July 24, 2013 - About a month ago NPR aired this piece about how several states charge different fees to adopt a child based on race. The differences in fees are meant to address the differences in demand for adoptive children based on race, but the are obvious problematic issues associated with such policies (in an attempt to address such issues some states have switched to a fee system based on the biological mother's income, but that only serves to show the problematic relationship between race and poverty). For a variety of reasons the supply and demand principles regarding adoption leave minority children (especially African-Americans) at a disadvantage.
I definitely didn't want to ignore this idea with the comic, and I hope to deal with it as sensitively as possible. Part of the reason for having a multi-ethnic cast was specifically to address issues of racism as well as having the opportunity to show more diverse viewpoints. I never really wrote any character with a specific race in mind, and about a month before launch I gave pretty serious consideration to making Jennifer Black, but worried issues of race could overpower issues of abortion and gender if I did so. Dr. Gregory then became Black as I really wanted a character in a respected authority position (which rules out every other character except maybe Mary as they either have no real authority, respect, or in some cases neither) with such a background to address how significantly race can be associated with adoption. I really want to do a larger plot addressing this issue and already have a couple ideas to do so, but until I get to that plot I thought it might be a good idea to introduce these issues now with today's comic as it's a pretty significant issue with the Trayvon Martin case and other stories making many people both eager and anxious to discuss issues regarding race. I think I've mentioned before that abortion is a wide reaching issue affecting many other political issues as well, and I don't want to ignore the issue of race, especially when it's so complex.
-D
I definitely didn't want to ignore this idea with the comic, and I hope to deal with it as sensitively as possible. Part of the reason for having a multi-ethnic cast was specifically to address issues of racism as well as having the opportunity to show more diverse viewpoints. I never really wrote any character with a specific race in mind, and about a month before launch I gave pretty serious consideration to making Jennifer Black, but worried issues of race could overpower issues of abortion and gender if I did so. Dr. Gregory then became Black as I really wanted a character in a respected authority position (which rules out every other character except maybe Mary as they either have no real authority, respect, or in some cases neither) with such a background to address how significantly race can be associated with adoption. I really want to do a larger plot addressing this issue and already have a couple ideas to do so, but until I get to that plot I thought it might be a good idea to introduce these issues now with today's comic as it's a pretty significant issue with the Trayvon Martin case and other stories making many people both eager and anxious to discuss issues regarding race. I think I've mentioned before that abortion is a wide reaching issue affecting many other political issues as well, and I don't want to ignore the issue of race, especially when it's so complex.
-D
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