of obligation and I feel
(32:40):
we are kind of all in this together. The way that fascism
triumphs is if everyone goes silent and becomes quiescent.
The way that authoritarianism triumphs is
I know people sometimes say, if you ever wondered what the good
Germans were doing when the rise of the Nazis was happening,
(33:03):
we're in that right now. whatever you're doing is what the good Germans
were doing or what the regular Germans were doing. So
let's be the ones that saved the country, that saved
lives, that advocated for those in more
marginalized situations than you are. Because after a
certain point, you know, all of our rights are going to get stripped. So if
(33:24):
we aren't careful, so the stakes are extremely, extremely high.
Well, thank you very much for being willing to talk about this with me
on this. I'm very glad we got to the whole thing without saying the former president's
name. That makes me really happy. Makes
And I'm glad we didn't focus too much on individual. personality.
(33:46):
Because when we do that, people immediately
kind of discount the whole conversation, right? Like you're just
talking about one person. And what's going on in this country is
Oh, very much so. Yeah, there's way more people besides that former
president that believe that same way that are behind all
of that and behind Project 2025. And yeah, we
(34:13):
And do what we can in the next couple of weeks. Get out the
vote. Make sure you vote. Vote early. Vote
however you can do it in your state and just get it done. Well,
thank you very much, Mark. And if anyone wants to get a hold of you, we're going to have
them email me because we're keeping you
kind of neutral and anonymous because of your job and
(34:34):
stuff. So if anyone wants to contact Mark, just email me
I appreciate that, Beth. And thank you for doing this. I think If
you reach one person through this, it will have been worth it.
And I just hope that whoever has listened
to this podcast through to this moment will
(34:55):
think about it in an open minded spirit and
will reflect a little bit on what they
might be able to do and what this is all about. So
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for being willing to do this with me. I
think we were both very brave, and everyone, this is the time to be
brave. This is the time. Thank you. Thank you. So
(35:17):
if any of you would like to get a hold of Mark, go ahead and email me at beth at
unravelingadoption.com. And while you're
there, go on unravelingadoption.com to find out whatever
events we have coming up. We have information about our book, Adoption
and Suicidality, and Community Calendar, Healing
the Adoption Constellation Database, and much more. And
(35:38):
let's keep the conversation going about politics in adoption.
Why don't you look us up on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube
or LinkedIn and drop a comment as long as it's respectful
and open-minded and we will all see if we
can help make the world a little bit better place for
everybody by telling our honest truths and standing
(36:00):
up for what we believe in. Thank you all for listening. Can you do
us a favor and share this episode with someone you know that might be on
the fence or might be discouraged with politics right now? Someone in
the adoption space that might not understand the intersections of politics
and adoption. Please share the episode and we really
appreciate that. And Mark and I want you all to stay
Welcome to this episode of Unraveling Adoption, an intentional space to
delve into adoption's complexities together. I'm Beth Syverson. I'm
an adoptive mom of a justice-seeking 20-year-old son,
Joey, who is struggling to find his path. I'm walking beside him
while working on my own personal growth and healing. Joey and I are committed
to helping anyone impacted by adoption, and we want to help the general public
(00:23):
understand adoption's complexities better, too. I'm also a
certified coach helping seekers who want to move their lives forward. Now,
listeners, I don't normally talk about politics in our unraveling adoption
space. I know there are families who listen to this podcast that
have widely diverse political views, plus there are listeners from all over
the world who tune in. But today, I want to take
(00:44):
Taylor Swift's example and use this platform to
encourage other Americans to vote in the upcoming presidential election
and to encourage folks to vote for Kamala Harris. The stakes
are just too high to play it safe. This particular
election seems like it intersects with many aspects of adoption and
high-level issues that will affect our country deeply, namely racial
(01:07):
issues, especially for our transracial adoptees, women's reproductive
freedom, LGBTQ plus rights, and the small item
of the continuation of our democratic systems. Just that little
thing. This election, the first one for Joey to vote in, is
an existential imperative for our country and how we all
show up this time will impact our world for many generations to
(01:28):
come. Well, with me today is Mark. He's a
transracial adoptee from Korea who has been a leader in adoption spaces
for decades and on his personal social media is
an outspoken Democrat. I've learned so much from him by
reading his informative posts. In fact, I thought he was
at the Democratic National Convention because his posts were
(01:48):
so, I thought he was sitting in the front row. He was just watching TV
and paying very close attention and writing about it beautifully. So
I asked him to come on to discuss this multi-level intersection
of politics and adoption. We are leaving off Mark's
last name, but many of you in the adoption community might
know who this amazing man is, especially if you're in
(02:10):
the transracial adoption world. This episode will be
a bit of a coming out by two gay Democrats who care deeply
about our country and about people impacted by adoption. We hope
to encourage those who've lost hope in our electoral system to vote this
time around. And if anyone is possibly, I
don't know how you could be, but if you're still undecided, we hope
(02:30):
today's episode will help you confirm your choice for this election. Welcome,
welcome to this episode of Unraveling Adoption Mark. I'm so glad you're
Thank you. So let's unravel this political
piece that rarely gets discussed in the adoption spaces we
inhabit. Why did you say yes when I asked you to
(02:57):
So I am in a really interesting headspace
these days, Beth. I was born in 1960. I was
adopted as an infant by white American parents of
Northern European descent, and I grew up in Wisconsin. When
I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, which I
know seems like the Pleistocene era, but anyway,
(03:19):
in the social milieu or environment I
grew up in, the idea was that you should never talk
about politics, right? You never talked about sex,
politics, or bodily functions. Those were like the three rules,
right? Especially not at the dinner table. And
I grew up in that environment, but I've been on
(03:41):
multiple journeys in my life. One is
as an adult transracial and international adoptee related
to being a person of color. And the other is as a gay man. And
for me right now, we're looking at a situation in this
country, in the United States, where we're correct
in your introduction. This is an existential election
(04:04):
for us. So at least on a personal
level, I feel I need to speak up and speak out.
I have three marginalized identities. I'm
an immigrant. I was not born in this country. I was naturalized. I'm
a person of color and I am a gay man. And
I don't know if people know this, I don't want to dive into the deep end right away, but
(04:27):
one of the elements in this Project 2025, and
if you're not familiar, please familiarize yourself with
it. Yes. Scary. Yes. One element
specifically is the idea that it
should be possible legally to strip naturalized
citizens of their citizenship. Oh my gosh. So that would be
(04:48):
me. Right? And I mean, who knows whether
this would ever happen or not. But we are in a situation now
where, you know, we're being forced to look at very
kind of apocalyptic potentialities. So
that's why I'm speaking out now. And all of
this relates for me to coming out of
(05:11):
a number of different fogs. We talk about the
fog and adoption. And there are actually several fogs
here that I would cite. There's the fog of adoption,
and related to that as a transracial adoptee, the
fog of whiteness, growing up in near total whiteness. Another
fog for me was coming out as a gay man and
(05:33):
walking that journey as an LGBTQ person. And
I think, I don't know if this is a fog or it's just how
our society was, but as I mentioned, you know, when I was growing up,
the idea was that one did not talk politics and
play society, that it was something reserved for special
rooms, right? Like there were times when
(05:56):
one could talk about politics, but only in a certain context
and only, you know, with very strict rules. Everything that
is happening now is political. And
when I hear people, and fortunately fewer people
say this nowadays, but when I hear people say things
like, I am not political, I think that's
(06:18):
privilege to be able to say no
person of color, no LGBTQ person, for
that matter, no immigrant, no disabled person
can say, Oh, I don't need to pay attention to
policy because we are affected by it. So that's why we're conversing
Yeah, for sure. And that's always been the case, even
(06:41):
back in the 60s and 70s when we all just didn't talk about it. The
personal is always political, but it seems like we
can't avoid it any longer. We're coming to this head and
we have to reckon with it. So this is America's great
reckoning. I'm slightly terrified of how it's going to turn out.
And I just, I don't want to get to the other side of this election and
(07:02):
say, I didn't do everything I could do. So this is
And what I would say, Beth, is I am very glad to
speak up in the context of being a member of
the transracial adoption community. I think that
for us, transracial adoptees, there
(07:22):
are layers here. There are layers as transracial adoptees and
or international adoptees. whether you're one or the other or both, and
I'm both. Those of us who were in the early waves of
international adoption and the early waves of transracial adoption,
we were essentially raised to be white. I was
in the first wave of Korean adoption, which was the first wave of
(07:44):
international adoption. And they basically just
handed the babies or children to the white parents and
said, there you go. You've got a child now. I
mean, my parents did an amazing job considering there was zero resources. But
where I'm headed with that is all of the adoptee friends
I know who were in that first wave were raised not
(08:07):
only in overwhelmingly white spaces, but
in overwhelming whiteness, meaning they had
no access to any cultural or
social settings or contexts that were not
totally white dominated. And so for
many of us, we'd emerge out of the fog of whiteness. Yes.
(08:30):
And I will say I was raised to be white, but I was not allowed
Yeah, well, it's the cognitive dissonance I
grew up in and so many of us grew up in. So
Yeah, it does. It's very important for us to hear, especially white people, to
hear the voices of the transracial adoptees and how
(08:52):
being a person of color, but a different type of person of color, you
know, you're in a very unique situation. What is
it like to see one of the presidential candidates as a person
Yeah, I'm thrilled. I think for me,
I've mixed emotions and let me explain why. I'm thrilled that
we have a woman of color. She is the first black
(09:13):
woman and the first South Asian person to
run for president. So I'm absolutely thrilled, full stop. What's
hard is that she is having so much
racism and misogyny thrown at her. And
in the context of being a Black woman, I
love the use of the term misogynoir to describe what
(09:36):
happens to Black women specifically. And so
I'm thrilled about her candidacy, and she's a wonderful
candidate, but there is the mixed emotion all
of us with marginalized identities feel
when we know that the person who shares one
or more of her marginalized identities is going to
(10:00):
So that's, that's, that must make you a little nauseous just to go, Oh
crap, this is gonna come up and it comes up every
It comes up every single day. And I'll just plunge
into the deep end of the pool. To have her
constantly be ridiculed and mocked for
(10:20):
her identity and called names that are
racist and sexist, right? You know, we use
the term other and othering. When you make someone feel
bad about themselves by pointing out their difference, right?
You know, like you're the only redhead in the room. Let's other you. Let's say,
oh, look how crazy that is. This person is a ginger or
(10:42):
whatever. So when that happens,
it's very triggering for us because, well,
for one thing, it reminds us of our own being othered. So
I'm thrilled at the candidate and I
think she's a wonderful candidate, but it brings up a
lot of stuff because unfortunately, again,
(11:03):
this goes speaks to the whole issue
of coming out of the fog of whiteness. White
people who grow up in the fog of whiteness and
never leave the fog of whiteness, And not everyone is
like that. You know, many white people have left that fog. But if
you're still stuck in the fog, it all seems very strange,
(11:25):
right? Because racism in that
context is some individual transgression by
an individual that is offensive, right? Calling
a Black person the N-word, like you individually
did a wrong thing that is bad. And
what people, and for some people, it isn't even bad,
(11:48):
but that's another whole issue. But as opposed
to understanding that we live with systemic racism in
our society. And one of the things that
this presidential candidate's candidacy is
bringing up for people is the extent to which
(12:09):
Oh, OK. You're still seeing white people being shocked, like,
And in many cases, they are so embedded
in whiteness that they don't
want to to use your term, unravel, right? They
don't want to unravel or unspool their own
(12:30):
inherent bias, right? So they
might come up with all sorts of not
intellectually honest reasons for opposing her, or
it might simply be too difficult so they don't want to think about it, and
yet they would never question their biases and they won't vote
for her. So it's a whole web
(12:54):
White people, we need to do our work. I think that I've heard you
endorse the book White Fragility. Yes, I love it.
That was very helpful for me. I think I
now try to go toward people of color's writing,
but it's a great entry point for
those of us that are clueless. That's a great place
(13:19):
Well, and I just have to say something, and I'm not going to get any commission
or anything, but Robin DiAngelo is fabulous. And
there was a debate when her book came out, or a
discussion among some people of color, and it went something
like this. Oh, this is terrible. Why should a
white woman benefit by writing this book? It
(13:41):
should have been a black person or at least a person of color of
some race, non-white. And what I
said, and they're wonderful, many, many, many, many
now wonderful books written by Black and brown people. How
many white people read them? Like, you know, it's minuscule.
And so what I said, they needed a quote, unquote, nice
(14:02):
white lady to explain all this to them.
And even so, I have had friends and
acquaintances whom I had to handhold. White
people, you mean? Yeah, white people, yes, of course, whose
hands I had to hold because they were
so freaked out. I'll mention one person, of course, zero names here,
(14:26):
but someone who I was connected to through a mutual friend, and
we've become good friends over time. And she had started
Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility and was
freaked out by it. And I want to be clear, it wasn't that
she resisted it. She wasn't like, oh, this is nonsense. I
can't stand this. No, she agreed with the premise, but
(14:47):
it was so hard for her to read the book that she had put it down. So
I walked her through it. And over time she picked it up
and then she was able to read it and spin
around and dance and everything. But what I found funny was
how for us people of color, every person
of color I know who read that book, you know, they turned the page, read
(15:08):
a page, okay. read another page, okay. And
every white person, or most white people I know, they turned
the page, started reading, gasped. They
needed the smelling salts to revive. And
the funny thing about that is this is what we
(15:35):
To all my very dear friends of color, I have
said it took a white woman to write it
because that's whom white people
Yeah, for sure. And whatever gets you into the conversation, just
go, just get into it. However you can do it. It's
all good. It's such an important piece of
(15:58):
this because the racism is just so blatant. It's
just constant in this election and
in our culture, and it has to be addressed. We cannot
Right. It's all connected. When you look at
the support for the Republican Party right now, what
(16:20):
is the core support? It's really based on race, racial
identity, and people being threatened. Within
40 years, we're going to be a majority minority country. So
we'll have a majority of people of color. And I know that
there are many, many white people who are very threatened
by that. Some are so threatened, they can't even express it.
(16:43):
And if you look at the qualifications and
the qualities, personal qualities and capabilities, you
know, there should be no question about who you would vote for.
But the irony is that many right-wingers in
this country will say, well, those liberals play identity
politics. Well, we just feel candidates
(17:07):
who don't happen to be older white heterosexual men
sometimes. And that is deeply upsetting
to people. And it's all connected because the moderate
version of the Republican party that existed 10 years
There's nothing left of it. And there are people, and I want to be very, very
(17:29):
clear. There are many people in this country who
still, to some extent, identify as Republicans on
a personal level, who are decent people, who are not racist.
However, they've basically been pushed out of that party
now. And that's another reason to speak out
because what is left is extremist. And
(17:52):
again, it's related to Project 2025, which
has so many terrible elements, but the core is anti-immigrant. You
know, and the authors of Project 2025 put it right out there. They
want to push out all undocumented people in this country. First
of all, even if you completely set aside the
humanitarian aspects, that would be an economic disaster
(18:14):
for our country. Who are the maids in our hotels, right? Like
they're almost all undocumented workers. Basically, we
would have no housekeeping in hotels. But
the core issue there is, who are we including and
excluding? And that's why I am always,
(18:36):
and there are people of color who need help getting more work
too. There are a lot of them. But I feel right now
is a time to speak out and to be
clear. We no longer have the luxury. This is an existential
election, as you pointed out. We no longer have the luxury of
politeness, you know, in the old-fashioned sense. I
(18:58):
do remember my childhood. I remember how it was considered
impolite, again, except in very specific contexts,
like maybe you would go off to your debating society or
something like that. But in the normal social
context, it was considered impolite to talk about politics. Well,
we've had generations of people raised that way and look what has
(19:19):
happened. We also have had generations of people raised who
actually literally don't understand the history of the United States. So
I think one thing that some of us who are transracial and
or international adoptees can do, we can hold
a kind of a mirror. our society and say,
this is what it's really like. I was told the entire time I
(19:42):
was growing up, I don't see race, right? Like
everyone said, I don't see race. It was obvious to me they saw race. I
mean, the kids who taunted and ridiculed me that, you know,
there were so many ways in which I could see
They weren't telling other white kids, I don't see your race. They were telling it to you. They
(20:05):
And that's kind of the thing about being raised in
near total whiteness as I was, that I internalized
racism towards myself. And that's taken
a very long time to work through a lot of issues. for
a transracial adoptee raised by white
(20:25):
parents in whiteness. And it's somewhat different now for
many families in 2024 than it was in
1961 when I arrived. Although, amazingly, there are
transracial adoptees two, three, four years old who are still being raised
in near total whiteness now. For many, it's different,
but it is devastating for us to be raised in
(20:47):
total or near total whiteness. And I know adoptees
who still have not made their way
out of the fog of whiteness or the fog of adoption. And
they end up in
very, very tiny social spaces,
(21:09):
usually family and then a
tiny cluster of close friends whom they
can trust because if they haven't moved out of those spaces, both
literally and figuratively, they are experiencing
racism. And so their comfort zone gets smaller rather
than larger. The only way to shift that
(21:32):
is to find friends of color, you know, and
Yeah, to expand instead of contract. Wow. Yeah, that's
really tough. So besides the
race piece, which is huge, are there other types of
ways that adoption intersects with politics? What other
effects for adoptees particularly could you imagine with
(21:56):
Well, here's another thing. The white parents
who have adopted and raised or
are raising children of color they very
well might be voting against their children's interests as
people of color. Absolutely. Right. And their families, family
members and relatives and their neighbors. So
(22:19):
it's all related because no human,
you know, unless they're living in a cave in the woods or something,
is completely alone. They're interacting with people. And
We need to speak out. And I'll add
in my other identity as a gay man. I think it's really important for
LGBTQ people who can to speak out, to be
(22:41):
present. Silence will kill us. And
I think that for many of us who are of color,
what I realized It took me years. It
was a very, very long unspooling, a very long journey. But
I realized that had I stayed in the social environment
(23:02):
in which I was raised, even with very loving parents, it would
have been devastating for me across a lifetime. So this is
all related because we need to mobilize people.
And to do that, we first need to educate people. And to do that, we
have to engage with them. Now, I
don't ever want to put more responsibility on
(23:23):
anyone else. But what I will say is that
we transracial adoptees have an incredible opportunity, potentially,
because we were raised in whiteness. We speak white. We
speak the language of whiteness. You know, I know white people. And
so we can speak to them in ways that, for example, an
(23:44):
immigrant person of color can't. Right. It's
not a matter of ability, it's a matter of background. I would summarize by
saying we're not just individuals, we're potential advocates,
you know, we're potential activists. And a lot of
people are immediately frightened when they hear the word activist. They,
you know, they picture someone, you know, in
(24:07):
a demonstration or even a riot or something, you know, and they imagine
conflict and confrontation. The
most simple activism is having a conversation with a neighbor. Yeah,
Yeah. But yeah, that's it. Just talk
to your friends. Make sure they're registered to vote. Make sure they're engaged
(24:29):
in the process, because I bet a lot of people have just given up and
People are exhausted also. We've gone through
years of just exhausting politics. And I
Yeah, it's traumatizing. I'm thinking of one close friend,
all of her instincts are good. Her politics is very good.
(24:53):
But day to day, she just doesn't want to hear about it at all.
And I understand she is going to vote correctly and all that. So
that's okay. I understand. But here's the thing, she
and I have conversations all the time and I try to
gently encourage her to speak up and out because
she has a lot of people in her life who are
(25:17):
either right wing or somewhat conservative and
she's someone who is non-threatening to them, right?
So if someone turns on the TV and sees someone who is instantly threatening
to a person, the person will shut down. Oh my
gosh, that's just crazy, scary, radical. My
(25:39):
friend, who knows a lot of people on the other side, has
the potential to do some persuasion. Now, is
she going to change a million people's minds? No. But
in this election, and she knows people in key
Yeah, in certain states, it matters deeply, each person.
You're right. Literally, in the last two presidential elections,
(26:03):
and then that's not to even mention the midterms, but in 2016 and 2020, states
turned on 7,000, 10,000, 11,000 votes. And
when you have a state with 10 million people or
more that turns on 10,000 votes, you
know, that's a tiny number of people. And literally
(26:24):
every vote counts. I cannot remember which election it was. It was a
local election, I think for mayor, that literally turned
on one vote. Like the candidate who
won and they had to do a recount and everything, literally won by
one vote. So every vote
really does count. And I just feel, I
(26:45):
feel a moral obligation. And I'll never put
that on anyone else. I'll never put an obligation on anyone else.
But as an adult transracial and international enopte,
and a lifelong student of history and politics and all those things, I
feel that to whatever extent I have any abilities, I
do need to use those to persuade. Sometimes it's also
(27:08):
persuading people on our side, people who might be
dispirited or discouraged, like discouraged voters, right?
And say, look, this election is important. This is why you
should vote. These are positive reasons to vote, not just
negative. And so honestly, it's all
connected. We are faced with an
(27:30):
unbelievably stark series of choices here. Yeah.
And the two presidential candidates, the two parties across
Congress and state legislatures are so far
apart that to say that there's no choice is
ridiculous, right? They're like from two different planets
in the solar system. And so my feeling is
(27:52):
this, the bottom line is if I have a voice and
I can reach a small number of people and I can help them
to see what the issues really are and
help them to understand things in a more awakened
I share that obligation with you. I feel that for myself, like
(28:14):
you said, telling anyone else what to do except to vote. But
we all need to use whatever power we have,
whether it's just to talk to your family members, to talk to your kids,
friends that are turning 18 any minute here, or,
you know, to just help keep this
country afloat. It's not a trivial thing.
(28:36):
It's this major turning point. We have an option
for a major turning point in our country. And I think especially as
an adoptive parent of a person of color, you know, if you have anyone in
your family that's a person of color, if you have any LGBTQ people in
your family, if you have any women in your family that might want to
have some sort of reproductive freedom. I mean, that intersects with
(28:59):
Our choices for reproduction and... Yeah, and
if I may say, Beth, I also think that transracially adopted
parents have a special niche, right? You
can speak to another transracially adopted mom and you can say, look,
we both have kids of color. What is important for them? It's
important to live in a society that isn't racist. It's
(29:21):
important for them to have equal opportunity. It's important
Yeah, or at risk of being deported. I mean, this happens to adoptees,
literally. Or to feel othered, even
if they don't get deported. But that feeling of feeling othered is like a
(29:41):
Here we are in the year 2024, and
we have made progress compared to You know, when I was born, certainly
1960. But every bit of progress that we make in
terms of racial equality in this country is
like pushing a boulder up a hill. Yeah. So,
again, this is all related. It was a terrible thing that
(30:05):
people are falsely accusing immigrants from Haiti of
eating people's dogs and cats. And it's a terrible thing to say and
ridiculous. But it's a good example of
what we're up against, that there are people who believe this,
that there are people who are spreading the lie. And so back
to your being an adoptive mom and my being an adoptee, we
(30:28):
can bring these things up to people. And the way
that we can do a little bit of jujitsu or something like that is
by saying to your friend, Did you hear about
this? Isn't that ridiculous? And then drilling
a little deeper and saying they would never say that about Norwegian or
Swedish immigrants, right? And what does
(30:48):
that say about us and the fact that we have still
in this country tremendous unquestioned bias?
And I just feel an obligation to challenge it.
And I know many friends of color who are so traumatized by
everything that's happened. They do just kind of want to crawl into a cave.
And I understand that. And I'm empathetic to a certain extent.
(31:12):
But I also would say the only way we're going to get out of this
situation in this country is so much polarization. And
the only way we're going to get to the next level, we're really
starting to remove some level of racism. you
know, as well as xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny,
all the things, is if we talk about it. And
(31:34):
I really do think having the little conversation with
your elderly aunt or your neighbor or your coworker or
whatever, that can actually be the most persuasive
thing you can do because they know you. Yeah, it's really effective. Your
next door neighbor, you say, hi, you know,
how have you been? And you end up talking. And then
(31:56):
you can help that person peel apart the layers
a little bit. Again, I'll just say the word activist and
activism is very threatening to many people.
As soon as they hear it, they think radical and they think, you know,
burning buildings down or something like that. I would never call
myself an activist, but some might call me that in
(32:17):
the sense that I am very active, you
know, and I do speak out in certain forms. So we all
have something we can do. And I think just because
of my three different marginalized identities, certainly
I'm aware, I'm aware of what the possibility is.
I feel a sense of obligation and I feel
(32:40):
we are kind of all in this together. The way that fascism
triumphs is if everyone goes silent and becomes quiescent.
The way that authoritarianism triumphs is
I know people sometimes say, if you ever wondered what the good
Germans were doing when the rise of the Nazis was happening,
(33:03):
we're in that right now. whatever you're doing is what the good Germans
were doing or what the regular Germans were doing. So
let's be the ones that saved the country, that saved
lives, that advocated for those in more
marginalized situations than you are. Because after a
certain point, you know, all of our rights are going to get stripped. So if
(33:24):
we aren't careful, so the stakes are extremely, extremely high.
Well, thank you very much for being willing to talk about this with me
on this. I'm very glad we got to the whole thing without saying the former president's
name. That makes me really happy. Makes
And I'm glad we didn't focus too much on individual. personality.
(33:46):
Because when we do that, people immediately
kind of discount the whole conversation, right? Like you're just
talking about one person. And what's going on in this country is
Oh, very much so. Yeah, there's way more people besides that former
president that believe that same way that are behind all
of that and behind Project 2025. And yeah, we
(34:13):
And do what we can in the next couple of weeks. Get out the
vote. Make sure you vote. Vote early. Vote
however you can do it in your state and just get it done. Well,
thank you very much, Mark. And if anyone wants to get a hold of you, we're going to have
them email me because we're keeping you
kind of neutral and anonymous because of your job and
(34:34):
stuff. So if anyone wants to contact Mark, just email me
I appreciate that, Beth. And thank you for doing this. I think If
you reach one person through this, it will have been worth it.
And I just hope that whoever has listened
to this podcast through to this moment will
(34:55):
think about it in an open minded spirit and
will reflect a little bit on what they
might be able to do and what this is all about. So
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for being willing to do this with me. I
think we were both very brave, and everyone, this is the time to be
brave. This is the time. Thank you. Thank you. So
(35:17):
if any of you would like to get a hold of Mark, go ahead and email me at beth at
unravelingadoption.com. And while you're
there, go on unravelingadoption.com to find out whatever
events we have coming up. We have information about our book, Adoption
and Suicidality, and Community Calendar, Healing
the Adoption Constellation Database, and much more. And
(35:38):
let's keep the conversation going about politics in adoption.
Why don't you look us up on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube
or LinkedIn and drop a comment as long as it's respectful
and open-minded and we will all see if we
can help make the world a little bit better place for
everybody by telling our honest truths and standing
(36:00):
up for what we believe in. Thank you all for listening. Can you do
us a favor and share this episode with someone you know that might be on
the fence or might be discouraged with politics right now? Someone in
the adoption space that might not understand the intersections of politics
and adoption. Please share the episode and we really
appreciate that. And Mark and I want you all to stay
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