by steve vegas » Sat Oct 14, 2006 4:32 am
<!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karen-finley/madonna-material-mother_b_31638.html">From huffingtonpost</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br>Madonna, Material Mother (45 comments )<br>READ MORE: Today Show, Kabbalah, Hurricane Katrina, George W. Bush<br><br>Meredith Viera was right to quietly question Madonna's choice to adopt David, a Malawi 1 year old boy on the Today Show this morning. The 13 month boy was brought to the Malawi orphanage by the still living father who could not care for the child after the mother died of complications from childbirth.<br><br>Viera wondered aloud something like "Why couldn't Madonna give money to the father, so the child wouldn't be separated from the father"? Matt Lauer responded with something like, "He seemed happy".<br><br>The Material Girl has transformed into Material Mother. The public viewing, the gaze of mother MADONNA, giving the African toddler a "better life" is the new, politically correct, version of maternal colonialism. The current celebrity activity of the "buying" or adopting of children as staged event, no mater how well intended, has long lasting implications on a personal, societal and global scale.<br><br>Our public knowing of Madonna and the loss of her mother from breast cancer in 1963 is the same year that Malawi finally gained independence from British Rule. Perhaps this global, extreme, mothering makeover is more indicative of her personal quest of reliving her own mother loss and own need of rescue. Imagine if Madonna's father could not have supported his children after the death of the mother? And a wealthy African family appeared in Detroit with entourage and took away little 5 year old Ciccone to adopt? Americans, white Americans would go nuts.<br><br>This Malawi child is leaving his heritage, his people, his language, his family. Yes, he is poor. But now he is also impoverished. The soul of the motherless child is co-opted for Adoption Vogueing. Sounds like colonialism to me.<br><br>The image of a white, powerful, rich woman and her entourage landing in Africa and selecting a black boy brings America's history of slavery and the middle passage to mind. The viewing and inspection of the African child stirs a memory deep within that was also reawakened in the dividing of families with Katrina. Watching Madonna dance with the Malawi people was equally distressing. The image of having a party, to celebrate her self selected motherhood, her "acquiring, adopting, capturing" an African child as celebration, as folly, and as leverage to support her created image as THE MADONNA is troubling.<br><br>The Malawi boy has so much to look forward to either in London or America. Like being a mall rat and being photographed in matching couture with Rocco and Lourdes. David Ciccone Richie has the following to look forward to being raised with the implied charitable, family background noise,<br><br>"How LUCKY he is" "How YOU rescued him"- "Where would he be without YOU?"<br><br>When Barbara Bush visited the victims to Katrina, who had lost everything Barbara Bush responded saying "this is working out well for them" and that the people "were so under privileged anyway"<br><br>America needs to take into consideration the global impact of adopting other continent's children because of presuming we can provide for them better. The presumption and cultural elitism suggests, why would a child want to be on the dark continent ? Wouldn't every child want to be taken away, saved, adopted from their own Black Madonna, when they could be with the Material Madonna? <p></p><i></i>
