After President Donald Trump officially announced that he was nominating Amy Coney Barrett to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, the Left dusted off their ideological boxing gloves which had been placed in storage since their attempted destruction of Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. Along with attacks on her faith, an even more insidious tactic involves a wave of attacks against her and her husband’s adopted children.
Barrett, and her husband Jesse, have seven children: Emma, Vivian, Tess, John Peter, Liam, Juliet, and Benjamin. Vivian and John Peter were adopted from Haiti, and it was this act of love which drew particular hatred from the Left. Democratic activist Dana Houle wrote, “Some adoptions from Haiti were legit. Many were sketchy as hell,” and “Would it matter if her kids were scooped up by ultra-religious Americans, or Americans weren’t scrupulous intermediaries & the kids were taken when there was family in Haiti?”
Disgusting. The left now smearing Amy Coney Barrett for adopting children. pic.twitter.com/zFomehwwDW
— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) September 25, 2020
John Lee Brougher, another activist who is the managing director of NextGen America, tweeted, “As an adoptee, I need to know more about the circumstances of how Amy Coney Barrett came to adopt her children, and the treatment of them since. Transracial adoption is fraught with trauma and potential for harm, and everything I see here is deeply concerning.”
These attacks on Barrett and her children were met with swift backlash. However, the largest blowback came in response to academic and author Ibram X. Kendi, who tweeted:
“Some White colonizers ‘adopted’ Black children. They ‘civilized’ these ‘savage’ children in the ‘superior’ ways of White people, while using them as props in their lifelong pictures of denial, while cutting the biological parents of these children out of the picture of humanity.”
“And whether this is Barrett or not is not the point,” he continued. “It is a belief too many White people have: if they have or adopt a child of color, then they can’t be racist.”
And whether this is Barrett or not is not the point. It is a belief too many White people have: if they have or adopt a child of color, then they can't be racist.
— Ibram X. Kendi (@DrIbram) September 26, 2020
Kendi attempted to “clarify” his comments after receiving heavy criticism, stating, “I’m challenging the idea that White parents of kids of color are inherently ‘not racist’ and the bots completely change what I’m saying to ‘White parents of kids of color are inherently racist.’ These live and fake bots are good at their propaganda. Let’s not argue with them.”
Presumably, Kendi was responding to claims by conservative figures such as Candace Owens who tweeted that Amy Coney Barrett “has two black children, so they can’t smear her as a racist.”
Amy Coney Barrett:
-She’s a woman, so they can’t hire their usual fake sexual assault victims.
-She has two black children, so they can’t smear her as a racist.Taking early bets as to what the Democrats will cook up to try to stop ACB…
— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) September 26, 2020
What unites these statements from Dana Houle, John Lee Brougher, and Ibram X. Kendi is a deep bigotry justified by a shared sense of assumed moral superiority. The reasoning behind Houle’s implicit accusation of impropriety is the fact that Barrett and her husband are “ultra-religious,” demonstrating a shameless level of anti-Catholic hatred. The reasoning behind Brougher’s similar accusation is, again, the assumption of “guilt” based solely on Barrett’s religion, political ideology, and the “transracial” nature of her decision to adopt two children.
Kendi’s argument relies on the same historical time portal abused by academics such as Ta-Nehisi Coates. Hundreds of years ago, “white colonizers” indeed “adopted” black children because of deplorable and immoral motivations. According to Kendi and Coates, such historical actions are evidence of modern racism, and there is no difference between the attitudes of “white people” during slavery and “white people” today.
There are two fundamental problems with the “logic” of Houle, Brougher, and Kendi. Firstly, their sudden concern for “transracial” adoption is demonstrative of a political Left who expect their enemies to accept their impossible demands. If a white conservative adopted a white child instead of a hypothetical non-white child, the Left would almost certainly declare their decision as evidence of racism. If a white conservative adopts a non-white child, then they are still racist, and are only using their children as “props” to hide such racism. In conclusion, conservatives are racist regardless of who they adopt.
Of course, this attitude is never applied to members of the wider cultural Left. For example, here are a list of celebrities who have adopted children of a different race and are adored as pillars of moral integrity.
- Kristen Davis
- Tom Cruise
- Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie
- Madonna
- Charlize Theron
- Steven Spielberg
- Hugh Jackman
- Ty Burrell
- Julie Andrews
- Lionel Richie
- Katherine Heigl
- Sandra Bullock
- Joely Fisher
- Michelle Pfeiffer
- Sandra Bullock
- Mariska Hargitay
- Mary Louise Parker and Billy Crudup
- Jane Fonda
- Jillian Michaels
- Connie Britton
- Meg Ryan
- Emma Thompson
It must go without saying that none of these celebrities should be accused of being racist because of the color of their children’s skin. The same should apply to Amy Coney Barrett.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The second problem with the “logic” of Houle, Brougher, and Kendi goes far beyond the standard form of hypocrisy we have grown to expect from the Left. It bleeds into an assumption of guilt based solely on race, religion, and political affiliation, with the willing use of children as ideological pawns.
Amy Coney Barrett is a white woman who is a religious, observant Catholic. Therefore, it is to be assumed that her decision to adopt two black children is motivated by some form of malicious intent, in exactly the same way that slave owners “adopted” black children hundreds of years ago. This is the premise they assume to be true, for which they require evidence to the contrary before thinking otherwise.
It is this appalling assumption which is the true source of bigotry in this scenario. Houle uses Barrett’s apparent “ultra-religious” status to justify suspicion of wrongdoing. Brougher arrogantly uses his own “adoptee” status as justification for his demand to see evidence that Barrett is not guilty of some unknown adoption-related crime. Even Kendi, while applied with more intelligence and more subtlety, deliberately mischaracterizes the position presented by figures like Candace Owens to make the implicit accusation of wrongdoing based on race alone.
Let’s revisit Candace Owens’ tweet. Discussing the Left’s potential means of attack against Barrett, Owens dismissed the “racist” tactic, because Barrett “has two black children, so they can’t smear her as a racist.” After the backlash, Kendi quickly backtracked and attempted to justify his statement as a logical counterargument to such a claim. In reality, Kendi’s argument is just as deplorable as that of Houle or Brougher. While he is technically correct to point out the logical fallacy underlying the assumption that “White parents of kids of color are inherently ‘not racist,’” his use of historical and irrelevant racism to justify this conclusion indicates a cynical motive which supersedes his subsequent attempt to remain “objective.”
Yes, it is true that adopting a child of a different race is not irrefutable evidence of “non-racism.” However, notice the system of assumption applied by Houle, Brougher, and Kendi. All three assume the disgusting premise that people are racist until proven otherwise. For them, Barrett’s race, religion, or political affiliation stands as evidence of wrongdoing, which Barrett herself must refute. Such a position is entirely antithetical to both American notions of justice and basic human morality. To assume the worst of each other, either because of some irrelevant characteristic or the actions of others hundreds of years ago, is to embrace an irrefutable and bigoted fantasy.
Until Houle and Brougher provide any evidence of wrongdoing, their statements should be widely rejected as nothing other than an expression of hate. Until Kendi can provide evidence that white parents of “children of color” are still racist — or worse, using their children as “props” to hide their racism — with reference to an objective definition of racism rather than the fluid “inherent” form of racism relied upon by the Left, his statement should be rejected as equally invalid, equally absurd, and — frankly — equally racist.