Growing up Black in an all-white world: Vancouver journalist explores transracial adoption in new memoir
Harrison Mooney was born Black and raised in a white, Christian fundamentalist household, made to downplay his racial identity from a young age. Now, the award-winning Vancouver-based journalist is sharing his coming-of-age story in a powerful new book, Invisible Boy: A Memoir of Self-Discovery. Today is publication day for #InvisibleBoy: A Memoir of Self-Discovery by @HarrisonMooney, @VPLs 2022 writer in residence. Im excited to announce he will be joining me this weekend on the #CityNewsBookshelf on @CityNewsVAN. We had a great chat and I cant wait to share it! pic.twitter.com/VF9hw8Sfsk John Ackermann (@jackermann) September 20, 2022 Its my story, he says. And if its scary to tell your story, that means you need to tell it, so thats what I did. Born in 1985 to a teen mom who was an immigrant from Ghana, Mooney was adopted by a white family of fundamentalist Christians in Abbotsford what some proudly call the buckle of B.C.s Bible Belt. The book lays out how he was raised to believe that to be righteous, he had to somehow deny his identity. He also talks about being made to feel less-than because of his race and the circumstances of his birth. And he went along with it for a long time. My blackness is such a huge part of who I am, and there was nothing I can do to stop that from being true. Nothing, he explains. You know, so much of the morality was around eschewing blackness and I didnt realize that as a young boy. I really didnt realize what I was internalizing until I was much older. Related Articles: Black & White: a Q-and-A on race and privilege with author Stephen Dorsey Son of Elsewhere author explores identity and belonging in new memoir (citynews.ca) Known as Harry as a child, he started going by his birth name, Harrison, as a young adult to signal he wanted to be taken more seriously. The turning point was when his youngest brother, who is white, dressed up as Mooney for a church harvest party in full blackface. It takes more than changing your name, he admits. I think the road to becoming is long and you cant just rebrand yourself, but it was a pivotal first step on the road to becoming who I am now. Still, the more he pushed back at the narrative of his upbringing, the harder it became to live in the family home. Our relationship is strained, I suppose you could say, he says of his adoptive parents. We talk every now and then [but] its clear that weve drifted so far apart that I dont see a road to reconciliation. Mooney admits the book likely wont improve that, but he feels it was important to share his truth, despite the consequences. Again, this is about me and my story, and my right to tell it, and Im not going to let other people pressure me into something else. Mooney also has a dim view of transracial or interracial adoption. He has this advice for adoptive parents of racialized children. As your adopted children grow into full three-dimensional people, if you cant accept where they go, and what they begin to think about what happened before they were conscious, then your relationship is going to be strained and you will wind up drifting to separate realities, he says. [And] my advice to adoptive children is youre not crazy. The things that youre seeing are real, the feelings that youre feeling are real. Invisible Boy: A Memoir of Self-Discovery is published by Harper Collins.
Sunday, September 25, 2022 at 6:09 pm