A White Woman Without her Bi-Racial Children: Family Courts Make Mistakes that don't Get Fixed

by Christine Olaniyi

If what happened to my kids had happened to young Barry Obama, he would have been stripped from the primary care of his mother and turned over to the father who left him, likely changing the course of his life.

Like the President’s mother, I was blinded by youthful idealism to the extreme dangers of entering a mixed marriage.  While I knew the judicial system historically opposed mixed marriages, I was naïve to the fact that U.S courts have historically treated non-black women who marry outside their race worse than black men and women themselves.  Until 1931, such women would be stripped of citizenship.  Such marriages continued to be illegal until the late 1960s.  

MOTHERS SOMETIMES LOSE

Since then, such women often lose custody of their “black” looking children.  Such was the case for me when Judge Thomas Koehler of Iowa City, IA ordered that “physical characteristics can be a determiner in awarding custody.”

Although I was the primary caregiver of my two young children, and the sole breadwinner when I filed for custody from my estranged ex, the Court awarded physically custody to my children’s father.  He is black African.  I am Colombian-American.

The court did not question that my ex had no known employer (and hasn’t for over six years) or that “money works differently” for him.   Nor was the court interested in my ex’s arrest at the  nation’s Capitol for appearing dressed as a suicide bomber (in the name of ‘art’) or other threats and assaults made towards various individuals throughout the country.  

In this era, people wrongly assume mothers only lose custody of their children if they have a drug problem or police record of some sort.  However, in contested cases, the man gets custody an overwhelming 70% of the time – and often these men are the most violent.

WEDDED THEN LEFT
 
In March of 1997, I married Nigerian artist Olabayo Olaniyi in Santa Fe. Our son, Oba, was born in December of that year. The following year, we moved to Iowa where our marriage disintegrated.  When our second child, Aluna, was a month old, we officially separated.  

My ex left Iowa (green card in hand) and traveled to be an artist-in-residence at the University of Michigan.  I remained in Iowa, moved into my own home, and continued to run my bilingual home daycare.

HONEY, I FORGOT THE KIDS 


Aside from my ex’s philandering and financial irresponsibility toward our children, my life remained relatively peaceful and joyous for a full year-and-a-half…until I filed for divorce.

“YOU WILL FLY NO MORE…I AM WARNIG YOU, CHRISTINE!”

At first, my ex played the game of hide-and-seek.  When found, and served with divorce papers, death threats rolled in and my ex filed for sole custody of our children.

Despite recorded threats, 50/50 custody was ordered.  Devastated, I moved to Michigan to facilitate the temporary order.  Twice over the next few years, I tried to move the case to Michigan where we all lived.  Iowa refused to give up this case.

In the meantime, the family member who kept us from living on the streets had her home shot at.  My daughter returned from a visit with a visible mark.  My son confirmed that their dad got mad when she wouldn’t stop crying and asking for me.  Photographs of this incident went ignored.  

Fortunately I was offered a full-time job after one day of work and moved into my own home six months later.  Bones and moldy gourds were left on my doorstep (courtesy of my ex.)  In addition, my ex and his former student were arrested in D.C.

The Iowa court could care less.  As far as Judge Koehler was concerned, my concerns over the aforementioned actions were all proof that I “hated” my ex.  

After a bizarre seven day trial, where my ex was allowed to sing in Yoruba and admitted to asking me for two abortions, the court awarded him primary custody and a substantial amount of child support (more than his reported income).    

POLICING THE INSANITY

A blue book will tell you about any vehicle, but nothing exists to warn you about our lemon-of-a-court system.  Now, that I’ve learned of the systemic problems within our judiciary, I would say you’d be insane to trust the court to determine custody.  

No accountability exists for family courts.  A former prosecuting attorney admitted to me that  “Judge Koehler had his mind up” and the present prosecuting attorney made clear that she won’t prosecute the provable perjury in my case because it’s a “civil matter.”  The media is no better-–refusing to expose corruption unless it happens to involve a movie star or morph into a criminal case.  

HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN THE CIVIL COURTS

Attorney Diane Post is the leading attorney for this case against the U.S government for its human rights abuses in the Civil Courts of America.  My case will represent the state of Iowa in her action which is supported by several organizations, including the ACLU.  Like men in  the main cases cited, my ex has a record of violence that went ignored.  Unlike people in those cases, my and I children remain alive and manage to thrive in our work, education and allotted time together.  My children have never wavered in wanting to come home and I will spend the summer in court fighting for their return.  

Unlike before, now I know such action holds danger.  Yet, like my hometown hero – Sojourner Truth – I intend to fight for the just return of my children.  Like Sojourner’s son Peter, my children never would have been stripped from me if it weren’t for the color of their skin.

“It is unfortunate that family courts can often be places that hinder, rather than help, the broken families who enter them, and this situation must be addressed.”  -President Elect Obama