Round 'em up, cowgirl
Is your adopted son still your son if you never adopted him? Speaker of the House Mike Johnson thinks so.
The new Speaker of the House of Representatives, the man now second in line to the presidency, is Mike Johnson, a Republican congressman from Louisiana. For several days now - since he was elected - Iāve been obsessed with stories about the āadopted Black childā he and his wife took in when they were newlyweds. I did a dozen Google searches trying to understand it - because hereās the thing: if itās true, then why does this child not appear in a single family photo in Johnsonās active social media feed? Why does his campaign literature repeatedly refer to his four children? If he counted his āadoptedā son, he has five.Ā
The truth is more nuanced. He and his wife did ātake inā a 14-year-old boy soon after they were married. Johnson says the boy is now a man in his 30s who lives in California and has four children. He has not surfaced in the public vortex. So Johnson has grandchildren that he has never mentioned.
But Johnson doesnāt actually have grandchildren - because as media began to focus on this issue, he switched up his story and said they had raised this young man, but never adopted him because it involved too much paperwork. Iāll sidestep the obvious hypocrisy of a government employee complaining about paperwork - but I will tell you this: yes, adoption requires paperwork - especially international adoptions. Adoption out of foster care, however, which seems to be what the Johnsons did, is a cakewalk. It costs nothing, is streamlined, and parents have custody of the adopted child during the whole process. Itās easier than doing taxes.Ā Also? He considered the boy his son but he wouldnāt do paperwork for him?
What bothers me about this whole scenario is the duplicity with which Johnson refers to his son. Because he doesnāt always refer to him as his son. And when he does, itās only in context. He mentioned him when he voted against reparations for African Americans - Johnson understands discrimination, he said, because he walked through it with his adopted son.Ā Thatās how he knows self-reliance is more effective than reparations.
In a 2020 interview with Walter Isaacson, Johnson explained how he was outraged at the George Floyd murder, especially considering his experience with his adopted son, who coincidentally is also named Michael. ā(Michael) shares his testimony that were it not for our intervention in his life, he certainly would have joined a gang, gotten on drugs, wound up in prison, or dead on the street somewhere.ā Later, he says, āWe now have four other children, of our own.ā Of our own. Damn, those three words slay me.Ā
I have three children. If you know me, you know my children were adopted. I have never said, āI have three adopted children.ā Never. Iām actually tearing up as I write this - because my kids are my kids, without adjectives, other than the ones we all use - amazing, beautiful, irritating, needy, etc. Ā
Johnson and his wife seem to have helped this young man for a few years, and then apparently the boy moved on with his life. But then donāt call him your son, for heavenās sake. Donāt use him to validate your bigoted viewpoints. Having a child of color, by the way, does not mean you understand discrimination. You donāt! You donāt get to say that, ever! And you donāt get to speculate about what might have happened to a child were it not for your magnanimous intervention. Thatās white savior complex, sir. Itās literally a thing.
I know a lot more about discrimination because of my children - but I will never experience what they go through, and Iāll never pretend that I do.Ā
Iām not discounting what the Johnsons did. But it doesnāt sound very altruistic - and it didnāt fill some sort of quota. You donāt get to do a nice thing for one person of color then say, āOkay! I get it! No need to do any of that again!ā Itās a lot different than using your significant political muscle to help lift marginalized people out of oppression.Ā
Note: At least Johnson purports to care about race. He has actively campaigned against LGBTQ rights for decades, and once authored op-eds in support of criminalizing homosexuality. āThere is clearly no 'right to sodomy' in the Constitution,ā he wrote in 2003.
There are lots of reasons to rail against our current malfunctioning regime. But I guess the adoption issue nags at me because I find it so offensive, and because it speaks to the duplicity of the evangelical right wing of the Republican party. Iām constantly flabbergasted when I hear white politicians claim to know how to heal the racial divide. How do you know?Ā
Iām going to cease this rant now. Iām tired. And my son is texting me. My beautiful, hilarious, broke son.Ā
Heās asking for a Venmo. Would he even be my son if he wasnāt?
.Ā
So the thing that disturbs me, and perhaps all the off-spring of the Booker diaspora, is that our new speaker hails from Northwest Louisiana, which is uncomfortably close to our family heritage, and here is an uncomfortable quote from our new Speaker of the House:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1717342823572259075
It is appalling how right-wing the state of Louisiana is, and how active but latent the narrowness, and bigotry seethes in that region of the nation, and yes renting a black kid to use as a media tool is not beneath the cynical quest for power among the right wing.
Cling tight to your three beautiful children, who I am pleased to be known as my cousins, we are all gonna need to find new ways to speak truth to wanna-be power thieves. Y'all don't be strangers, and look forward to the day we do not need to weep as we express our pursuit of truth.
-Cousin Thomas
Nicely done , friend. And, as always, with your wonderful combination of outrage, humor, and wit.