Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett Never Should Have Adopted Black Children by Robert Covington Jr.
Amy Coney Barrett has been sworn in as the next Justice on the Supreme Court because she met all the criteria that is necessary when you are nominated by Donald Trump. First and foremost, you must be an awful human being that uses his/her position in life to do more harm than good to others.
Amy Coney Barrett has met that criteria. Barrett chose law as her profession because she saw it as a vehicle to reflect her values, priorities and a means to live out a certain life that she imagined for herself. Barrett worked for Antonin Scalia, one of the most racist and homophobic Supreme Court Justices of the last seventy years as a clerk — and since then, has repeatedly stated that he was one of her biggest mentors and has had a huge impact on her life as a lawyer.
It has been pointed out by media, journalism and Democratic Senators during the confirmation hearing that her views align with right-wing extremism and her overall callousness and indifference towards union and workers’ rights, climate change, voting rights, reproductive rights, civil and human rights make her a danger to a healthy, multiracial democracy. Many have pointed out that she has been hostile to the Affordable Care Act and worry that she will be the deciding vote that removes healthcare for over twenty million Americans. The warnings and alarm regarding Barrett are about the person, the character and the core of who she is within the law as her chosen profession. Donald Trump saw her record and the malice behind it and said ‘cool, Barrett is just like me in many ways’. Trump’s attraction to her destructive character was both instinctive and evidence based.
Amy Coney Barrett is the mother of seven children. Two of her children are black and adopted from Haiti. And as we know, biologically born children have no say as to whatever situation that they are born into. Barrett’s white children have no choice growing up in a household with a mother that claims to be a devout Catholic and a believer in the best teachings of religion — things such as helping the least of these and uplifting the poor and vulnerable, yet her jurisprudence represents the complete opposite. But it was a choice by Barrett to adopt black children and bring them into her household of contradiction.
Based on what we know of Barrett, her decision to adopt black children was an act of selfishness and piety. I don’t know the conditions these two young black children were coming from and I really don’t want to speculate. And we can confidently conclude that their basic needs are being met in their current home. But what we do know is that their adoptive mother has time and time again has rendered rulings that dismissed clear acts of racial discrimination against people that look like her adopted black children.
What we do know is that Barrett’s record was exhaustively reviewed by one of the largest and well respected pro-democracy, pro-civil and human rights organization in the world, the NAACP, and they wrote a blistering letter outlining various rulings by Barrett that would cripple voting rights, civil rights and human rights against the powerful. Rulings that will hurt people that look like her adoptive black children.
Although Barrett adopted black children, what we do know is that Barrett has a record of insensitivity when it comes to immigrants and criminal justice reform. What we do know is that Barrett adopted black children, but during her hearing, she refused to speak with compassion about the plight of migrant families living in unlivable conditions and migrant parents being torn away from their children, never to be seen again. Barrett adopted black children but chose not to give voice to the trauma of separation and cruelty when the opportunity presented itself.
What we do know is that Barrett adopted black children but will have to explain why she accepted this illegitimate nomination from a man that hates people that look like her adopted children.
The issue of cross racial adoption is deeply layered and sometimes complicated. The joy of stability and a safe space for children that come from tough situations and environments should never be minimized. But all adoptions are not healthy and good. Whether it’s adoptive or biological parents raising children, young people are entering the world that is created and sustained by their caregiver. Amy Coney Barrett’s decision to adopt black children is in the public forum because of the power that Barrett will have in shaping millions of lives for the next generation. And what we know of Barrett as a person and a jurist, adopting black children was a huge mistake.
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