Urban Outfitters T-shirt: Adopting Is the New Black
by Carmen Van Kerckhove
You know a trend is out of control when even Urban Outfitters, the retailer that brings hipster fashion to the masses (hey I’m not hating, I buy their stuff too!), needs to comment on the transracial/international adoption obsession. Thanks to Jessica for the tip!
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
bgwqlc wrote:
I am a little confused on the shirt. Do they mean “black “as in race or “black” as in color? In fashion they will say some color ( like gray or pink) is the “new black” because it is the big new trend.
Posted 26 Apr 2007 at 10:31 am ¶
kim wrote:
bgwqlc:
Good eye; great observation and inquiry.
I’d like to know as well. I’m more than a little disturbed by any cultural reference here, as it applies to “acquiring” people.
This issue is only going to become more explosive (adopting internationally) as we move away from the idea of set-asides and race-based preferences, and Blacks remain the “ever outsider,” neither eagerly absorbed into, or welcomed by, White communities and sensibilities.
I would hope all the talk by the struggles of trans-racial/trans-cultural adoptees would take more precedence, though, in the conversations about the new American adoptive trends than some scandalous commodification meant only to inflame sensibilities.
Whatever the final determination about the logo: please don’t buy it.
Posted 26 Apr 2007 at 11:55 am ¶
bgwqlc wrote:
Kim: I agree with you.
Adopting should not be seen as trendy but something you feel in your heart that you want to do.
I plan on adopting when I get a good bit older and I don’t want someone thinking I did it because it is “cool and trendy”.
Posted 26 Apr 2007 at 1:52 pm ¶
Thad wrote:
This T-shirt is plainly about the unfortunate trend set by certain celebrities who do everything because it is the ‘thing-of-the-moment.’ This has nothing to do with race and everything to do with fame. It is a fileting of the very idea that something as powerful and important as adoption can be reduced to a trend by the rich and famous. This shirt is clearly meant to point the finger of shame at people who do that, and by no means, to reduce the importance of adoption.
Hopefully adoption from within the U.S. will rise as a result of the media exposure that Madonna, Anglina Jolie, etc, generate whenever they adopt. But I doubt it. We will forever be a culture of foreign consumption instead of domestic growth……
Posted 26 Apr 2007 at 2:14 pm ¶
kim wrote:
You know, Thad, I don’t disagree, and am glad to even further expand the perspective of the point of this T-, as to the reasons behind the T- and its expression.
However, there are “trends” at place and at work regarding international adoptions among the common well-off. Those who are not celebrities, those who live near you. It was for those reasons that I spoke as I did.
As to the “foreign consumption” comment…ouch.
Posted 26 Apr 2007 at 4:20 pm ¶
RobynT wrote:
I think it could also be about race in addition to adoption, but whatever the case, I’m pretty sure it’s critiquing the trend of adoption and also–if the black means Black–Blackness as a trend.
Posted 26 Apr 2007 at 5:15 pm ¶
deb wrote:
I think it could also be about race in addition to adoption, but whatever the case, I’m pretty sure it’s critiquing the trend of adoption
Yeah, I thought this also. At the UO link there’s another t-shirt that reads: “Rehad Is The New Black.” So, I guess they’re saying that adoption, and rehab are the flavors of the month. But, something about that adoption shirt….
If we’re talking about figurative language…. I saw a pop-up ad at that said: “Shoot the rapper.” It was a flash-animated scene with a 50-cent look alike walking up and back: he’s a moving target. I see the words “shoot” and “rapper” in the same sentence and think: “WTF?” Who’s playing into stereotypes about rappers and violence, huh? Then I notice that “50″ is walking on the red carpet and there are photographers all around trying to shoot…uh, take his picture. But, still. There was some double-entendre goin’ on.
Posted 26 Apr 2007 at 8:27 pm ¶
Kellie wrote:
Personally, as an adoptive parent, I was pretty offended by this. Many of us, myself included, have contacted the company to request they remove it from their shelves. I think it reinforces the idea of our children as commodities and even “fashion accessories”. I can’t imagine how I am supposed to explain something like this to my child.
I think the current “trend” is really just media hype surrounding a handful of celebrity adoptions. Unfortunately, other non-celebrity families are also having to deal with the fallout. Families do not make the incredibly important decision of how to build a family based on the actions of one or two celebrities. To imply that we do so is insulting. I hope lots of other people let UO know that they think so too (if you agree, of course).
Posted 26 Apr 2007 at 9:13 pm ¶
shirt_tied wrote:
Bearing in mind that this is UO vs. , say, Abercrombie, the audience as well as message and intent is going to be much different (read edgier, snarkier, wittier, etc.). Context is key…
Apologies that they’re offensive, but I give them credit for being provocative, timely, and close enough to their target that reaction erupts. That what good (value neutral sense of the word) messages do.
Nothing, of course, prevents equally clever competing shirts from being sported. I’d prefer creativity of better messages to ripping the shirts right off of folks via oppressive silence and bans (wait, it’s almost summer, lemme think about that for a sec…)
No, I’m sure, creativity = good thing!
Posted 26 Apr 2007 at 10:20 pm ¶
Tammy wrote:
Kellie – I absolutely agree with you and have already called UO. It’s my understanding that the shirt has already been taken off the shelves because of the high volume of complaints.
Carmen – are you endorsing the t-shirt’s message? I’m not sure it’s fair to describe international adoption as an out of control trend. Quite frankly, I find your statement to be the very kind of generalized stereotype that you so adamantly oppose. Please correct me if I misunderstood your comments.
Posted 26 Apr 2007 at 11:50 pm ¶
Eun-jung wrote:
I honestly can’t tell you how I exactly feel right now about this t-shirt. There is a part of me that is slightly chuckling to myself – because I see the mockery that Urban was trying to achieve. The fact that adoption has become such a “trendy” thing as the quintessential “little black dress” among celebrities and “the rich and famous”.
On the other hand, the adoptee in me cries out – it’s almost as worse as those “adoption mommy” t-shirts that I saw on my friend’s blog the other day with sayings like “Pregnant with Love for a Baby in China”. It’s just…weird. And it even further demoralizes and demeans the meaning of a adoption in every way, I think. I personally have been through hell and back in a handbag from my adoption experience…and never saw any positives except that I am here, and I have the friends that I have now – and I have a culture that has taken me years to find confidence in calling my own.
I was always sickened by this whole adoption issue from the start. Pax was the new Louis Vutton bag that just went on the shelves and looked great with Angelina’s brand new pair of Seven For All Mankind jeans. In no way was she saying “I love this child.” Maybe that’s how she truly feels but that’s not how it’s covered.
And yet I can’t help but think that she never felt that way at all. Look how close the adoptions are within each other. How can you possibly adopt children from such starving, third-world countries, and expect that within a year or so they have fully adapted to the “celebrity” life let alone just a life where they get fed a cracker and glass of clear water every day. I am not trying to create sympathy for starving countries or trying to magnify the issues of third-world countries but I guess what I am trying to say is that any child – especially foreign adoptees – need time to adapt, and to be nurtured and to be loved and cared for. No matter how young or old they are. I don’t think she’s giving her children that much time. And I think both her and Madonna have come to the table with the wrong type of attitude. “Look what I have done. Look where that child would have been if I weren’t there to scoop them up and put them in Juicy Couture.”
They aren’t saviors. And children shouldn’t be meant to be raised to feel guilty for their position, or for the circumstances in which they came to be. Immediately putting the good samaritan stamp on things makes an adoptee (I speak from experience) feel obligated in every way.
If you were born out of your mother’s womb, would you feel obligated to do everything they said? I bet not. I bet it doesn’t cross people’s minds. Save for some.
But to live everyday with the stigma of “I Chose You” or “Look what I did for You” is ridiculous and terribly consuming for a child.
Bottom line…these shirts are borderline un-P.C. for me…I would wear it if I felt like it made a big enough statement to go against the trend of international adoption…but I don’t feel like it quite goes the distance for my liking.
Posted 27 Apr 2007 at 7:10 am ¶
Carmen Van Kerckhove wrote:
Tammy, no I’m not endorsing this T-shirt. When I talk about the trend being “out of control” I’m really referring to the celebrity craze, in particular Angelina Jolie.
My views on international and transracial adoption are complex. But you can read some of my ideas here.
Also, don’t know if you’ve ever checked out my other blog Anti-Racist Parent, but we talk much more in-depth about adoption over there.
Posted 27 Apr 2007 at 7:46 am ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:
>If you were born out of your mother’s womb, would you feel obligated to do everything they said? I bet not. I bet it doesn’t cross people’s minds. Save for some.
>But to live everyday with the stigma of “I Chose You” or “Look what I did for You” is ridiculous and terribly consuming for a child.
Interesting perspective Eun-Jung…I would have never thought of it that way
Posted 27 Apr 2007 at 8:18 am ¶
deb wrote:
Good grief, woman! How many blogs do you have?
Posted 27 Apr 2007 at 8:35 am ¶
Eun-jung wrote:
Carmen – just finished reading the article regarding Madonna… I couldn’t really agree more with you.
Toya – Not many people do, unfortunately. I think a lot of A-parents say that out of desperation of lacking the exact words of what they are really trying to say (whether it be “you’re ungrateful” or “I love you so much, why can’t you see that?”)
I grew up in a world where if I had dirt on my dress from playing outside it was “I gave you life, I saved you…and this is how you repay me?”
I just feel very concerned for these children later on if their adoptions were just the product of saving face. Meaning – the parents just wanted to look like the Good Will Ambassador and thought “Well, I could adopt a panda…but I’d rather adopt a little Chinese girl instead!” and then when the kids grow up – they have this awful truth to face: once the public eye was off the parents, the kids felt that they lost their worth. (This was a big big subject that I discussed and help orchestrate an adoptee forum/camp for through a local adoptee organization a long time ago. Surprisingly, many kids felt this way.)
Let’s hope for Pax, Maddox, and Zahara (as well as David) that that is not the case.
Posted 27 Apr 2007 at 11:58 am ¶
Nezua wrote:
well, yes. i read it as a snarky comment on the Angelina Addiction to owning an Other. (which, trust me, i am against. )
“Adoption is the new, empty, glossy, fashionable trend” and I see this shirt as mocking that. that is…for once i felt it was a fashion/social commentary statement aimed correctly, even though marketed in such a way. the very glitzy, crass, pop feel of the typography and presentation (and product!) underlines the trend it attacks.
then, i wonder if the confluence of the slang/fashion use of “new black” is too much at odds with the racial label that we cannot separate from the adopting issue.
so the question is…would more people view it as offensive? and if so, does it help or just hurt? despite what the maker’s intention is. we know intention doesn’t mitigate consequence.
Posted 27 Apr 2007 at 2:09 pm ¶
Lisa Marie wrote:
I dont know what to make of this either. My first reaction was to feel sick to my stomach. I dont know – its like a race joke in general, (regardless of whether they are talking about black the color or a racialized black) that walks a line so thinly that only certain people can get it. and Im not sure I get it.
I get both contexts – blackness as a commodity and black, asian, latin bodies as commodity – and it makes me fucking sick either way you look at it. Either way black bodies are still at risk here. Either way blackness as something devoid of anything poltiical or spiritual or … its still about selling black bodies – either fucking way.
Im not sure – are they calling hollywood out? or are they just attempting to walk the line to make people think. and I applaud trying to make people think – but as a BLACK transracial adoptee – Im just feeling like going to the window and barfing, I’m just not sure its workin for me. so NO – i dont agree that its ‘clearly’ anything.
Posted 27 Apr 2007 at 3:22 pm ¶
Kellie wrote:
Thanks, Eun-jung, for your great posts, and for bringing up the flip side to this – the whole “savior issue”.
It seems like whenever there is media coverage of adoption – particularly transracial, foster care, and/or international adoption – the coverage goes one of two ways. Either they paint the adoptive parents as saints rescuing a child from certain death or as baby-stealing rich folk after the latest accessory. Certainly folks like Madonna who go on TV and say things like, “I am giving him a life” invite the kind of criticism on this shirt. However, it makes me crazy that a couple of celebrity adoptions means that I now must explain that, “No, I did not adopt my daughter because of Angelina or Madonna” (weird that this is now considered a “trend” in spite of the fact that I think the total number of international adoptions actually went down last year). I guess that this might balance the “she is so lucky” and “thank you” (???) comments we also get.
Transracial adoption is complicated, the media tends to oversimplify, and bumper sticker-like phrases are probably always going to get it way wrong. I would argue that any adoption – domestic, transracial, transcultural, international – carries some degree of moral murkiness. Adoptive parents can’t ignore this part of it. I know it has been harder for me then I ever imagined it would be, but for my daughter’s sake I have to do my best to honestly assess and address the issues that have allowed me to be her mom at the expense of her first family. But I digress.
In sum, I just wish that there was more honest (mainstream) discussion and media coverage of adoption. Why does every adoptive parent need to either be a saint or a trend-savvy baby-stealer? Ack. I guess it just makes a better story (or t-shirt) that way.
Posted 27 Apr 2007 at 3:43 pm ¶
Ghno wrote:
Kellie… by that same, er, token (neutral sense of the word y’all of course!0, just think of what the birth mom has to be thinking, processing, and saying in terms of messages now each time too.
It’s as if they only get one narrative: “you disposed of your child. Frankly all the mixed messages floating around don’t help Abortion vs. pro-life, contracception and now Lybrel… everything about choice makes it seem that no matter what a woman does, it either is the wrong one or somehow she’s defective even when she’s trying to do right by her child.
I don’t blame the media, or at least all– it has to condense the complex to the simple. I blame the inability to get the *right* messages across effectively to the broader public through the same means available without resorting to fear and hate.
I once heard that a sexy lie beats a dry fact, and compelling truth trumps a noble falsehood. Though I don’t quite agree with shirt_tied’s message, I don’t think turning away from every message that annoys or offends my sensibilities is the answer either. By banning it, you don’t eliminate the sentiment, just the symbol, and that’s worse, because folks truly don’t know what’s wrong.
Where are the better messages that challenge and dispel– maybe update– the outdated notions of adoptions (especially transracial) and lay the groundwork for healthy assumptions? Why aren’t the standard bearers wearing those positive messages on their chests rather than carrying their grievances on their sleeves? Let the stores sell them, I say, and let those who wear them face public shame and ridicule when something better comes along.
Posted 27 Apr 2007 at 6:42 pm ¶
Cactus Lion wrote:
A couple stray thoughts on this topic:
1] I like snakry. I like witty. As shirt_tied posted “context is key”. I guess I potentially *like* (by the transitive property?) the t-shirt (although I would never buy/wear it). I think, though, one of the interesting aspects to this is that the shirts are/were marketed towards a younger audience, who may very rightly so have opinions (strong, disposable or otherwise) on this issue of trans-national & -racial adoption (because that is what the shirt is getting at; I think that’s pretty clear), but who are so not in the age range to pull off/consider in the short-term adoptions like this. I don’t see many American teenagers and young twenty-somethings lining up to fill out the paperwork and prepare their homes/lives for that ‘international’ baby. So, in my own snarky way, I love how the target audience of UO is ready to make fashion statements about something that probably doesn’t concern them in the first person, when adoption is the ultimate ‘first person’ experience/action: it either affects someone’s life rather directly, or it doesn’t. (OF COUSE I am totally compressing and generalizing somewhat here, and respect that you don’t only have to be in the position of the adoptive parent to have strong, valid, thought-out and very ‘truly’ felt opinions about this topic – i.e. you could have been adopted, you might have a relative who was adopted, it might be a very passionate and first-person concern for someone regardless, the list goes on; I don’t mean to slight that).
2] I think larger social and cultural ‘trends’ should be distinguished from what’s ‘trendy’ (it’s an unfortunate (sometimes fortunate) trick of the English language I think that we often confuse the two), and my general feeling is that the celebrity adoptions du jour (I’m thinking of the Jolie-Pitts) are part of a larger American/Western trend (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing) as opposed to ‘trendy’, which is what the media packages them as. Naturally, I could totally be wrong as I get way too much of my info/views/insight from People Magazine, E! Online and Vanity Fair.
But I raise this because, in general, I think it should be noted that the (celebrity) trend of trans-national & racial adoption may go up and down in trendiness, but it has been with us for a long while, dating back to the fabulous Josephine Baker and her self-styled ‘Rainbow Tribe’ of children. And for the record, mostly unrelated to this post, for what it’s worth, I *heart* Josephine Baker.
3] I always thought it was a bit ‘off’ when you read about say, Maddox Jolie-Pitt and the caption or whatever will start off with ‘the adopted child of” when the adoption took place years ago, and that label may likely have to precede his “child of” status for the rest of his media life (this isn’t just a transnational-racial thing; it’s also true for, as an example, Rosie O’Donnel’s kids)
3.5] Maddox reminds me about something I read re: Pax, e.g. that Angelina was conscious of adopting another child from Asia (yes, Vietnam is a wholy different country from Cambodia) to ‘balance out the races’ (her words) out of consideration for Maddox. Not so strange, really, as I know a bunch of people who have had a second child (or third…) in order to provide their (first) child with a sibling. (FYI, lots of people admit that freely, which, as a second/youngest child myself, sort of rocks my ego-centric take on the/my universe). Just putting it out there.
4] As a gay person of 32 years old, I want kids someday sooner rather than later (if there’s any shocker here, it’s that I’m 32 years old! when did that happen?). Probably adopting with my partner is how that’s going to happen, so I sort of think about the issue of adoption generally waaay more than I should/would otherwise (and totally get that there are valid and passionate opinions about general adoption issues/experiences that range the gamut). That future lil’ household of mine is already probably one degree away from what American society at large might consider ‘common’ (I don’t use the word normal in this context; being gay is normal, it’s just not common), which is parallel in some ways (in the largest, clunkiest, crudest ways) to trans-national-racial adoptions, and while I’m not so naive to think that all you need is love, I think that with love & a smart head on one’s shoulders (read: eyes wide open), pretty much anything can work and be a success, especially one-on-one family relationships, which is why I think it’s, while rather witty, somewhat too reductive to consider, as the shirt says quite literally, adoption as the new black, because there’s nothing trendy about famliy life (that’s not cue the violins, that’s more like cue the fact that this your life and fingers crossed, it’s going to be a long one).
Posted 27 Apr 2007 at 9:03 pm ¶
brianna wrote:
Hi there, I just wanted to say that there are many of us who have adopted internationally who couldn’t care less about being trendy! My goodness these are my SONS we’re talking about. An orphan from the third world has just about no hope for a future. I DO think that ideally each country would be able to care for their own orphans, but sadly that is not the case today. I think as adoptive parents we need to be involved in giving financially to our children’s birth countries to hopefully help children be able to stay in their birth families in the future.
Please don’t write off all international adoptions or adoptive families as just trying to be “in.” The truth is adoption is a complex issue. To anyone who is saying we should only be adopting “our own”, I would first ask: have YOU adopted domestically? Just some random thoughts. I can about guarantee that no matter how slim the prospects of a child in the US’s foster care system, those prospects are infinitely greater than an orphan’s in Ethiopia.
Posted 28 Apr 2007 at 4:16 pm ¶
B.G. wrote:
“An orphan from the third world has just about no hope for a future.”
Cringe. Someone’s got a savior complex. Did you even the read the damn post and engage with the questions of neo-colonialism and classism? Madonna’s adopted kid was *not* even an orphan. As Ms. Kerckhove already asked, shouldn’t people who claim to care about poor kids work to keep families together instead of selfishly benefiting from their poverty?
Posted 02 May 2007 at 11:44 pm ¶
Dakota wrote:
I saw this shirt out of the window of Urban Outfitters when I was walking with my sister, (who was adopted from Vietnam) and I have to say, I wanted to throw up. Luckily, she is still too young to read, but I still felt like I had to run and get out of there, to protect her. What if when she is older people see her as the result of a fad or trend.
I wish my sisters life could be as simple as “She has a family that loves her,” without everyone thinking about the fact that she doesnt look like the rest of us. Maybe it will be like that someday soon. She is my sister, my mothers daughter, and she is just as loved and treasured to us as my biological siblings. She just came into our family in a different way. Its like when people say “Is she adopted?” I always say, “No, she WAS adopted.” I know they dont mean anything rude by it, but her adoption is something that happened, just like me being born into my family is somthing that happened, not something that I am defined by.
That being said, her being adopted will change her life. There will be challenges she will go through other kids wont. She’ll wonder about her biological mother, her birth country, what her life may have been like. I dont think we need people here making her life harder by degrading her.
Posted 16 Jan 2009 at 3:59 am ¶