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As an Adoptive Mom, I Have Complicated Feelings About The Handmaid's Tale


My daughter is the best thing to happen to me. Six years later, I’m convinced she’s the reason I went through all the rest: because I was always meant to be her mother. But our once-very open adoption has dwindled over the years, mostly because her other mama has pulled away from us. I think it’s been hard for her, watching another woman raise her child. Even though this is what she chose—even though this baby was never stolen from her like they are in Gilead—I think the pain of being separated from the child she grew and loved has slowly made seeing us something she’d rather avoid. That pain she feels juxtaposed against the joy I experience with motherhood is a dichotomy I have trouble facing.

This most recent season of The Handmaid’s Tale has brought up these gut-check moments even more. That’s not just because of Serena: We’ve also been given insight into Mrs. Mackenzie (Amy Landecker), the woman raising June’s other daughter, Hannah. We don’t know much about Mrs. Mackenzie, just that she’s also a Commander’s wife who was given Hannah after June became a Handmaid. The interaction in the season three premiere between Mrs. Mackenzie and June, who both clearly love Hannah, gutted me. Mrs. Mackenzie said things I could picture myself saying (or at least thinking).

“This has to stop,” she says to June, speaking of her continued efforts to see Hannah. “You brought our child into the world. The Commander and I bless you for that. God knows.”

“I’m her mother,” Mrs. Mackenzie continues. When June flinches at that, Mrs. Mackenzie takes a breath and says, “You’re being cruel, confusing her like this.” “I’m confusing her?” June challenges.

It’s a poignant moment: both women standing their ground. Both clearly believing they are the ones doing right by this child. And while as the audience, we can see that June is the one who’s right, I could still see myself in Mrs. Mackenzie.

It made me wonder: When it comes to my daughter’s adoption, am I the one who knows what’s best?

June in The Handmaid’s Tale.

George Kraychyk/Hulu

I think so. I believe so. And watching that interaction on The Handmaid’s Tale, I also believe Mrs. Mackenzie thinks the same. There’s this moment, after the two women find common ground in sharing what they know about Hannah, where June concedes. “I appreciate the home you’ve made for her,” she tells Mrs. Mackenzie. Because it is a good home. Because her little girl is clearly loved. Because it could be so much worse. My daughter’s other mother has said the same to me more than once.



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Black Women Want to Be Excited about Kamala Harris. The Truth Is More Complicated.


When Senator Kamala Harris announced her presidential run on Martin Luther King Jr. Day—47 years to the week after Shirley Chisholm announced her historic run in 1972—I should have been thrilled.

Harris is, after all, California’s first black woman and first Indian American to be elected to the Senate. Her decision to declare on a holiday constructed to commemorate the fight for racial equality was a good omen, as was the banner under which she announced: “Kamala Harris, for the People.”

The slogan is meant to communicate Harris’ commitment to justice. It’s also an oblique nod to a prosecutorial record that progressives and black women in particular have taken issue with. By putting it at the center of her campaign, Harris seems to have a message for us: I can explain this. Well, I’m one of those women who needs a further explanation, and I’m listening.

When I first read almost two weeks ago the rumors that Harris would run, I tweeted that I needed to do more research on her prosecutor background because I did not want our black womanhood to be the one attribute we have in common. The hesitation echoes an old African American proverb, “All skinfolk ain’t kinfolk.” When I went online to see how other black women felt, I found emotions that ranged from exultant to vitriolic.

Harris and President Donald Trump were both voted into office in 2016. Ever since, Harris has emerged as one of his most formidable critics. She’s advocated for Medicare for all and free college tuition for families who make under $140,000 a year. She’s expressed determination to end the wage gap for black women and has gone after big corporations that have benefited from tax loopholes. (Within an hour of her announcement, her campaign said she’d raised small-dollar donations from people in all 50 states.) And she’s shined in congressional hearings, a setting in which her intellect, rigor, and facial expressions have earned headlines and fans—myself included. It’s no wonder the speculation escalated over the past few months: With 2020 around the corner, would she run? In text threads and DMs, black women had questions too: Yes, a black female president would be historic. Yes, she has the credentials. Yes, we need to beat Trump. But is Harris the representation we’ve waited for?

For some, support of Harris was obvious. When T. Campbell of Los Angeles heard Harris might run, she breathed a “sigh of relief.” Harris is a Howard-educated AKA (Alpha Kappa Alpha) who tweets with pride about her fellow sorors and her favorite jams, from Salt-n-Pepa to Aretha Franklin. “I feel that…her running means I will have proper representation again,” Campbell says to Glamour. It’s a sentiment that Victoria Johnson of Ridgeland, Mississippi, shares: “As I’ve watched her over the years, I see a very strong leader, not just a strong woman.” And Tina-Rose Brown, who lives in Brooklyn, is excited not just about Harris’ public persona but about her commitment to marijuana legalization and restorative justice practices. “I believe if elected she’ll have a broad coalition and cabinet to help make the necessary changes to stop the cradle-to-prison pipeline,” Brown said.

Her time in the Senate suggests as much. But her earlier work has turned this into the issue I’m most worried about. Prosecutors have upheld laws and a criminal justice system that disenfranchises people who look like me. The prison system with its relation to black and brown people and the hyper-surveillance of our communities are subjects that need to be addressed head on. Can I trust Harris, who served as district attorney in San Francisco and then attorney general of California, to do this?

Harris has of course accomplished much in her career that would relieve some initial concerns. The Guardian and The New York Times have dug into the era of Harris’ political career that predates her reputation as a progressive leader. She opposed a proposition that would have made it harder to invoke the “three strikes rule,” which can trigger an automatic life sentence for someone convicted of multiple crimes and pushed legislation that would jail parents of truant children. But at the same time, as a district attorney in San Francisco, Harris created the Back on Track program for young first-time offenders that reduced the recidivism rate from 54 percent to an incredible 10 percent in just six years. Later, in her statewide office, she helped expedite the processing of rape kits and made police across the state undergo implicit bias training. In other words: It’s complicated.

What kind of voice would Harris be for us in the White House? And what would it take for us to back Harris’ historic bid?

But what sticks out to me is the fact that while she has said she’s committed to such progressive goals as weed legalization and restorative justice, she’s only just begun to reckon with and apologize for the part she played in strengthening systemic disparities among communities of color. She’s earned the nickname Top Cop for a reason. In the era of the Black Lives Matter movement and countless articles and books that document police surveillance and brutality toward black and brown people, for some black women the question is, What kind of voice would Harris be for us in the White House? And what would it take for us to back Harris’ historic bid?

Odds are Harris won’t be the most conservative candidate on criminal justice reform in the Democratic primary. But for some black women, that’s not quite the point. The issue is personal. Mass incarceration as a weapon of the state has disproportionately affected black families. Black people are imprisoned at a rate five times higher than that of white people, and 15 percent of African American men have gone to prison (as opposed to 6 percent of all adult men). “I’m surrounded by black men—uncles, nephews, grandparents—[who] have some kind of connection with the prison system,” says Courtney Humphrey, a media consultant based in Bowie, Maryland. Like Harris, Humphrey is an AKA, but their shared past makes her more disappointed in Harris’ mixed record. “I don’t feel like any of the things I identify with her [about] is enough to get me to completely ignore her politics,” she says. Humphrey isn’t sure who she’ll support in the primary, but she’s interested in Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has called American criminal justice policies racist.

“Most of [Harris’] policies are good, but what most people are shaky about is her stance on prison reform,” adds Josie Deese, a student at Texas Southern University. “I’m personally on the fence because she hasn’t made any statements about [the criticisms against her]. I feel torn.”

Even so, Niah Tobarri, a student in Boston, thinks Harris can win the support of black women, who turned out in historic numbers for Barack Obama. And Simone Mitchell (her name has been changed) perhaps best speaks to the ambivalence that some black women feel. “I would love to support her, but I want direct answers about her past policies,” Mitchell, an attorney based in New York, explains. “People are allowed to change. She can be remorseful…and be transparent.” If she is, Mitchell is prepared to move on: “I would be super happy and rally behind her.”

Still the more I dug into Kamala Harris’ background, the worse I started to feel. I wondered whether I was being too hard on her or even holding her to a higher standard than I would a white male Democrat. Former Vice President Joe Biden admitted that he hasn’t been “always right” on issues of criminal justice. No candidate is perfect, and the idea that I might not support a black woman who is qualified for the job is excruciating. My life’s work is centered on black women and their stories, no matter how complicated those narratives might be. Was my hesitation premature and unfair? But the alternative is almost as painful—giving someone who looks like me a pass on actions that have hurt our communities. I want a black female president. But I want an end to mass incarceration for all black women, for all black families, even more. Who can deliver that? Could it be Harris? Maybe, but I need her to make that case.

Despite our near-unified support for Democrats, black women will have to weigh their priorities in this race, which means that no one candidate commands our vote as a bloc. In the next few months, we’ll need the media to illuminate these differences and pay attention to black women’s concerns about all of the candidates. While there’s no lack of stories about white working-class voters, newsrooms seem reluctant to hire the diverse staff this election demands.

Over the next few months, Harris will have to defend her record on criminal justice just as other candidates have to defend their own votes and positions. And black women know that for a black female presidential candidate, the stakes will be far higher than for her white male peers. Criticism of her character and policies is bound to be influenced by a lethal combination of racism, sexism, and cultural ignorance. (Look no further than a reporter who mistook AKA’s trademark “skee wee” sound as screeches.) When the media missteps, I’ll be the first to call it out. But black women shouldn’t have to do a job for free on social media that newsrooms could do with a diverse staff, and people shouldn’t expect that because we won’t tolerate sexism and racism, it means we won’t examine how Harris’ policies have affected people who look like us.

There needs to be space for black women to have honest conversations about Harris’ record—and not just in our DMs. The fact that Harris will in all likelihood face unfair critiques doesn’t invalidate that. Black women are one of the most important bases for progressive candidates to cultivate. More than 90 percent of black women voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2018 election. The next presidential candidate will need our help too. But no matter who he or she is, that person will have to earn our votes.

Morgan Jerkins is the author of This Will Be My Undoing.





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Pet Custody After Divorce: It's Complicated


When Maddy, a 39-year-old gallery founder living in Virginia, split from her husband, she imagined their parting would be placid. Aspirational even. Their home would be informally partitioned—she would live in one part, he in another, then there would be a common area in which their two children, along with their Boston terrier and standard poodle, would roam freely. “I thought we were going to have this amazing Scandinavian divorce,” she says.

Yeah, no. That plan hit the skids. Instead, she found a pet-friendly apartment building and assumed the animals would go with her because she says her ex was never crazy about the pets. “But he insisted he have the dogs sometimes, too,” she says. So, after much negotiation, they came to an off-the-books agreement: the pooches would commute back and forth with the kids. They’ve been doing that weekly shuffle for six years.

Pet-sharing after a divorce makes some sense, particularly when you factor in the degree to which Americans are majorly, totally, butt-crazy in love with their domestic creatures. The average dog owner spends more than $1,000 a year on Fido and those with more disposable income drop their animals off at daycare, buy them BarkBoxes and health insurance, and snap little raincoats on them when it drizzles. According to a recent report, in 2018, pet spending in the U.S. hit a record $86.7 billion, nearly double what it was just ten years ago.

Blame the boom on—who else?—millennials, who have fewer children than previous generations, and own more animals. In fact, a full 75 percent of Americans in their thirties have dogs and 51 percent have cats, according to a 2016 report. To a generation that’s saddled with student loan debt, concerned about overpopulation, climate change, and the chemicals in American cheese, pets could represent a comforting, safe investment. But what happens when the pet is part and parcel of a household that finds itself upended by separation? A legitimate custody arrangement, in many cases.

For decades, house pets—formally known as companion animals—have largely been treated as property in divorce cases. If you bought the pet or paid the lion’s share of its bills, it was yours. But that’s beginning to change.

Back in 1995, there was a precedent established in Bennett vs. Bennett, a Florida case where the judge ruled that animals were personal property—much like, say, the Vitamix or the Dyson—and courts therefore didn’t have the authority to grant custody or visitation schedules. But, since 2017, Illinois, Alaska, and, just last month, California have passed bills that change that tune completely, and have empowered judges to consider the well-being of the animal instead of the desires of the human owners—and to assign a joint custody schedule that’s in the critter’s best interest.

The idea is that, like children, pets are sentient. They’re able to perceive and feel things, unlike pieces of furniture, an SUV, or the wedding china to be divided between exes. Judges are increasingly being given the discretion to determine whether your pet spends weekends with you or Christmas with the ex or any other number of configurations that might keep a couple passing a pet back and forth for the rest of its life.

“There’s an overall trend in the law to recognize that animals do have interests that are independent of their guardians or what they’re producing,” says Cristina Stella, a staff attorney at the Animal Legal Defense Fund.

When you talk pet custody, someone’s bound to advise you to save yourself the headache and keep it out of court. And, if you can’t sort it independently, go the mediation route, which means using a neutral third-party to help the soon-to-be divorced couple negotiate who gets what in a less-contentious environment. “The beauty of mediation is that everything that’s said is confidential and cannot be used against any party,” says Debra Vey Voda-Hamilton, the founder of Hamilton Law and Mediation, a gold-standard practice for pet disputes. “So you’re safe to be really honest.” Mediated divorces also tend to be quicker and cheaper than litigated ones.

Voda-Hamilton says the average couple requires six to eight hours’ worth of mediation to come to an agreement. What could you possibly talk about for that length of time? Well, negotiating vet bills seems simple. If you share a dog 50-50, you split its bills down the middle, right? But if the dog eats a plate of brownies that you left out and needs to get its stomach pumped, for instance, should your ex have to split that bill? Or you travel out of town for work last-minute when the cat is scheduled to be at your house, are you obliged to coordinate care with your ex or can you ask a friend to watch it instead? The idea behind mediation is to plan for and head off disagreements before they happen.

“There are entire cottage industries that have sprung up to support the sharing of animals,” Voda-Hamilton says.

To avoid the whole mishegas, if you’re a major pet lover with marriage in sight and the unknown on your mind, you might scrimp on a few wedding details and put that cash toward securing a prenup that covers any shared pets or, as those ~in the know~ call it, a “petnup“. (You shouldn’t need one if you purchased your pet before entering the relationship, as it’ll likely be considered separate, rather than community, property, but it’s worth consulting with a family lawyer in your state.)

Prenuptual agreements aren’t just for the world’s Bogey Lowensteins, those guys with country houses and gold bars falling out of their pockets. “We talked about getting a prenup before we even got engaged,” Erin Lowry, a finance expert and author of Broke Millennial, says. “It’s not romantic, but, at the end of the day, a marriage is a merger of my assets and your assets. And I’d never enter any other contractual obligation without protecting myself.”

Lowry and her now-husband considered putting custody of their dog, Mosby, into their prenup, but decided not to, as they’d adopted him as a senior and he was sick. “Had we had a young dog, I might have put in that I’d get him, because while my husband loved him dearly, financially and emotionally, Mosby and I were very ride or die,” she says. But on the other hand, it’s hard to make decisions about hypothetical situations and hypothetical pets; were they to divorce in ten years and she found herself traveling all the time for work, for instance, it could make more sense for her husband to keep their dog. “You can always amend your prenup as things change,” Lowry says.

After peaking during the 1970s and ’80s, much has been made of the fact that divorce rates are now on the decline, especially among millennials. Still, if you’re thinking about splitting with your spouse, or you’ve already been through a divorce, sunny statistics aren’t exactly useful. Throughout this weeklong series, Glamour.com explores what it means to uncouple in a modern world.



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That 'Racist' Prom Dress Debacle Is a Lot More Complicated Than You Think


During the past few weeks, a particular news story has sent shockwaves through my personal social network: Keziah Daum, an American teenager, wore a traditional Chinese dress—known as either cheongsam or qipao, depending on whether you speak Cantonese or Mandarin—to her high school prom in Utah. The problem? Daum is not of Chinese descent.

Having moved to London from Hong Kong, I’ve become part of a close-knit community of young Asian women living in the UK. Since the dress debacle, the WhatsApp group we use to stay in touch has been flooded with a steady stream of articles covering the controversy, as well as screenshots of Daum’s response and people’s outraged reactions. These updates were often shared along with a slew of angry emojis and all caps responses, to the tune of, “how dare she?”

“I suppose I was frustrated by it mainly because it looks out of context,”says Melissa Legarda, 25, a Filipino-British journalist who initially shared the story with the group. “I always have such a skepticism when I see a [non-POC] wearing a dress of another country or tradition that’s not [their own] because most of the time, they don’t appreciate the traditions involved in that culture.” Legarda’s sentiment mirrors the reaction shared by many Asians in the West, who have taken to Twitter to voice their dissent. One particular tweet, accusing Daum of cultural appropriation, has been retweeted over 41,000 times at publish time.

On Facebook, where I still keep in touch with my friends from Hong Kong, my feed tells a completely different story. Karen Chiang, one of my Hong Kong-based friends, shared a BuzzFeed article covering the controversy, writing, “This girl rocked it. Full stop.” Other commenters agreed,echoing the effusive feedback thousands of Chinese netizens have shared on Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter. The message was clear: To the Chinese, Daum totally rocked the dress—no offense taken.

“I didn’t think there was a more appropriate or respectful way for a foreigner to pay homage to qipaos and the Chinese culture, especially compared to occasions where Chinese culture is reduced to a fans, dragons, and chopstick-in-a-top-bun kind of moment,” Chiang writes in an email. The 25-year-old wellness blogger and freelance writer grew up in Hong Kong, and has seen many white expats in Hong Kong partake in the aforementioned type of dress—but didn’t see any hints of malice or racism.

“I probably raised an eyebrow [at these people], because they look quite silly most of the time. But, as long as people are trying their best to respect and appreciate a culture, I’m cool with it. It’s still better than if they didn’t bother to open their minds at all.”

PHOTO: Anadolu Agency

A group of women in Beijing, China wearing the traditional qipao.

Detractors of Daum argued that the group shot of her and her friends made the dress choice even more problematic: The teenagers were photographed squatting while making prayer hands and peace signs, which many perceived as a gesture to mock Asian stereotypes. In a statement to Teen Vogue, Daum has clarified that the pose was not meant to be derogatory, but rather, a reference to a popular YouTuber.

“It’s obviously a bad idea to adopt the pose, since Daum was already appropriating the qipao, and the pose is very similar to the ‘Asian squat’—a pose] associated with Asian people,” says Isabelle Landicho, a 26-year-old Filipino-British stylist and one of my close friends firmly in the disapproving camp. “Obviously, people are going to associate the two factors and be offended! If you’re not an Asian person or not participating in an Asian event or practice, I think it’s a slur.”

I was born and raised in China, but have spent most of my young adulthood in the West. I have complicated feelings about this dichotomy of opinion.

Cheongsam Fashion Show

PHOTO: TPG

Women participating in a Cheongsam Fashion Show in Chongqing, China, in September 2017.

My international experience has opened my eyes to the type of racial prejudice and microaggressions my fellow Chinese and Asian immigrants face daily (not to mention the atrocities of Japanese internment camps and the Chinese Exclusion Act), so I can’t fault my peers in the West for feeling aggrieved by Daum’s decision. It’s easy to perceive her actions as some form of mockery rather than celebration.

Landicho recalled a harrowing incident where, while she was working on set at a photo shoot in London, someone held up a prop that looked similar to the Asian conical hat, put it on, and claimed that now they resembled her.

Legarda admitted that her experience growing up Asian in the UK colored her reaction to the prom dress. “If someone had worn a traditional African dress and did a pose, there would be uproar,” she says. “But I feel like Asians and Asian culture are constantly sidelined just because of a race hierarchy within the societal structure.”

"China: Through The Looking Glass" Costume Institute Benefit Gala - Press Preview

PHOTO: Rob Kim

Costumes on display in the Costume Institute’s 2015 ‘China: Through The Looking Glass’ exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

However, in a community that feels as homogenous as China—where 92% of the population is Han Chinese—the intricacies of cultural appropriation might not translate. Ian Tam, a 25-year-old paralegal in Hong Kong, puts it this way: “Chinese culture doesn’t have ‘PC’ culture like American culture does. If we see a person in traditional costume, we just comment on how well it fits them.”

In fact, the Chinese love dressing up in traditional garments from other cultures: Head to any major city in Japan, and you’ll spot a slew of “kimono experience” shops, where you can rent a full kimono for a day. Visitors from China, which accounts for over a quarter of Japan’s tourism, can’t get enough. The potential for a social media photo ops was just too good to pass up.

I was one of those Chinese tourists: On a trip to Japan in 2014, I spent two hours getting into traditional dress, got my hair and makeup done, and visited different shrines of Kyoto all day. Perhaps my East Asian descent gave me more of a “cultural license” to do so. I loved receiving looks of admiration from tourists and onlookers, some of whom asked to take photographs with me. I looked—and felt—like a princess. And if my money benefitted local businesses, then why the hell not support?

On paper, my intentions didn’t seem all that different from Daum’s. In a follow-up tweet, she claimed her decision to wear a qipao to prom stemmed from her appreciation of Chinese culture. But, the more I thought about it, there was one glaring aspect that set us apart: the cultural context.

Before I ever put a kimono on my back, I made sure to be clued in on the cultural dos and don’ts of wearing a one—along with the correct praying etiquette at shrines and temples. Even though I did all this to check something off my bucket list, I was intentional about educating myself. Meanwhile, I wasn’t as convinced by Daum’s claims on Twitter: Had she demonstrated any previous interest in learning Mandarin or in gaining a deeper knowledge on the heritage of qipao, I would have gladly been more understanding—instead, she referred to the qipao as “a gorgeous dress I found for my last prom” in a tweet, stripping it of its cultural identity until it was time to justify her choice. She also retweeted a meme that essentially positioned herself as a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” white victim. Then there was that group pose. Pure bad optics.

I’d imagine the reasoning behind my skeptical stance would be lost on most of my compatriots. “China is still very influenced by western trends: [The Chinese] see it as flattery for the trend leaders to adopt their culture,” writes Chiang.

Hangzhou Global Cheongsam Day

PHOTO: VCG

A group of women, both Chinese and foreign, celebrating Hangzhou Global Cheongsam Day in Hangzhou, China in May 2017.

Due to the country’s status as an “uncool” developing country, many in China will immediately reward Westerners for displaying even a modicum of interest in our culture. Just look at Jessie J, the only Western participant to ever compete on Singer, the Chinese version of The X Factor—previously unknown in China, she won by a landslide, gaining half a million followers on Chinese social media along the way. And, I can’t even begin to count the number of times white men have approached me online and in real life, uttering “ni hao”—“hello” in Mandarin, despite my native tongue being Cantonese—and expecting me to throw myself on them for knowing the simplest greeting in the Chinese language.

I’m not sure if there’s anyone out there who, like me, is also sorting out conflicting feelings on the conversation surrounding Daum’s prom dress. But, just in case there’s someone on the same boat, I felt very understood by this tweet by Jerry Wang, a Chinese-American Twitter user in Durham, NC:

Until this becomes the norm, I will probably meet any non-Chinese girl in a qipao with a certain level of apprehension—unless she’s armed with enthusiastic questions about my culture.

Venus Wong is a lifestyle journalist based in London, specializing in travel writing and Asian cultural commentary. Follow her on Instagram: @venuswongisun.





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