dear madonna

just because i have all your albums and still can't stop loving "hung up" doesn't mean i don't think this adoption mess is stupid. yesterday you were on oprah, all sanctimonious and defensive about adopting "david", the 13 month old baby from malawi. this, after the already ridiculous media shitstorm reached epic proportions when the supposedly orphaned boy's father was quoted as saying he didn't understand that he was signing away his offspring. via satellite, you got all uppity about how he Did So Understand and that he's only crying foul now because the media has been harassing him so hard.

WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU THINK WOULD HAPPEN? duh, OF COURSE the paparazzi has been all up in his face. and now you blame the media for his sudden confusion? that's just naive. your spin is gross - claiming the frenzied media has played with his mind and that you are a victim of backlash. madonna puh-leez, you are not a saint for wanting to 'save' his baby.

but golly, thanks for bending over backwards to mention 1700 times your foundation in malawi and your godly charity work there. thank you for dropping sachs' name something like 80 times - hooray for you for being affiliated with a couple of the most prominent anti-poverty activists on earth, people who convince celebrities like you to INVEST in community development in africa by empowering the people, not taking them home.

your intentions may well be good. but that's not good enough. don't wave your sanctimony and privilege in our faces, proclaiming proper adoption procedure makes Everything Fair. the whole thing feels gross, and it's sad that you don't get why. that david's father is in the picture now should make you stop and revisit your noble plan, even if he has been nowhere to be found since 'david' arrived at the orphanage at the age of two weeks. that situation is for none of us to pass judgment because we couldn't possibly understand what it's like to be ravaged by poverty, aids, death, and Total Fear.

to even mildly compare this story to those of deadbeat dads from springer and povich is shallow and misleading. you use your uber-exposure to shame david's dad and elevate your own ego, instead of enlightening people about how the cycle of poverty is a complex thing and that situations like david's and his fathers do not require our judgment but our support. beak off all you want about how right you have been through all of this. but who better than madonna herself could understand OPTICS? if you are so right, it might have occured to you to halt your african baby project and provide whatever financial assistance could have allowed the baby to be reunited with his father.

just stick to philanthropy that helps lift up africa. david, like all babies of africa, are not cute or quaint souvenirs for the affluent to take home. shame on you for imploring westerners to adopt children from poor countries. shame on you for not using your remarkable platform to encourage us to use our wealth in more respectful ways.

regardless of whether or not the adoption is legit, regardless of whatever grandiose intentions you have of keeping 'david' linked with his homeland, regardless of your plans to raise him as a future leader for malawi or whatever the fuck, it STINKS that you would rather take him home to give him a designer upbringing instead of lavishing african communities with designer poverty-eradication projects. madonna, use your amazing fortune to strengthen african families and communities, not exploit them.