By now, you should have heard the headline: A white woman was
impregnated with the wrong sperm and the result was a mixed-race child. I've
waited all month to post about this case. I wanted to hear the facts and take a
couple of weeks to remove my emotions from the situation. I think I'm finally
ready to give my opinion.
For starters, Jennifer Cramblett and her partner, Amanda Zinkon
are right to sue Midwest Sperm Bank for giving them the wrong sperm. The
mistake was inexcusable and someone needs to pay the price. These women asked
for a blue-eyed, blonde hair, white donor and received an African-American
donor. Clearly, their expectations were not met. I would expect a lawsuit even
if they received sperm from a white donor who had brown eyes and brown hair,
because that donor would not meet their requirements.
I think that the lawyer should have focused the complaint on
the ineptness of the sperm bank and backwards method used by the bank. Using
handwritten notes for vial numbers in 2011 is unbelievable. Inseminating a
woman with the wrong sperm on multiple occasions is inexcusable. The sperm bank
has to be held accountable for its mistake, and had the lawsuit stuck to that
offense, I would be pushing for the sperm bank to pay some obscene settlement
so that all sperm banks understand that you can't make mistakes like this.
Unfortunately, the lawsuit couldn't stick to the mistake.
The lawsuit had to explain why a lesbian couple having a mixed race child in
Uniontown, Ohio was an unbelievably challenging experience. According to the
lawsuit, after Cramblett was informed about the mix up, "she began to cry
uncontrollably. She began to shake and she could not breathe. She could not
speak or think straight. Her hands and feet became numb." This rubbed me
the wrong way. I could understand her crying and being extremely upset, but to
behave as if someone just told her that she was giving birth to the spawn of
Satan is a bit much. I read that part of the lawsuit and my interpretation was:
The mere thought of having a non-white child sent her in to breakdown mode.
My personal favorite part of the lawsuit is the line,
"On August 21, 2012, Jennifer gave birth to Payton, a beautiful, obviously
mixed race, baby girl." For me the emphasis was on the "obviously
mixed race" and made me wonder if there would have been such outrage if
the child wasn't "obviously mixed race." The lawsuit takes care to
explain that "Jennifer bonded with Payton" and that she and her partner love Payton. However,
in that same paragraph, the article goes on to say that "Jennifer lives
each day with fears, anxieties and uncertainty" and she "admits that
she was raised around stereotypical attitudes about people other than those in
her all-white environment" and that "family members...speak openly
and derisively about persons of color." This immediately threw up red
flags for me and had me cursing the lawyer for taking that route. How can I
feel sympathy for you when you were perfectly content with the idea of raising a
white child in a community that you knew fostered hatred for non-white people?
Are you serious? You want me to feel bad for you because you now have a mixed
race child who is screwing up your all-white community? Really?
Oh, but it gets better. The lawsuit says, "As just one
example, getting a young daughter's hair cut is not particularly stressful for
most mothers, but...Jennifer...because Payton has hair typical of an African
American girl...must travel to a black neighborhood, far from where she lives,
where she is obviously different in appearance and not overtly welcome." This part had me stuck somewhere between
laughing from disbelief and outrage that the lawyer actually put that in the
lawsuit as an example of how having a mixed race child has impacted Cramblett's
life. I get what is being implied by the "typical of an African-American
girl" part. I think most people get it. I have two bones to pick with that
statement. First of all, African-American girls have all types of hair
textures, if you don't believe me, go online and look through the categories of
natural hair that are determined by the curl patterns of the hair. Second of
all, I've seen the pictures of the little girl and she has what I consider to
be typical mixed race hair. Take from that whatever you will. Now, I'll try to
be brief with the other parts. You don't get sympathy from me because you live
far away from a black neighborhood or because you look different from black
people. As for the "not overtly welcome" part, what do you want them
to do? Lay down the red carpet for you or bend over backwards to show you that
they love and accept white people? Maybe you don't feel welcomed because you
act like you don't want to be there or because you're nervous because you are
not accustomed to being around black people. People can pick up on whether you
seem standoffish or not. And heaven forbid if Cramblett mentioned that she was
from Uniontown, you know that lily white,
racist community far away from you people.
The lawsuit continues and explains that "one of
Jennifer's biggest fears is the life experiences Payton will undergo, not only
in her all-white community, but in her all-white, and often unconsciously
insensitive family." Jennifer admits that her family hasn't fully accepted
her homosexuality. Now we get to the part where I agree with Jennifer. Jennifer
can hide what makes her different, but Payton cannot. "Jennifer does not
want Payton to feel stigmatized or unrecognized due simply to the circumstances
of her birth." Her "stress and anxiety intensify when she envisions
Payton entering an all-white school." She is "well aware of the child
psychology research and literature correlating intolerance and racism with
reduced academic and psychological well-being of biracial children" and
because of this, "for her psychological and parental well-being, she must
relocate to a racially diverse community with good schools." (This is
where I ignore the fact that Jennifer and her partner chose to move from a
racially diverse community, back to a racist community to raise what they
thought would be their white child.) I think it's great that Jennifer wants
Payton to grow up in a welcoming environment where Payton can flourish. That is
what all parents should want for their children.
I want Jennifer to win more than enough money to move so
that she, her partner and Payton can live a decent life in a diverse community,
but I don't want the decision to be based on saving a black child from a racist
white community or the potential horrors of raising a black child in an
all-white community. I want the decision to be based on the fact that the sperm
bank screwed up. I felt bad for Jennifer when she was on television crying
because people thought that she was a racist based on the facts of the case. I
don't think that she is a racist, but I do think that her lawyer is an idiot who inadvertently painted her in that light. You can't argue about all the terrible
consequences of having a mixed-race child then say that the case isn't about
race, but the case
never should have been about race. The lawyer should have formed the
same argument that he would have formed if Jennifer had been given sperm from a
brown hair, brown eyed, white donor, because that argument works just as well
in this case.
In conclusion, if you can get the money without making it
about race, don't make it about race. Race is far too sensitive and divisive of
an issue to just casually toss in to an argument without expecting to light a
few fires.
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