Read what Ms. Peden has to say regarding Rep. Holmes remarks regarding transracial adoption:
Rep. Alvin Holmes remarks about adoption are hurtful as well as untrue
Suzanne M. Peden
As a Clinical Social Worker in the state of Alabama since 1985, and the owner of a licensed child placing agency in Helena since 2001, A Angel Adoptions, I am truly heartbroken by the remarks of Representative Alvin Holmes, D-Montgomery, during a legislative debate over a bill to ban abortions after the detection of a fetal heartbeat.
His statement that "Ninety-nine percent of the white people who are sitting in here now, if their daughter got pregnant by a black man, they are going to make their daughter have an abortion" is simply not true. I have been working with pregnant women, babies, and adoptive families in the field of adoption for 29 years and my professional experience does not support his remarks.
Today, more than ever, Alabama and the rest of the nation are seeing an increase in interracial relationships, marriages, and children born who are of mixed racial heritage; President Barack Obama is a great example.
Additionally, the infertility rate among women/couples is at an all time high. I currently have two childless interracial adoptive couples who live in Alabama waiting for an adoptive placement. Last year I placed twelve infants who were of African-American or African-American/Caucasian heritage with adoptive couples who were of Caucasian or mixed ethnic heritages. I have no shortage of adoptive family resources for any race child.
If Rep. Holmes believes his opinions are in fact true then he needs to step up his research. Adoption professionals, birth parents, adoptive families, and adoptees are very upset by his statements that only give negative press to our state! In fact, it is my belief that a caucasian woman pregnant with an African-American/caucasian child in any state is more likely to parent that baby than to have an abortion or make an adoption plan.
Suzanne M. Peden is executive director of A Angel Adoptions in Helena.
State Rep. Alvin Holmes did not start his call to the radio show by talking about white families adopting black children. Instead, he attempted to focus the discussion on interracial marriage, claiming, “First of all, my statement, that I made was that the majority of white people in Alabama was against interracial marriage.”
Representative Holmes said his belief is based on a November 2000 vote in which Alabama voters overturned a 100-year-old law that prohibited interracial marriage, but which Holmes claimed a “majority of whites” voted against. That 14-year-old vote is apparently what he’s still basing his opinions on today.
He's just talking about the conservative segment of Alabama's electorate that is resistant to multiracial relationships and families. Sometimes, Rep. Alvin Holmes is right. But the problem with his logic is that it's not just conservatives/Southerners that are resistant to the idea. It's also liberals/non-Southerners, those who claimed to be progressive on most issues yet have a big problem when it comes to multiculturalism/interracial relationships in their families.
This is not to let right-wingers/conservatives off the hook, for they're more active in opposing interracial/inter ethnic relationships, families, multiculturalism in general. All you have to read the venomous response to President Obama, the Cheerios commercial, the hateful comments on various conservative message boards such as American Renaissance, Breitbart, Freerepublic, Steve Sailer/VDare, Heartiste, The Spearhead, etc.
Hear what he said before the Alabama State Legislature regarding the hypocrisy of anti- abortionists when it comes to abortion and race.
Then watch the racist hypocrite Sean Hannity's remark:
Shawn Hannity have some nerve lecturing Blacks about bigotry when he's clearly is one!
