A woman adopting from Ethiopia made the following comments.

Well, I knew it was coming! Someone was bound to make an insensitive race remark considering my mountain white-bread family. It was bound to happen. So: My grandpa is an old southern mountain guy. Very successful in business, but he is a self-made man. He only had an 8th grade education, grew up poor in the basically white-only mountains of VA, that sort of thing. Anyway, when he is perturbed, mad, or about to ask a pointed mean- spirited question that he knows he should not ask his glasses "jump". His nose starts twitching and his eyes blink and it makes his glasses jump. It is actually kind of funny and he has no clue he is doing it. When his glasses are jumping, you don't mess with him. Anyway, we are at my grandparent’s house and at the breakfast table my grandpa says, "Why Africa?" and his glasses are twitching. You could see it all over his face! All I could think was "Oh my gosh! My grandpa has a problem with me adopting from Africa!" You could just tell! I just said, "Grandpa... kids are starving, kids are DYING! I have to do something! These are my kids and they need me!" I said it very sweetly and was telling him some of the situations going on in Africa... then... Later that day I got my pictures out and showed my kids to him. He glanced at them and when I took them back I said, "They are cute, aren't they?!" He looked at me... glasses twitching... and said with a smirk "I don't know, I can't tell if they are cute or not!" TRANSLATION: I CAN NOT TELL IF THEY ARE CUTE BECAUSE THEY ARE BLACK!!! BULLCRAP!!! Anyone who has seen the pictures knows... these kids are gorgeous! Come ON!!! Maybe I am biased... but you can at least LIE TO ME! I just laughed and said "They are cute! Don't do this to me!" and walked away... but it hurt... bad!!! I think they have a few problems with this adoption, but I know they have enough sense to not show it in front of the kids and when I get them home I know they will fall in love with them... they just don't like the "idea"! When I told my mom about the whole thing she said my grandpa's brother made a smart-butt comment. He saw the pictures of my kids and did not say a thing. My grandma then showed him pictures of my uncle’s white/peachy kids and he said, "Now those are some kids I could love! My mom was LIVID! She said, "I could love any child, it is sad for you that you can't". That made my day! I am grateful my mom is sticking up for them and is "owning" them as her grandchildren!!! Anyway, it is terrible but my grandpa is VERY ill and does not have long to live and really I could get the call any day that he has passed because his heart is BAD, so really I do not worry about my kids being exposed to his bigotry. Not saying I want my grandpa to die, but practically speaking, there is no need for me to fight the battle, he is not going to be around for long. And my great uncle who made the other comment I NEVER see... so whatever! Anyway, just wanted to share my frustration, but at the same time I learned a great lesson about how my mom really feels... HOORAY!

I thought the grandpa dying part was hilarious, sometimes you just have to laugh!