About Ethiopian Adoptees | Unapologetically Unfiltered
Ethiopian Adoptees: Unapologetically Unfiltered is a podcast by and for Ethiopian adoptees navigating the long aftermath of intercountry adoption. Hosted by Lidet O’Connor, the podcast centers adoptee voices without romanticizing adoption or softening harm. Through solo episodes and conversations with other Ethiopian adoptees, it explores identity, grief, systemic failure, survival, responsibility, and the realities adoption leaves behind. This is a place to listen, reflect, and to remember that your experience is real and worthy of being named.
A podcast. A community. An archive in progress.
Rediet: You Can't Have a Kid for Gratitude (Part 3 of 3)
In our final segment with Rediet, we explore the deep psychological impact of transracial adoption, specifically how the titles of "Mom" and "Dad" are earned through emotional connection rather than legal transactions or financial responsibility. Rediet challenges the pervasive "savior narrative," reminding us that she was a well cared for child in Ethiopia before being thrust into an environment that often devalued her Blackness and used materialism as a weapon to demand gratitude. This culture of silence led to significant emotional neglect, highlighted by the heartbreaking fact that Rediet had to translate her birth mother's ID herself as an adult because her adoptive family never bothered to do so.
We also deconstruct the "bad kid" label Rediet carried for years, reframing her past behavior as a natural response to being traumatized and gaslit within an unsupportive system that failed to acknowledge her original identity. Today, Rediet has found strength and healing through the community of Black women and has reclaimed her autonomy, and has now successfully reconnected with her birth family. As she prepares to return to the "warmth" of her original culture, she leaves our listeners with a powerful message of validation: adoptees are not "crazy," and our complex, often painful feelings about our adoption journey are entirely valid. We are not alone.
Thank you Rediet for sharing your story and your truth. We are honored.
xoxo - Lidet
24 Jun 2026
Rediet: Feeling Like a Disruption (Part 2)
In this second part of the interview, Rediet shares the jarring reality of being brought into a white American home that already felt "completed." She describes her arrival not as a smooth integration, but as a "disruption" to an seemingly established family dynamic, where she often felt like a guest in her own bedroom or a "puppy" whose initial novelty eventually wore off. From the physical pain of her first winter to the uncomfortable silence of suburban life, she reflects on the profound grief of losing her mother, her language, and her culture, all while her adoptive parents operated under a "colorblind" philosophy that left her completely unprepared for the racial realities of the world.
We also dive into the systemic failures of international adoption, which we candidly characterizes as a form of child trafficking due to the frequent loss of vital documentation and the lack of informed consent from biological families back in Ethiopia. She opens up about the "survival instinct" she developed at a young age, realizing she had to navigate a world where her parents could quite literally never understand her experience. It wasn't until she found community with other Black women, from her first Black friend in eighth grade to the hairdressers who restored her confidence, that she began to process the visceral racial trauma of her upbringing and reclaim the identity that had been suppressed for years.
11 Jun 2026
Rediet: Good Girls Don’t Get Their Heads Shaved (Part 1)
In this episode (Part 1 of 3), I sit down with Rediet, a fellow Ethiopian adoptee, and we go back to the beginning of her story in Addis Ababa, where she was raised by loving, strong women and remember a childhood full of community and joy. We talk about losing her mother, the sudden move to an orphanage she didn’t understand was coming, and the survival instincts she developed at just four years old. She shares what it was like to receive a photo book of “random white people” who later showed up to take her to America, and how the reality of leaving truly hit when her grandmother came to say goodbye. We unpack being labeled “difficult” for acting out during an unimaginable transition and how trauma in adoptees is so often misunderstood. The conversation gets real about white saviorism, international adoption, and the entitlement built into the system. It’s the type of honest and reflective dialogue we both wish we had heard growing up.
Podcast Authority Score: 28 / 100
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