In the midst of the ongoing global protests and calls for racial justice, one Black mother is speaking up to explain the reason why she makes sure she always has her white son’s adoption papers on hand at all times.
In an interview with Good Morning America , Keia Jones-Baldwin revealed she never goes anywhere without 2-year-old Princeton’s documents, pointing to people’s assumptions about her and her son as the primary reason.
In 2019, Keia and her husband, Richardro, welcomed then-newborn Princeton into their family.
“[The foster agency] knew I was a therapist and we had the capacity to take in another child,” Keia told GMA . “They don’t care about [ethnicity] or gender they just want to place them in a safe and loving home.”
The tot has three older siblings: 16-year-old Zariyah, Keia’s daughter from a previous marriage, as well as Karleigh, 16, and Ayden, 9, both of whom were adopted as well.
Since Princeton joined the family, Keia and Richardro have documented their journey on their social media accounts, Raising Cultures.
As Keia explained, they make an effort to share informational videos and posts about adopting trans-racially, and emphasize the fact that theirs is a completely normal family that operates just like any other, with one exception.
“We just happen to have an adopted, white son,” she said.
The family runs an Instagram account , a Facebook page , a Twitter account , a YouTube channel , and even have their own blog .
The family has always had to deal with the looks they attract from strangers.
In an interview with Scary Mommy back in 2019, Keia shared that many people don’t believe she and Richardro are Princeton’s parents. They’ve each been asked if they’re his babysitter, or perhaps even his Uber driver. On several occasions, they’ve flat-out been asked, “What are you doing with that white baby?”
Once, someone even called the cops on the family. Ironically enough, patriarch Richardro is a police officer himself.
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Although used to the unwanted attention, Keia said that she’s recently begun to experience a noticeable increase in stares and negative comments while out in public with Princeton.
“When he was an infant it was worse, it got a little better and then all of a sudden, post-pandemic we are in this racial tension and it started flaring back up,” she told GMA . “It seems like so much of a divide now, and we hate it.”
In fact, more and people people have begun to approach them in public too, including a woman Keia recently encountered at a grocery store.
As Keia explained, the woman had repeatedly blocked her path with her grocery cart and wouldn’t let Keia pass with Princeton.
“I didn’t know what her intentions were,” Keia said. “She had motioned for another man. I was like, ‘Wait a minute, this is too much.’ It’s too much constantly having to defend our family.”
Now, Keia said she makes sure she is always carrying Princeton’s adoption papers with her wherever she goes.
“My having to carry around his adoption decree, is [because] if the police [are] called I am able to show them, ‘This is my child,'” she explained. “I just hate for people to assume that we kidnapped him because he is Caucasian.”
Keia said that in her experience, society sees a huge difference between a white mom adopting a Black child, versus a Black mom adopting a white child.
“I feel [adopted] African American children are looked at [as] if they need to be saved — saved from third world countries, drug addicted-mothers, saved from the hood,” she explained. “It’s that savior complex, not of the parents adopting, it’s everyone else.”
“People will say, ‘The nerve of those Black parents adopting a white child. He doesn’t need to be saved. You’re actually hurting him by having him live with an African American family’… and that’s the double standard.”
By sharing her story of trans-racial adoption, Keia hopes she can help change the narrative for other Black adoptive parents of white children.
“If I was able to look at these women that approach me and say, ‘Hey, I just wanted to be a mom. I’ve had several miscarriages, failed IVF attempts, a failed surrogacy attempt,’ I think it would soften the hearts of people,” she said.
“They’d understand a mother wanted to grow her family and it [didn’t] happening the traditional way. It happened the way God wanted it to happen.”
h/t: Good Morning America