The week, the talk show The Real got really real when the ladies helped a guest looking for her loved ones get the surprise of her life, thanks to guest host, actress Tisha Campbell.
Audience guest Ellen Lindsey had just recently learned after 50 years that she was adopted. That news alone was shocking enough, and Lindsey was on the show to actually meet with “someone from [her] past” but still had no idea what she was in for.
As the show went on, the hosts and Campbell questioned Lindsey about her expectations connecting with an unknown relative she never knew existed.
Lindsay admits that she assumed the mystery person from the past would be an ex-lover and she had no interest in going down that rabbit hole because she’s married.
“I was married and you think of exes,” she explained. “My wife was like, ‘You should go ahead and meet them.’”
Years went by and Lindsay didn’t hear from her investigative genealogist Pam Slate again. Then, out of the blue, Slate called back and told her that she might be adopted. Lindsay agreed to undergo a DNA test, which confirmed that Slate’s suspicions were true. Lindsay confessed to the hosts that she had no idea she was adopted prior to the test.
“I never knew. For 49 years, I never know that I was adopted,” Lindsay said.
It was at this time that Campbell chimed in and dropped a bombshell, revealing the shocking truth that she was, in fact, Lindsey’s half-sister!
What followed was tears and hugs as audience members and the co-hosts clutched their pearls in shock and amazement at what had just occurred.
“I’m nervous for you, because if it was my sister, if it was me, I would be like, ‘I hope she ain’t no crackhead.’ Then second, I would be like, ‘I hope she likes me,’” Campbell said setting up her announcement, EW reported.
Campbell explained to Lindsey that her birth mother “knew she couldn’t give you the life, with just being a…
… single mom, that she really wanted to give you, and she had to give you up for adoption,” Campbell said.
There are about 108,000 children available for adoption in the U.S. as of July 2015, according to the National Council of Adoption. African-American children are overrepresented — they make up about 24 percent of the children waiting for adoption. The African-American population in the U.S. is 13 percent.
Non-white children, and black children, in particular, are harder to place in adoptive homes, a representative for the Department of Child Services in Illinois says. So the cost is adjusted to provide an incentive for families that might otherwise be locked out of adoption due to cost, as well as “for families who really have to, maybe have a little bit of prodding to think about adopting across racial lines.”
The fees typically cover administrative costs, but also costs associated with taking care of the mother, like travel, rent, health care and counseling services. Now, some states and agencies are using a different formula to make adoption more affordable for families, with a sliding scale based on income rather than skin color. In that system, lower-income families pay less to adopt. Some agencies are also moving toward a uniform cost system where all adoptive parents would pay the same fees.
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