239 Adoptees On(ly) Book Club
/Haley: This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing stated on it either by its hosts or any guests, is to be construed as psychological, medical, or legal advice.
You are listening to adoptees on the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. Today is a special episode where we are inviting you to join our book club, discuss. On the adoptees on Patreon community. We have book club not quite every month, so folks can try and keep up with the reading, but almost I'm thrilled to share this conversation with you.
Our host today is Sullivan Summer, who you may remember was a guest on episode 211 of the podcast, Sullivan Interviews. Rebecca Carroll, author of Surviving the White Gaze as a live event with fellow adoptees. This was recorded in October of 2020.
Before we get started, I wanted to invite you to join our Patreon book club over on AdopteesOn.com/bookclub, which helps support you and also the show to support more adoptees around the world. And you can hear more of our book club conversations just like this one. Let's listen in.
(Upbeat Music) Welcome back to Adoptees Off-script. I'm Haley Radke, and with me today is Sullivan Summer. Welcome Sullivan.
Sullivan Summer: Hi, Haley. It's so good to see you again.
Haley: Yes, I'm so excited. We have book Club today with the tremendous Rebecca Carroll, author of Surviving the White Gaze, which was our book club pick for this month.
Welcome, Rebecca.
Rebecca Carroll: Thank you. It's great to be here.
Haley: We are in an adoptee only space today, so if you are not an adoptee, we'll ask you to listen to the recording later. But Sullivan has prepared a wonderful interview for us today and we're really excited to get started. If you have comments or questions, you can pop those in the chat and I will, you know, mention a few of them.
But yeah, welcome here. Excited to chat about your book.
Sullivan Summer: And as, as Haley said, Rebecca, we are so excited to have you here this afternoon. And so for, for folks that are not maybe as familiar, Rebecca with you in your work. So Rebecca is a podcast host of come Through and more recently, Billy Was a Black Woman, which was a companion podcast to the Lee Daniels film, the United States versus Billy Holiday, which I would say go watch that if you've not watched it already.
She's the author of Saving the Race, Conversations on Dubois from a Collective Memoir of Souls, Uncle Tom our New Negro, which is one I have on my bookshelf, African Americans reflect on Booker T. Washington and Up from Slavery a Hundred Years Later, Sugar in the Raw, Voices of Young Black Girls in America.
And the reason we are here today, Surviving the White Gaze, which came out last year, which is about your experience as a domestic transracial adoptee growing up in rural New Hampshire. And so, Rebecca, I know you have a ton of experience. Podcasting and in the media and being on Trevor Noah's show and those kinds of things.
As Haley said, though, you are with an audience of a hundred percent adoptees and so I have seen you and heard you enough times to know that you are not a person that necessarily pulls punches when you share your opinion. But I would say of all the safe spaces in the world, this is probably the safest space in the world to just, you know, share whatever it is that, that you're thinking or feeling or, or wanna make sure that that other adoptees here hear as well. So we're, we are thrilled to have you. And I would love if, if you're game, Rebecca, I would love to just like jump right in with both feet.
Rebecca Carroll: Oh, sure. Absolutely. Okay.
Sullivan Summer: Fantastic. And so, Reading, of course. Your book was just phenomenal and you are someone that certainly resonates with me and your story resonates with me as I am also a, a Black transracial adoptee from, from rural New Hampshire. One thing I thought was really interesting though is, is your, your full name is Rebecca Simone Carroll.
Simone was the name you were given at birth. And yeah, please talk,
Rebecca Carroll: Let me just pause there for a moment.
Sullivan Summer: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Rebecca Carroll: My full name is Rebecca Ann Carroll.
Sullivan Summer: Ah, okay.
Rebecca Carroll: I have used Simone off and on. About, which I feel tremendously ambivalent cause it is. You know, my birth mother, Tess, a white woman, tells this very romantic story of having gone to scene Nina Simone with her mother, who was failing in health, mental health, and either when she was pregnant with me or, or just before. And she really cherishes this memory and so that when she gave birth to me, she gave me the name Simone after Nina Simone. And so, as you know from reading the book, you know, after we reunited when I was 11, I was desperate to gain her love and acceptance.
And so I thought I would try out Rebecca Simone and see if that worked. And she would call me that from time to time and my heart would melt. But it never really stuck and I'm, and I'm glad that it didn't properly, particularly because it was a name given to me by a white woman who later tried to appropriate and refute and literally erase my Blackness,
And so I, I, it's in my website just because Rebecca Ann Carol, I think was either taken or, you know, a name. Names are really tricky. I think for us, I, I've never felt attached to Rebecca either. I've never felt attached to Rebecca Carroll. I mean, there's this whole, when I got married, it was like, politically for person...
Like, I'm just not interested in taking my husband's name. I gave it to my, to my son because I did everything else, frankly. But, but you know, I sort of, I thought about, you know, the idea of changing my name to his last name. I just, I don't feel any kind of attachment in any kind of way in particular.
Except when my friends and my family call me my name.
Sullivan Summer: Thank you so much for that, Rebecca. Cause you actually went exactly where I was gonna go, which is you were named after a, quite frankly, a Black Civil Rights icon, but named by a white woman, in an all white area. I, I mean, I don't, did, did, would people have, even I didn't know who Nina Simone was growing up. Would, would people have even known anything about that anyway?
Rebecca Carroll: I think, ultimately, it's neither here nor there because you know the only Black folks that my white adoptive parents, who then named me after my father's mentor's youngest daughter, Rebecca Ann Miller, they only knew Martin Luther King. I mean it, so it was, it was really neither here nor there.
And, which goes to, to tell you that knowing one or knowing two, doesn't actually change the parenting in a healthier, useful way.
Sullivan Summer: Yeah, absolutely. And, and in fact we say sort of, you know, all, all white area, all white area. I love data, so I pulled the data. So you grew up in Warner, New Hampshire.
And I found this great articulation of the data, based on the 2020 census, it said there, based on the 2020 census, there were 10.8 times as many white resident. As, as any other ethnicity in Warner, in, in 2020, which again, I, I I'm guessing it's probably more diverse now than it was when you were growing up.
Rebecca Carroll: Oh, I don't know. I don't know about that. More diverse. I think that's probably subjective, but you know, when I was writing a book, my husband, who is a sociology professor and also is a fan of stats and data, you know, we were like, I couldn't have been the only Black person in Warner, New Hampshire, and it turns out I was. I became the first Black person in Warner, New Hampshire in 1969.
So, yeah, it's, that's pretty wild. You know, I mean, I don't wanna get ahead of ourselves, but to make that choice as white parents of a Black child is still kind of blows my mind a little bit.
Sullivan Summer: When you say what when you say that choice, what do you mean? That choice?
Rebecca Carroll: Oh, hey, what a cool idea to raise a Black kid where there's no other Black people, day in, day out because this is what works for, for us. This is what works for us.
Sullivan Summer: Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Carroll: I get that. You know, nobody's, nobody's saying to my dad that he, you know, he can't love nature or the natural world or need to be around that. But maybe either A, think, think twice about adopting a child of color, specifically a Black child, or B, get a plan together where I can actually be around Black folks.
Sullivan Summer: Did you ever get the, well wait, but you were born there like shrug, do you know what I mean? Like Well, what they, what were they supposed to do like that? You were, you were born in that area. In that area generally.
Rebecca Carroll: Right? No I don't get that, but, cause I also wasn't born in, certainly born, I was born in New Hampshire, but I was born in a part of New Hampshire that actually had claimed a small Black population at least.
But no, I've not gotten that. And I also feel like, again, neither here nor there, which is this... I really do think we have to be clear that the responsibility, is, falls with the parents. It really, I mean, it's, it's basically if you have children, bio or otherwise, or adopted or however, your job... it's your, it's like your only job is to make sure that these human beings are, are mentally, emotionally, culturally cared for and have a relationship with themselves. A kind of self-awareness that prepares them for the world.
Sullivan Summer: Yeah, absolutely. So if we dive, if we dive into to some of what you wrote in the book, it right near the beginning, your adoptive father says it wasn't a problem that your biological father was Black. In fact, he said, if anything, the idea of adopting a child of another race had great appeal for us.
And I was curious about two things in there that the, the word, the words not app, so well, it was not really a problem. And the words appealing.
Rebecca Carroll: Mm-hmm.
Sullivan Summer: And can you talk a little bit about how that is, sort of how that feels of, of either race, either not a problem, or it's, or it's appealing?
Rebecca Carroll: I think that lemme just, I wanna find where, cause I wrote some notes here. Right. Okay. So and you asked if the story had, had changed over time, like, or if I, my feelings about the story had changed over time.
Sullivan Summer: Yeah.
Rebecca Carroll: And, and I, I, I always found it confusing, but, but I, it's definitely changed over time, which is when, of course when I, when he first told it to me, I was like, oh, cool, like you wanted to add an element of cultural difference to the family and, but of course over the years it was clear that the appeal for them was more aesthetic. It was more about aesthetic than culture as sort of curatorial effort really.
Sullivan Summer: Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Carroll: You know, and, and whether that is because they are artists themselves or not, I don't know. I do know that it was a vision, that it was a, something that my, my dad wanted to see, and not do because certainly he didn't spend any time, he or my family didn't spend any time making an effort to learn about my Blackness, Black culture writ large Blackness for themselves, and they never deferred to me on the matter of my Blackness.
And I think too, that that is a thing for white adoptive parents. You know, we have all of these sort of catchphrases in play, you know, good intentions and, you know, and the, and the language about gratitude and this and that. And my mom would say, oh, people kept telling us we were doing such a good thing, but we didn't think of it that way at all.
But of course you did. Of course you did.
Sullivan Summer: Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Carroll: You wouldn't have done it if you hadn't.
Sullivan Summer: Mm-hmm. Around the same time when you're, you're sort of talking about these stories that, that you were told as a child, another thing that you say is that your birth father seemed less important in the overall telling of your story.
And you say, you know, since your adoptive parents didn't have a relationship with him, and as is that something you continue to think about? I'm curious about, you know, was it because, well they didn't have a relationship? Well, you know, fathers are sometimes take sort of the backseat to, to mothers or, or is it because your father was Black and not white and therefore less therefore less important?
Rebecca Carroll: Totally. I mean, Black men are systematically set up to fail in America, period. And this is no exception. My white mother, birth mother, and her family decided that he would be cut out of the picture. They made that decision. He told me that they, she told me that and so my white adoptive parents said we deferred to her, to Tess, to make that decision.
And we respected her decision. Not thinking this Black man could bring real value...
Sullivan Summer: mm-hmm.
Rebecca Carroll: ...to our daughter's life. I mean, no matter the circumstances, you know, he had a very difficult. Life, the, you know, the cards were stacked against him and are stacked against a lot of Black men. But he was certainly the kind of epitome of disenfranchised, you know, grew up in, in government housing and foster care, and wasn't really able to find a career path that worked.
He wanted to, he loved to be seen. He, he was really sophisticated and, but he didn't have any grounding. And so, you know, the one thing that would ground him, I mean, can you imagine after all of these years of sort of not knowing, and I think about it all the time, particularly when in the, in the moment in the book when, when Kofi sees that picture of me, when I was literally, he said, mommy, why I'm holding a frog the moment that, the way that, that resonated with me.
I think so often it gives me goosebumps thinking about it that my birth father probably would've felt that same way. And when he died in the service program, the person who wrote the the notes said he cherished the memory of a daughter.
Sullivan Summer: Hmm.
Rebecca Carroll: Yeah. So I, I think it had everything to do with his race .
Sullivan Summer: So thank you. Thank you for that first, and I think that's something that certainly resonated with me as well, cuz my, my father was Black and my mother was white and I was led to believe my father was a drug addict.
Rebecca Carroll: I'm sure, I'm sure you were.
Sullivan Summer: And it was not until well into adulthood where I, where I thought maybe, or he was just a Black man in the seventies....
Rebecca Carroll: Or he was just a Black man in the seventies. I mean, people love to, to do that whole thing, right? I mean, for those of you who follow me on Twitter, you know, I, from time to time will say something about adoption. Transracial adoption, and people just lose their minds when Black or brown or adoptees say anything about the their experience and they're coming into their own agency.
And they'd love to say things like, well, you're Black. You know, parents were probably stupid and drug addicts and in jail and didn't want you, and all these kinds of things. And it's. You know, I mean, I, my skin is so thick at this point. I that I, I tend to think that that's, even, to be able to have that out there is really important for people to see.
Sullivan Summer: Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Carroll: Cause that's where, that's how limited our understanding of adoption is.
Sullivan Summer: Along these same lines. And I'm, I'm skip I'm skipping around in, in the book, I should probably shout out page numbers for people that wanna go back and, and find them. But so I'm, I'm, I'm way down on, on page 276.
Your mother said, "you came out of my body and I am white. So there's no way that you're gonna go around calling yourself Black". And can you talk a little bit about, I mean, where, where does that attitude come from? A and, and quite frankly, rec is it? Is it worth your time even to think about it?
Rebecca Carroll: Well, I appreciate, I appreciate that you said, is it worth my time? I do. I don't know that it's worth my time. I think it might be worth our time. You know, I think. There's another part of questioning where you asked about my parents' racism, you know, my Tess and my parents' racism. And how did I feel about that? You know, with my parents, my, my instinct was to protect them, which is like: well, they don't know the nuances of racism, they don't know how they're being racist and I don't want them to feel bad. I mean, that, that instinct, went away fairly quickly after the book came out.
But I don't feel that way about Tess at all because she's the, she is the garden variety, like the regular degular white, supremacist racist. I mean, she really is that person who uses racism as a way to control. As a power differential, as a way to make somebody feel badly. As a way to assert her significance, her supremacy. And so I didn't know that when she said it. All I knew is that it felt like I'm literally like being hit by a train. Like it was one of the most resonant moments of my life.
And it, and it really, I would not say, you know, I've talked about this a lot and wrote about it in the book. I did not necessarily have suicidal ideation. I did know that I did not wanna feel what I felt and that my, that Corrine in that moment, my girlfriend, who is my dear, dear sister, and to this day, you know, she said, you, you, you've got, we need you.
We need to keep you in the world. We need, there's too much for you to do. And it, and it, it's no small thing that it was a Black woman who said that to me.
Sullivan Summer: Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Carroll: It's no small thing that, that she took her my hand in hers and that I saw this coming from a Black woman. But yeah, that moment was, was pretty intense.
Sullivan Summer: I did, I, I, I did read Tess's book.
Rebecca Carroll: Mm-hmm.
Sullivan Summer: To to research. I was shocked by the racism in it, and maybe I shouldn't have been. Maybe I shouldn't have been. I, I, I was shocked. Shocked.
Rebecca Carroll: I have not read that book in 20 years, and so I would, I would actually be interested to hear what, what racism you identified in the book.
Sullivan Summer: The, the pieces that were most resonant were, for me, were actually the way she talked about your father.
Rebecca Carroll: My birth father or birth father?
Sullivan Summer: It's your birth father. Yeah. Your birth father. Yeah. The Black, the strapping Black buck who's a sex machine.
Rebecca Carroll: There, it's, yeah.
Sullivan Summer: Yeah. A and, and that it was easier or better for her to date Black men because they weren't intimidated by her sexuality because again, all they want is sex.
Rebecca Carroll: So, oh, you're bringing me back.
Sullivan Summer: And I, and I think what was most shocking. And again, it probably shouldn't have been what was most shocking is this is a, a person who I believe is the same type of person who would stand up and say, I don't have a racist bone in my body. In fact, I'm the least racist person, you know.
Rebecca Carroll: Right. In fact, verbatim. She has said that.
Sullivan Summer: Yeah. I'm not shocked at all, but it was, it was so just, it could not have been any more clear, in the book in, in her book, in some of that language, and, and I , I was, I was pretty floored.
Rebecca Carroll: Yeah. I remember. And we are estranged now, but I do remember trying to hold her accountable a couple of times, and her response was the same thing that people say about Gone with the Wind or whatever, you know?
It's like, that's what people were saying, right? No, that's what people were getting away with saying. Right. And but, but she will, I don't think ever see beyond her own, you know? That's the really beau... that's the beauty of narcissism is that you're always right. I mean, narcissists choose their, their pathology well.
Sullivan Summer: Mm-hmm. Her aside. A again, I know you don't, you no longer live in New Hampshire. You live in New York. You live in New York City now, but I'm, I'm curious about you know, thinking back to your upbringing and, and you have a different lens now and you have a more mature lens and, and, and how, how do you parse that line between 'Oh, it was, it was the time. It was just the time'.... versus accountability.
Rebecca Carroll: Yeah. I go straight to accountability. I don't believe, I don't believe at all that it's about. That was then, this is now. We can start there if you'd like, but as I just said, It wasn't that people were saying that and it was fine, or that it wasn't racist. People were saying racist things and getting away with it.
Sullivan Summer: Yeah.
Rebecca Carroll: People were saying racist things because people who could call them on it felt disenfranchised, felt like we would you know, start wherever you want. Would be lynched, would be fired, would be, you know, shut out. Whatever the case, whatever the punishment is.
Those of us who have, who had had the expertise, on what that language was. We're disenfranchised for accountability. Now, if anything, if any progress has been made, it's that we can call things out, not without, you know, that ...a punishment, because clearly, again, point to Twitter, you know, and that's not even half of what you see.
I mean, I get the kind of hate spew all the time in dms and whatnot. But I do, I feel like we have to, we have to go straight to accountability because otherwise it's just, it's a, it's a disservice. It's such a disservice to progress and to young people trying to understand history.
Sullivan Summer: Another one of the more resonant parts I, I found in the book is, and this is on page 148. And this is when you're, you are graduating from high school and you're sort of figuring out what's next and, and you say, "I wanted to get outta New Hampshire and move to New York, and I wanted to be around Black people, but nobody asked me about that, and I didn't know to ask anyone. Nobody suggested an HBCU, something I'd never heard of or asked how I felt about 17 years in a small rural town engulfed by whiteness quietly amassing and internalizing moments of targeted racism."
Rebecca Carroll: Hmm.
Sullivan Summer: Do you ever get resentful? About that and, and I, and I, no, and I tell, I'll tell you Rebecca again, I, I went to a small liberal arts women's college. I had, I didn't know when an HBCU was until I was 21 and I thought, oh my God, I could have gone to Spelman .
Rebecca Carroll: I know.
Sullivan Summer: And I didn't know what it was like. Nobody, I didn't, I didn't know what it was.
Rebecca Carroll: It's taking me, it's taking me every last bit of restraint from not just demanding my son go to an HBCU.
Sullivan Summer: Mm.
Rebecca Carroll: Just outright demanding. He knows, he knows how, what it, what it means and how important it's, and it's definitely, he's definitely applying to Howard. Yeah. I mean, resentment, resentful. I, I really try to be very mindful of the difference between resentment and really being self-actualized and really understanding what I was, frankly, cheated of and what I was, what I can, what I can honestly, authentically mourn, and I think resentment gives too much energy to the folks kept those things from me, whether knowingly or not.
Sullivan Summer: Can you say what I can authentically mourn? Say a little bit more about that.
Rebecca Carroll: Well, I think that Blackness and Black culture and Black legacy is such an extraordinary gift and so, and so rich and so gorgeous, and. I didn't have any access to that.
Sullivan Summer: Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Carroll: As a way to keep myself healthy, emotionally healthy. I mourn than that. Yeah. Mm-hmm. ,
Sullivan Summer: I feel that .
Rebecca Carroll: Yeah.
Sullivan Summer: I, I, I hear that. Absolutely. Again, to go back to the book, and this is around sort of the same, the same area and the same sort of time in time in your life. You say, "I was Black. I was Black now, but I'd always been Black. It's just that no one around me ever really saw me."
And do you, do you think there's something unique about the transracial adoptee experience in, in i, in our not being seen and like, do you...
Rebecca Carroll: Yeah.
Sullivan Summer: Do you think, yeah. Talk to me a little bit more about that.
Rebecca Carroll: Well, we're shepherded by the White Gaze, which, you know, we, we think is gonna protect us.
You know, it's really, really important to enunciate that no matter how hard we try to reintegrate as either, whenever it happens, whenever we are allowed ,or, or get gain access to our community, whether it's doing a skit to the Mary Jane girls or whether it is in, you know, a, a student union group or writing books about Black folks or finding community ...
No matter how hard we try and how committed we are to trying, there's no getting around the fact that our formative years, our formative years, and I mean infancy to five say are shepherded by the White Gaze. That means the standard of everything, the standard of beauty, the standard of schooling, the standard of morals, moral integrity, all of that is shepherded by the White Gaze. So Yeah, absolutely. I, I think that we're not seen and we're not seen in that context specifically.
Sullivan Summer: Mm-hmm. And you may have been going there when you just said we're not seen in that context specifically. Do you think our adoptive, our white adoptive parents see us? Differently than they see other Black people.
Rebecca Carroll: You know they do. You know, they do. And I'll give you an example. I'll give you an example. There are many, but this one stuck out to me cause I can, cause it just does. I remember being in my twenties ish or so, and my mom and I, we... either it was, it was either a documentary or some kind of thing that was narrated by a Black woman, who had this really beautiful voice, resonant voice. And afterwards my mom said, Black women's voices are, they're so beautiful. They're just so different.
And I remember thinking like, do you mean your voices? Because I'm a Black woman? They're have a numerous examples of that. But, so yes, to answer your question, I'm quite certain. Quite certain. And also, you know, there's a proprietary sense, you know, white adoptive parents, whether they're willing to admit it or not, took in a child of another color, and they feel a way about that.
Sullivan Summer: Well, and I, and you say, take in, and I, I think for, for some, myself included, would go one step farther or which is purchased. And ...,
Rebecca Carroll: Yeah.
Sullivan Summer: I, I think there is an un an unwillingness to think about the purchase of a white, of a, of a Black child.
Rebecca Carroll: Yeah. I mean, I think one of the, one of the really tricky conversations on Twitter around this most recent comment that I made about, which was about my white parents not being able to understand the value of somebody like Roxanne Gay or Kiese Laymon or Damon Young supporting my work, these are f---ing brilliant writers, but the, but they can't really understand the value of them cuz they've never read them. And that if you're not reading these, these writers, you shouldn't be raising Black children. Right. And so people got in their feelings.
But one, one of the conversations that is tricky is that, is this likeness to slavery or chattel slavery? Right. Which I don't think is particularly useful.
What I do think is the foundational dynamic of white people setting the standard of Black existence. That tracks that translates. That's absolutely the way that it started. Here's how it started, you know, that white people would decide and make choices for the wellbeing or not wellbeing of Black folks, and that is absolutely what transracial adoption is.
Sullivan Summer: Mm-hmm. I know it was rewatching earlier today, your interview on Trevor Noah. Again, I had seen it when it, when it first aired, and I'm gonna ask you a question that he asked you, and I'm just gonna, I'm gonna ask it again in this, in this audience. And also since it's been about a year, he, he, he asked you should, "should white adoptive parents be adopting non, non-white children at all or Black children at all?"
Rebecca Carroll: I think, I think, and I don't remember what I said to him, but I, I feel now, and I think it's been pretty consistent. I feel like, no. Not unless they're willing to decenter their whiteness, be in real authentic community with Blackness. And that is an immersive experience.
And I don't mind, you know, pointing to my white husband who has immersed himself in, in Black community, Black culture. You know, he is a former DJ loves music and has tons of, he had more Black friends than I did when we met. And not in a like woke way. In a way in which he genuinely felt a sense of compassion and joy, but he knows that he has to be all of that to raise a Black child.
That has to be legitimate and authentic. I couldn't have married him if it, if, if it wasn't. Right. But most, and his child's biological child. But he is willing and able to decenter his own whiteness and consider our family Black. A different kind of Black really, cuz we are.
So do I think that white parents should be oof? I, you know, I don't primarily. But I, I think it's possible.
Sullivan Summer: I appreciate that. And I know it's a hard, it's a really hard . It's a Thor. It's, it's, yeah, it's a Thor a thorny question too, because you know, in, you know, in, in, in listening to you like, Hey, listen, they're not, unless they're, they're prepared to do all, all of this work.
And, and I think about again, were you, were, you and I both grew up...
Rebecca Carroll: I just wanna quickly, quickly say, I'm sorry to speak over you, but please. I don't think of it as work. It's not work. Mm-hmm. Right. It's not work. It's existence. It is. That's the problem. I think is looking at it as, as labor or work. It's not unless it becomes labor.
You know. Who wants to work at it? Who wants to work at it? This is why. You know, and it's, and we obviously have had numerous conversations and fights and arguments about this. My husband and I, you know, about what his feelings are and why, and what his relationship is with Blackness and this and that, and so on and so forth.
But there is also a kind of conversancy that is not, it's just, it's a fluency. It's not about, it's the same fluency that everybody else in America has about whiteness. It's like, why don't you have that? It's not work. It's not, if you ask a white person who you know has read Margaret Atwood or, or you know, watches Game of Thrones or whatever it may be, the case may be particularly in pop culture, but but also being surrounded by it all the time, every day at the default, the white gaze. It's not work to know about all of that.
Sullivan Summer: You've you saying, Hey, let me interrupt you. It's not work. Has has sort of knocked me speechless in a, in a way that, in a way, in a, in a way, Rebecca, I wish I was, we were physically together. Cause I would give you a hug, in that way. Because part of me thinks like, of course you're right.
Of course, of course. It's, and, and we shouldn't be using that vernacular and we shouldn't be using that terminology. And then the other half of me, which again still. Still myself works every day. You know, to get sort of out of my upbringing says, well, you know, so much of what you're, you're saying makes sense, you know, when you live in a city and as you said, you've, you know, you've raised your son in an urban environment where people look like him and it's all around and those kinds of things. Where we grew up I mean, we can see Black people on television all day long, but it's not there.
Rebecca Carroll: Although didn't. I think you're probably much younger than didn't.
Sullivan Summer: No. Didn't Yeah. But could have.
Rebecca Carroll: Mm-hmm.
Sullivan Summer: In theory and today, certainly today, certainly could.
Rebecca Carroll: Sure. Absolutely.
Sullivan Summer: And, and so, Hmm. How do you test their readiness, their knowledge, their, you know, it's almost a there's no Petri dish, if that makes sense, right?
Rebecca Carroll: Mm-hmm.
Sullivan Summer: Like Brooklyn is a Petri dish for right race relations and interactions. New Hampshire is not.
Rebecca Carroll: No, it sure is not. I am very, and this is, you know, in part cause I'm a writer and and language person, but I'm very wary of the way in which words and phraseology gets co-opted very quickly. So it's like, I , as you can imagine, there were a lot of friendships with white women that didn't make it through this book.
But I have recently been in, in touch with, with a friend who our relationship sort of suffered before the book came up. But anyway, what she was, she said to me is, she's like, I, I realize now that I, there's, I have to do the work and the, that phrase I have to do the work has become, I have a best friend, the new, I have a Black best friend.
It's like the way that these, you know, and the, and the, and the danger and peril of something like anti-racism or, you know the, the Robin D'Angelo book and, and Ibram Kendi and who are both very smart people and I'm, and I'm glad that their work exists, but the way that it gets snatched up so quickly and actually serves the opposite function, I'm very, very wary of that.
So if I meet a white person or a potential prospective white adoptive parent who says to me, I know we have to do the work in order to, you know, be good parents. I don't trust it. I don't trust them at all.
So I listen, you know, I listen to the way that people have conversations and talk about race and talk about their role in systemic racism and, you know, it's, again, it's accountability's not asking for, it's being it. It's having the conversation live inside of accountability, as opposed to what would it look like if you were accountable.
Sullivan Summer: Mm-hmm. So much of your work, really all of your work is, is so extensively steeped in, in Blackness and Black history and, and those kinds of things.
And I'm curious about how, or if you think about. How you approach those topics, which is every bit your history as it is mine, as it is any Black persons versus a Roxanne Gay or Kiese Laymon or, you know, other Black wrtier or who grew up much more steeped in their own culture than you did. I'm curious about whether or not you think you have a different lens?
Rebecca Carroll: Oh, for, absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, it's like running joke, right? It's like with, with certain sets of folks, of certain sets of people that it's, you know, it's the light-skinned Blacks, it's the mixed race. Kids who are always really insecure about our cultural and racial identity, whether adopted or not.
And, you know, that's very real. I think in the same way that I waited as long as I did to write the memoir, I, I waited for a certain emotional fortitude and I also waited for a certain like feeling of finally stepping into a Blackness that feels right.
Sullivan Summer: Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Carroll: Comfortable and authentic. But yeah, of course the lens is different and I know that people are like, oh, here she goes again. She's coming from her place of insecurity cuz she didn't get what, you know, Blackness when, you know, when she was raised. And I know that, that, that some folks probably think that. I don't particularly care and I don't think that it's particularly compassionate. But yeah, I know that, that, that that is a thing.
And that was part of the journey. That was part of the arc, right? I remember with Sugar in the Raw writing, in the introduction, like, or maybe it was Saving The Racie I can't remember. But writing about how I was inserting myself into these places of Blackness and spaces of Blackness and starting to feel like I was an intruder or like I was trying to appropriate my own culture.
Nobody told me that it was my culture. But it wasn't appropriation, but it was mine to inhabit. And, and that again is, is, that is a failing on the part of too many white adoptive parents.
Sullivan Summer: Yeah, I bet that that certainly, appropriate, appropriating my own culture certainly resonates, certainly resonates with me.
It's interesting to hear you say that you, you wrote the book when you felt like you had the fortitude and, and that you were ready. And again, I fully understand the sort of emotional toll that write a memoir takes. But it's interesting to hear you say that because even in, in your story, you know, as early as high school anyway, you were very much asserting, even as the only one in the room, you know, very much asserting your Blackness.
And so it's interesting to hear you say decades later, you feel like you have the, the fortitude to write the book.
Rebecca Carroll: Yeah, no, I didn't have, I, I didn't have the context or the language, but I definitely was deeply, deeply aware of the otherness and I was deeply aware of wanting to get the * out of there.
And I knew that it was all about strategy. You know, it was all about being in the right circle so that I could just get out of there. You know, where as my brother and sister, you know, my high school, I don't know if your high school had, you know, the front hall, the back hall, you know, front hall was the preppies and the good students and the back hall was the druggies and the bad students.
My brother and sister were in the back hall. I was in the front hall all day long. I was gonna get the out of dodge. Yeah. So yeah, those two things worked in tandem, but there was a lot of heartbreak. You know, there was a lot of real deep sadness and questioning and insecurity and all the regular things that, that teenagers go through anyway, without a whole lot of support.
Sullivan Summer: Mm-hmm. It's now been the, I mean the book's been out for 18 months now. Is there anything, like looking back, is there anything that you included in the book that maybe you wish you hadn't or vice versa? Anything that, that either you left out or your editor was cut that you sort of really wish was there?
Rebecca Carroll: No, I had extra, I have an extraordinary agent. I worked on the proposal for a whole year. And she worked on it with me. She is is one of those very rare agents, literary agents who actually also serves as an editor. And so we worked very hard on the proposal. And then Christine Pride, my editor really just, I, I wrote a first draft and you know, we talked about what the through line would be and as soon as we, we realized, or I realized that nothing that didn't speak directly to Surviving the White Gaze would make it in there.
So I could have written chapters and chapters about my friendship, my early friendship with Leah, which was really meaningful to me and we're still friends to this day and, and art and the importance of art in my life, and I mean, all sorts of things, but, but it had to stay as directly related to that through line as possible.
And so having said that, you know, there, do, I, I don't regret a single word. Not a single word. And. Again, as I said earlier at the, at the start, you know, I waited a long time. I waited, not just until I had the emotional fortitude, but the skill. Writing a memoir is hard as F*. Really, really hard, and so I waited until I had the skill and I'm deeply, deeply proud of it
Sullivan Summer: As well you should be for sure, and the, you know, the number of people I've seen impressed, and come out and just said, what an amazing book. And I, I think we all feel that way as well. For sure.
I, I know right after it came out, cuz you've talked a little bit about this publicly that your, your parents didn't necessarily shout from the rooftops "my daughter wrote a book. Everybody go read it. Can you talk a little bit?
Rebecca Carroll: Yeah. What's so, so wild? Sad about that is that everybody responded in exactly the way I wrote about them. My birth mother wrote letters and emails to my publisher, to venues that I was gonna speak at trying to get, trying to get me canceled for before, you know, before that term existed.
And my mom loved it until my dad didn't. And then she changed her position on it. That is pretty much acting in the character which I wrote about them. Which, which is the irony, right? I mean, that is who they are and that is how they responded. But I didn't actually, I didn't anticipate my parents being so... my, especially my dad, I did not anticipate him being, having the reaction that he had.
I mean, threatening to sue me is just wild. I had no sense of that. And, and you know, cause if you, you know, I wrote a piece earlier this year about, about still Surviving the White Gaze. My dad and I were super close growing up so close that my birth mother thought there was this concern. You know, all we could go on and on about that.
But yeah, I did not. I, I'm, and, and that, and that is, that makes me sad. That does definitely make me sad, but I have a great therapist, so.
Sullivan Summer: Can I ask you one more question about that? Yeah. One more hard, hard question about that. And, and again, you, you mentioned before, hey, you lost a lot of white friends through, through writing this book.
And I, I am estranged for my adoptive parents at, at this point in time for a lot of reasons, including racism.
Rebecca Carroll: Okay. Yeah,
Sullivan Summer: I'm, I'm, I'm curious about whether, hm. Do you, do you think that racism played into their reaction? What, what, what I mean by....
Rebecca Carroll: yeah. Hundred percent. Yeah. And that is, you know, I mean that sort of brings us full circle, right? Which is that, that they don't see it is also racist. That they're unable to put their ego aside is also racist. And that's really tough because it's like my dad is one of these Picasso type artists, white artist, male artists who, you know, he's not treacherous.
He's not Harvey Weinstein, but he's one, but he's one of these white male artists of a certain generation who feel like they can lean into being a romantic. And so the idea of adopting a Black child, there's a romance about that, that he really leaned into the aesthetic of it. The, the notion of it, the, you know, but a lot of that is just racism, straight up and down.
Sullivan Summer: I, I found also one of, not one of the, probably the most resonant part for me in, in the whole book was a part at the end. You alluded to this before, this part, before in the final pages you talk about you had gone to visit your family and you had your son Kofi with you, and you said, on our drive home to Brooklyn, Kofi asked why there was seemingly no evidence in their house that they had raised a Black child.
"No, Black art, books, music like there was in our home. I mean, it's all like turtles, he said from the backseat. Does that hurt your feelings, mom?"
It was not until I read that. And so I've read the book twice now. I read it the week it came out and then reread it. It was so, it was so a year and a half ago. It was not till I read that, that it occurred to me there was no Black anything in the house I grew up in. I didn't notice until I read that passage in, in your book. And so it's interesting when you talk about the, the, the racism and the inability to decenter whiteness, like, did that, did that not occur to them as you sort of art lovers of art and, and music and those kinds of things?
Rebecca Carroll: Oh, absolutely not. That did not occur to them. But I, but I would say, you know about that and I, and I'm, I'm really proud of my son for having, for being self-aware, far more discerning than I was obviously at his age, to bring that up, to feel comfortable enough and to feel compassionate enough to bring it up.
And I also think that it's really important for us to say, as adoptees and Black adoptees and adopts of color, like it's cruel. It's actually cruel to raise a child of a different race surrounded by whiteness all day, every day, day in, day out. It's kind of, it's cruel. And I think that, that it's, oh, we have to give ourselves permission to say that.
Sullivan Summer: Mm. Has anything changed with them now? Like at, at all? Like they
Rebecca Carroll: Changed in what way?
Sullivan Summer: Well, I'm gonna guess that a big light bulb hasn't gone on in terms of, oh, wait.
Rebecca Carroll: No, no, no, no.
Sullivan Summer: Wait. You're right.
Rebecca Carroll: No, no, no, no.
Sullivan Summer: Yeah, I think I'm, I'm, I'm curious because again, if I put it, take it outta your parents specifically, but again, I. You know, rural New Hampshire and, and many places in New Hampshire and a a lot of a lot of folks who fancy themselves very liberal.
Rebecca Carroll: Sure, oh yeah.
Sullivan Summer: In, in the state of New Hampshire. And in a bit of a, what I have observed is a cognitive dissonance between. You know, I vote blue and I wanna march in the women's march and, and those kinds of things. But being really happy in a place where you can literally go weeks without seeing an another non-white person or seeing a non-white person.
Rebecca Carroll: That part, that part, yeah. You know, they live in a bubble and that's comfortable to them and that bubble is dangerous to me, their daughter. And that they're unable to recognize that, makes it really, really hard for us to have a relationship. And do I want my, my kid around that? No, not so much. Now that doesn't mean that it's not the same thing as saying they didn't love me. Of course they loved me and I love them. .
Sullivan Summer: Alright. I think this is my last question and I know, I know Haley will have a, a closing question for us as well. Do you think that, do you think that finally telling your story yourself with your own words, has it changed you?
Rebecca Carroll: Yeah. Yeah, it has indeed. I just feel healthier.
Sullivan Summer: Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Carroll: I just feel healthier and I feel, I feel like it's a, it is, it's evidence of making good choices and that for all of the questioning, I arrived at a place where I love well and have loved well, and that I, I have centered Blackness in a way that is, that brings joy to my family. This family that I made and the family that I chose. Yeah. I feel I feel healthier. Emotionally healthier.
Sullivan Summer: Mm. Thank you so much, Rebecca and I.
Rebecca Carroll: Oh, it's my pleasure. Haley's gonna, I think Haley's gonna close us out with one last question.
Haley: I feel like I'm interrupting. I've had this pleasure of eavesdropping on this beautiful conversation, so thank you for sharing your heart with us, both of you.
I really appreciate it. Okay. We love to ask people what they're reading right now. So what are you reading, Rebecca?
Rebecca Carroll: Well, I'm doing a, I'm doing a conversation with Nabil Ayers, (My Life in the Sunshine) . My, my husband is reading it now. I just wanna recommend this cuz it's so good. Yeah. And we have a very interesting, similar story again. I mean, he wasn't adopted, but this is the book And he is the, he is the, he is the son of the jazz musician, Roy Iers, Ayers. But didn't have a relationship with him. So it's really, it's interesting. He also sort of grew in and around Cambridge and Massachusetts and Amherst, and so there's a lot of, so anyway, we're doing a conversation, a public conversation at the Brooklyn Public Library in a few weeks, so I'm just finished that. Done. I highly recommend.
Haley: Thank you. We will definitely add it to our TBR list. And before we say goodbye, I wanted to read you a couple of comments. The chat. Max says, no question, just wanted a chance to say, I'm also a rural New Hampshire transracial adoptee, and the book meant so much to me. So much of it mirrored my own experiences, and it just made me feel so un-gaslit for the first time in my life. Thank you.
And Laura shares, I am also a TRA from Greater Boston area, and I was born in Columbia and was raised in a white suburb, cape. Sorry, Canadian, SA? Was that, is that a state. Columbian state? Sa, I'm not sure.
Rebecca Carroll: Where is this person?
Haley: Laura?
Sullivan Summer: South America.
Haley: Columbia, South America.
(Audience Member Voice) Oh, okay. Hi.
Thank you. Born in Columbia, South America. Was raised in a white suburb and can relate to a lot of the issues in the book. I recommended it to other transracial adoptees. Thank you for allowing me to feel seen, heard, and heard and validated. I loved it.
So thank you so much, Rebecca. Thank you for joining us. Yes.
Rebecca Carroll: My pleasure.
Haley: Wonderful. So for everyone else who is here with us live, we always hang out a little after to just chat about the book and talk a little more about adoptee reading.
So you are welcome to hang out a little later if you'd like. And for those of you who are not here live, we're gonna say goodbye to you now. So I'm gonna stop the recording. Thank you so much Sullivan, for those amazing questions for..
Rebecca Carroll: Really, really good.
Haley: Beautiful interview. It was just honor to hear you shine in this way, thank you ladies.
(Upbeat music)
Haley: I am so honored that we get to host live events like these. For fellow adoptees and lots of people come to book club who have not read the book, that is not a requirement. We have fruitful and rich discussions. We usually hang out afterwards, sometimes with the author, sometimes not, and talk more about the book and what it meant to us personally, or just chit chat about adoptee stuff, which is such an honor to be invited in for those conversations.
And I wanna thank Sullivan Summer for hosting our book club for this month, for that October, 2022 discussion. And I have links to her Instagram in the show notes if you wanna follow along with her and see what else she's reading and what she's up to this year. And of course, Rebecca Carroll and all of her amazing projects.
We'll have links to those things in the show notes as well. Did you know she is also a podcaster? She's got a couple of shows out you can listen to. I will make sure to have those in the show notes for you. Thank you so much for listening, and we will be back with a regular episode next week. So let's talk again then.
