It is difficult not to notice the recent growth of anti–American sentiments in Russian media. Anti–American distortions and sometimes lies can be found today in the most popular magazines or radio programs, which are considered serious and reliable sources of information by most Russians. (EDITOR: Yet there may be a grain of truth in some of the otherwise wild accusations. The reader can decide.)
Here are quotes from an editorial, commenting adoptions of Russian children by Americans in the popular Russian magazine “Expert”:
“Today in the United States, there are 423,000 orphans, of which, according to various estimates, from 129,000 to 143,000 live in orphanages waiting for adoption”.
According to the editorial, the main reason why Americans, having so many of their own orphans, are so eager to adopt overseas is the color of American orphans. According to the article 60% of children in American orphanages are not white.
“Hence the interest in children from Russia and the Ukraine which are the main suppliers of young white-skinned children.”
This point of view, that Americans adopt Russian children for racial reason is very popular in Russian media. A typical Internet comment is by an ordinary Russian about American senator Roy Blant, who adopted a Russian boy:
“ He is an ordinary ugly racist… Today, he thinks that Negro and Indian children are animals and therefore do not take them out of the orphanages in his own country, and tomorrow his racist head will turn into other direction, and he will consider the Slavic children subhuman.”
Senator Roy Blunt with his wife Abigail and adopted boy.
American media is also concerned with the issue. Here is a quote from Business Week:
“Overseas Babies Displace U.S. Orphans
“There are 114,000 children in the U.S. waiting to be adopted from foster care, yet we are stepping over the children in our own localities to find infants abroad. Myths about children in foster care and highly publicized celebrity adoptions divert our attention from children in the U.S.
“Too many Americans believe the fiction about adopting from foster care—it costs too much, the biological parents will return to claim their children, the children are juvenile delinquents or unadoptable, and the foster care system challenges don’t merit the effort. …”
http://www.businessweek.com/debateroom/archives/2008/02/overseas_babies_displace_us_orphans.html
In the United States most orphans are kept with foster families. According to the official U.S. Department of State’s statistics, 27% of the foster parents are relatives of children. 252,320 American children are taken in foster care annually. In the same period the 245,260 get out of it. Each year, more than 20,000 children in America’s foster care system turn age 18 and are released without the safety net of family.
As for the ethnic division of American children waiting adoption: Hispanics make up 21 % of them, African Americans 23%, and Caucasians 44 %
During the past five years, adoptions from Russia have taken the third place among American foreign adoptions. The first two places for foreign adoptions in 2007-2008, were from Guatemala and China, and in the past three years first two places have been taken by Guatemala and Ethiopia. Ukraine is in the fifth place, right after South Korea.
Among the top Russian journalists who frequently speak about American racism is an anchor of the midnight political show of Maxim Shevchenko on the popular government Channel One TV.
Maxim Shevchenko
Last week in his interview given to popular radio station Ekho Moskvy (“Moscow Echo”), Shevchenko was defending his hero, Joseph Stalin, from Russian democratic elements and American criticism.
He said:
“I don’t need a permission to use name Stalingrad instead of Volgograd. General Sherman in America was a bloody butcher of the South. Making his march to the South, to Richmond, he was killing women, children… Southerners themselves say that 300,000 civilians were killed. This general was like a Nazi, SS… And now Sherman is a national hero in America. Only Russians supposed to judge their history by the orders of the international community…
“Without Stalin our history is unthinkable… as the U.S. history is unthinkable without Lincoln. You know, for some people Lincoln, who liberated the blacks, is the greatest leader. But speak to people of, say, [Alabama]! For them Lincoln is a Devil from hell.
They accuse Lincoln of war crimes, because the northerners committed horrific war crimes against civilians in the South.
“But the great nations, unfortunately, are not created without violence…… Those who are criticizing Stalin actually are fighting against modern Russia.”
