Having a new baby in the family is a great thing. But a new baby can bring about a lot of stares, questions and concerns when that new baby is of a difference race.
Richardo and Keia Baldwin live in North Carolina. And they are black, or African American. They have three young children, who are also black. Recently the couple adopted another child, named Princeton. He is white.
The young boy had been born prematurely to a drug-addicted woman and he was given up. He weighed only one pound, but when Keia got a call from her foster care supervisor to get to the hospital, she didn’t waste any time. The 36-year-old was out the door in minutes and heading to the hospital.
They wanted to do a skin-to-skin test to see if there was an immediate connection between the little boy and Keia. And there was. They bonded fast. And Keia started going to the hospital every day to see him.
Then, the family decided to adopt little Princeton. And as soon as he was released from the neonatal intensive care unit, Keia and her husband took him home with them. And that’s when all the problems started.
Says Keia: “We get a lot of stares. I’m frequently asked if I’m Princeton’s babysitter… I get, ‘Why didn’t you let him stay with a family of his own race?’”
And twice people who did not know the couple reported them to police, saying they had kidnapped a baby. A white baby.
Says Keia: “We were vacationing in Tennessee and we went to do an old time, Western photo shoot. The girl behind the camera would disappear and then come back. Finally she asked, ‘Is that your baby?’ I told her he was. Then she said, ‘I just took a picture of this baby with his family two weeks ago.’”
Of course, this was purely a case of mistaken identity, but when police officers arrived at the scene – because that’s where that photographer ran off to… to call the police – Keia and Richardo had to provide PROOF that they were, indeed, the parents of the little boy.
The family seems to face constant scrutiny, but all of those family members try to stay positive and not let anything affect them in a bad way. And with that, Keia had to make a post about it on her special Facebook page, a page which works to break down racial barriers.
She wrote:“I don’t look at family as blood. I look at family as love. When Princeton came into our lives, he came into our hearts. Love conquers all.”
Hopefully, love will see all of them through any future troubling times.
