Birthmarks: Transracial Adoption in Contemporary America

Chapter 4: Producing “IL/Legitimate” Citizens: Transracial Adoption and Welfare Reform

F O U R Producing “IL/Legitimate” Citizens Transracial Adoption and Welfare Reform What follows are the opening scenes from the 1995 release of the feature film Losing Isaiah. Credits appear on a black screen as a mellow saxophone­lead soundtrack eases in. As the title Losing Isaiah appears, some movement in the black screen becomes evident through increasingly visible streetlight beams and the muffled sounds of traffic. As the credits continue to appear the move­ ment persists, and our aerial perspective reveals a full view of the city lights. As we fly above the Chicago skyscrapers, sirens and other city sounds in­ trude. Our perspective shifts from a view of light­sprinkled skyscrapers to a top­down gaze of the stark urban streets. A harder drum beat and syn­ thesizer gradually replace the sax. As the streets within our view move fur­ ther away from the crisply lit downtown we hear muffled yelling and dis­ tant sirens. The neighborhood becomes visibly impoverished as a distinctly urban contemporary sound claims the music and a soulful woman’s voice rides the melody without words. Our view of the streets rolls into a suc­ cession of monotonous surfaces—cement, gray, pavement, darker gray. The movement of a shadow, then the tapping foot reveal that we’ve left the paved surfaces of the street for the inside view of cement walls. Our gaze follows the foot up a brown leg, across clothing and blanket to linger at a breast at which a Black infant is feeding. The camera pulls back to re­ veal the unkempt mother, rocking, eyes closed. She pulls her finger from the clutch of her infant, touches it to her temple, and grimaces with pain. Muffled conversation is evident in the background. She takes her child from her breast and he begins to cry. She buttons her shirt as she begins to leave the desolate room, but a woman stands up on the other side of the room and says, “You ain’t leavin’ that baby here, not hollerin’ like that you| 130 | Producing “IL/Legitimate” Citizens ain’t.” We cut to the woman walking down the tenement stairs carrying the child as he continues to cry. Outside looks like a war zone. In the dis­ tance a trashcan fire is blazing and we hear a man say, “Let’s go girl. Okay baby, come on over here and be warm.” Several men laugh. Another man says, “Come on now.” The baby continues to cry. The woman’s face is desperate. We continue to hear the muffled sounds of the men and then discern, “Come on babe, this some good shit. Come on you can have a lit­ tle bit of this.” The woman looks around for somewhere to leave her baby. She finds a box among piles of trash, places him inside, and says, “Okay Isaiah there you go. Okay? I’ll be right back. Okay?” He cries loudly. She places the lid on the box and walks away. We continue to hear his cries as the camera lingers on the garbage pile. The camera cuts to the woman’s hands lighting a crack pipe. We hear her inhale, her hands shake as she lights it again. As she exhales we hear her sounds of pleasure, “Um, umhmm, oh yeah, oh yes.” The camera fades from a profile of her face into morning sky. The camera pans across a freeway, a bridge, several streets, finally fo­ cusing on a garbage truck traveling down a road. The scene slowly fades into the moving blade of the garbage truck. Two men discuss basketball as they load bags and boxes into the compressor, lower the blade, and refill the bin. The blade pushes the lid off a box and the infant is revealed, inches from the compressor’s force. Perspective shifts to a view from inside the truck’s bin as the blade is lowered. One of the men hears the infant cry, sees him, and yells, “Holy shit. Stop the blade! Stop the blade! Stop it!” As the blade obscures the view of the baby the camera cuts to a blaring am­ bulance racing down the street. The scene shifts to a shot above the baby being wheeled into the hospital on a stretcher. Many sets of hands sur­ round him. Perspective is shifted to the infant’s viewpoint, as the faces of nurses, paramedics, and doctors jog beside the gurney shouting vital signs...