Episode 03b: Building a Family Through Adoption with Channing Power
The co-Star of this episode:
The Whiskey Old Fashioned
Featured Guest: Channing Power
What becomes of the truth within adoption stories? How do we maintain truth amidst desires to love and protect?
In this 3-part series to Episode 3, we deep dive into three very different adoption stories to explore the topic of biological identity and origin. In Part 1, Jason reveals a major find, a truth to his own adoption story that perhaps would have gone undiscovered if not for Ancestry.com. In Part 2, we talk about the truths one mom faced while building a family through adoption. Here, we have a heart-to-heart with a mom who shares her very personal journey to building a family through adoption.
This week:
Enjoy a Whiskey Old Fashioned and share this recipe’s origins
Channing met Jason and Yvonne through a mutual friend, Hank and Sueann Fortener, founders of Adopt Together
Channing tells Jason and Yvonne that she had medical challenges that made it impossible for her to carry her own child
To Channing, adoption felt like it made a lot of sense and there are kids out there that needed a home, so that’s the path she chose
Channing explains how she talked to her children about their own adoption journeys
Yvonne asks Channing, “What has been your search for identity?”
Channing talks about feeling like she was “playing with half the deck,” being a Black girl growing up in an all-white neighborhood
Channing talks about growing up without representation in media, and how much she appreciated women like Shonda Rhimes now
Jason and Channing talk about being biracial, both Black and white, in cities that were historically sundown towns.
Channing talks about how she predicts how her children will come to understand their adoption journeys
“I hope that they don’t struggle with the notion of not being wanted because I hope that they have felt in our family the love and the fulfilling part of being in our unit.
But there certainly come a time where that question will be asked.”
- Channing (minute 16:20)
Cocktail: Whiskey Old Fashioned
Recipe
2 oz of George Dickel Rye Whiskey
Three teaspoons of simple syrup
Several dashes of bitters
A couple of splashes of water
History & Meaning
The Old Fashioned :
Before the 1860s, cocktails in America tended to be some mixture of spirit (often cognac), water, sugar, and bitters. After the 1860s and into the 1870s, other liquors like absinthe were being introduced to bars.
But a generation of drinkers wanted something more classic, so they would ask for something their grandfather would drink. They would say, “Make me something old-fashioned.” And the name stuck.
About our special guest
Channing Power
Channing Power is a TV industry leader the chairman of Warner Bros Television Group.
Highly esteemed TV industry leader Channing Dungey was named Chairman, Warner Bros. Television Group, in October 2020, and started her tenure at the Studio in January 2021. In this role, she has creative responsibility for all of Warner Bros.’s unrivaled television production activities, including production of scripted and unscripted/alternative series for on-demand/streaming platforms, premium/pay, and basic cable channels, and the broadcast networks.
Prior to Warner Bros., Channing most recently served as Vice President of Original Series at Netflix where she shepherded such titles as Self Made: Inspired By the Life of Madam C.J. Walker, Away, and two series from prolific producer Shonda Rhimes: Bridgerton, and Inventing Anna.
Having graduated magna cum laude from UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television, Channing has been a visiting professor at the school and serves on the school’s Executive Board. She is also a founding and current board member of Step Up, and a board member of Children’s Institute. Dungey is a Los Angeles member of BAFTA and serves on the Motion Picture & Television Fund Board of Governors.
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(and the cocktail too)?
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