Western Adoptions Raise Fears of Cultural Imperialism

Madonna has recently become the latest celebrity to adopt a child from a poverty-stricken African country. The idea of a wealthy Westerners rescuing a black child troubles many black people. It alludes to the fact that us black folks are doing such as poor job of raising our own, that we need white people to come and bail us out. Maybe this harkens back to the old colonial concept of "white man's burden," where Europeans felt it was there duty to civilize African savages - even if by doing this, they massacred several thousand Africans and economically exploited them.

The concept of white families adopting black children is nothing new. I think what troubles many black people is the affinity many white women have for black children. When my sister was a baby in England, we couldn't walk down the street without people walking up to say how cute she was. It's like the whole tanning thing. I often ask my white friends why do they want to turn their skins brown, when naturally dark-skinned people catch hell around the world?

My dad said that when he was a student in Britain in the 1970s, many Nigerians put their kids in foster care while they worked two or three jobs and went to school. Some of them later got into lengthy battles with their foster parents when they came to get the kids back, and in many cases the courts ruled in favor of the foster parents.

I have mixed feelings about African kids adopted in the West. I have lived in Africa, so I am under no illusion how difficult life is for the average African. The nine years I spent in Nigeria were some of the most difficult of my life. Life in Nigeria is a constant struggle to achieve the bare necessities of life such as decent health care, nutritious food and clean water. There is a small elite who boast about having things that most people in the West take for granted, but the average Nigerian lives a Darwinian existence.

David Banda, the child Madonna adopted, will have a much better life materially. He will have good schools, access to the best health care, decent nutrition and will be largely protected from the harsher side of life. I doubt if he could have dreamt up a better existence, but there is something worrisome about what will happen in his future. What will his culture be? Will he speak any Malawian languages? Will he remember any of his old customs? Will he remember how to cook Malawian food?
It's surprising that these words are coming from me, because there was a time when the word culture using to make me gag. I was raised in Britain in a very urban and Western environment, and then moved back to Nigeria at the age of 12. To say it was a cultural shock, would be an understatement. It was like being hit with a cultural nuclear bomb. I went from the hip, urban culture of South London, to a very traditional African culture in Nigeria. Adolescents go through a period where they rebel against their parent's authority. In my teenage years I subconsciously rebelled against being force fed Nigerian culture by retaining my English accent, and failing to speak Yoruba, my parents native tongue, fluently. I felt my identity was being erased and I was being forced to comply with Nigerian culture.

You begin to see things from a different perspective as you get older. Sometime in my 20s, I realized my cultural identity was both British and Nigerian. You can't run from who you are. I am a Yorubaman, but one who happens to have been raised in England and who lives in America. A few years ago I realized that my lack of fluency in Yoruba might be a problem if I have children because I could not teach them the language. A generation would go by and the language would be lost. If that doesn't frighten you, just talk to a Native American. They have watched their culture whither and die as their children move away, stop speaking their languages and inevitably become assimilated in to mainstream American society. Culture is a precious thing, and something you often don't cherish until it's gone. I think we are all guardians of our unique cultures and it's our duty to pass that onto to our descendants.

Black people, both in the Diaspora and in the motherland, are still very sensitive to the concept of cultural imperialism. The west has had a huge, and often disruptive influence, on black culture. The fact that I communicate in English and have both a Christian name and a Yoruba name is evidence of that. Many Black Americans and Carribeans still have the names of their slave masters and have practices which borrow heavily from Anglo-Saxon culture.

The adoption of black children by Westerners troubles many black people because it shines a light on the failure of our cultures to take care of these children. It also speaks to our fear of black culture being erased by Western culture. Colonialism, imperialism and the slave trade have left black people struggling to hang onto what's left of their authentic culture. And when people have been stripped of their way of life they often fight hard to hang onto what's left of it.