When You're "Just Like" a Blood Relative...but not

I spend a minimum of 80 minutes in the car, five days per week, driving back and forth to school.  I am determined not to waste this time and have gotten into the habit of using this time to really think about things that come into my mind.  On the way home the other day, I was thinking about something I heard a person of color in an ethnically diverse group in the United States say to a group of people: "I'm a normal person.  I'm a real person, just like you."  I developed this deep sense of injustice, the kind that gives you that hollow feeling in your gut.  What must it be like to live in a society where the majority has set what is "normal," White people get to be what is "normal," where someone in a diverse group feels compelled to explain how she is similar to White people and the dominant U.S. culture in order to convince others she's a "normal person" too?  I thought of other groups (e.g. individuals with disabilities, sexual minority groups) who might experience this as well and how majority groups that I may belong to may be perpetuating these ideas.  I then wondered if I could relate in any way, personally, as being a woman and an adoptee I have experienced oppression myself. 

Here are some things I have overheard over the years:

"I always just think of you as a White person" (said by a White person to a person of color).
If someone is not White, why is it a compliment to be seen as White?  Why does White get to be superior and a compliment to the point that we would expect a person of color to just be thrilled that we've erased or have been "colorblind" to their racial group?

"I always forget you're disabled; you just seem 'normal' to me"
First of all, disability is a normal and natural part of being a human being.  The problem lies with a society that functions in ways that not all members of that society can equally participate depending on their different abilities.  We live in a society that will set up a store layout with aisles a wheelchair cannot fit through and when someone who uses a wheelchair cannot reach all the items and go through all the isles to shop, we say the person has a "disability" and "special needs."  We label the person as the problem instead of acknowledging that the store layout is flawed.  I do understand that likely no matter how we set up that store (it's probably not the best example), there will be individuals who will need some extra support to shop.  What I'm trying to point out there is that we would sooner view and label people as being "inconvenient" rather than working towards a society that acknowledges, seeks to be interdependent with, and values what every human being has to offer.  The bolded statement above labels another person as "abnormal" and then grants them honorary status as a "normal" person by erasing their different ability and that's just not OK.

"I don't think of you as gay.  You seem just like a straight person to me."
I don't understand why people are so gender and sexual-orientation conscious or why someones sexual orientation is anyone elses' business let alone that person's place or business to accept, reject, or erase in order to make themselves more comfortable.  What is a gay person "like?"  What is a straight person "like?" 

What this sounds like, is people ignoring, erasing, being "blind" (e.g. "colorblind") to someone elses' diversity and awarding them "majority" status as if it were some sort of upgrade!  Where is the reality that it is wonderful to be exactly who you are?  Not "as if" you were "like" another person--but to be just right, lovable, understandable, acceptable, just as you are?  To accept someone is to accept them, period.  It is not to transform them into what you think is superior in your mind and accept the concept of them that you've created.  It is privilege that puts one in the presumptuous position of being "accepting," "tolerant," or "blind" to what is different about another person without questioning why our Whiteness, heterosexuality, or abilities do not require "acceptance," "tolerance," or "blindness."

Here is something I've heard a lot when people talk to me about adoption:

"They treat her just like she's their own," or "They treated me like I was blood/biological."

First of all, I am blood/biological.  I am not made up of plastic or some other inorganic substance.  I may not be of my adoptive parent's blood or biological make-up but I am a human being, I am biologically related to blood relatives.  Second of all, I am their own.  I see myself as belonging within both of my families.  And I have to ask, why treat me like something that I'm not.  What's wrong with being exactly who I am?  What is wrong with not being the biological daughter of my adoptive parents that I have to be given the honorary status of being not blood, but "like blood?"

The fact of the matter is, I will never be my adoptive parents' biological daughter.  So why is it important or flattering to be treated like I am?  When someone says something like that, they make biology as the absolute standard for love and family relationships, where you belong and are loved without saying if you are biologically-related but if you're adopted you have to be compared as being almost like something you're not to be seen as achieving the same thing.  I am tired of having my reality as a non-biological relative in my adoptive family being erased just so other people can be comfortable with, define, and understand how I am loved and accepted by my family.  I am tired of having my existence within my original family diminished because of what makes sense to other people.  It just isn't necessary.  I am perfectly fine being just who I am.

My parents never loved me like I was someone else.  Because it was me they loved :-)

Author's note: there are comparisons within each bolded phrase about erasing who someone is so that they can be defined or accepted by someone elses' standards.  But I in no way mean to say that race related issues, LGBTQ issues, issues of ability, or being adopted are all "like" each other or identical in every way.  Such would defeat the point of this post altogether.

Photo credit: digitalart