Should Race Matter?

Marcie — Thu, 29 May 2008 19:09:43 +0000

Race always matters, right?

African, Caucasian, Chinese, Guatemalan, Vietnamese, Korean, Ethiopian, Nepalese, Russian, Ukrainian, Haitian, Kazak, and more…

Race always matters, right?

But in adoption race matters more, especially when parents adopt children of another race. Should adoption agencies be allowed to discriminate by race or even a couple’s racial preference? I know that when we filled out our Home Study papers we were asked to also fill out a questionnaire indicating what children we were comfortable accepting in our home.

But, according to the law since 1996 it has been illegal to consider race when determining whether or not families are able to raise adopted children. That particular law was intended to increase the amount of black children adopted.

Has that happened? No.

The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute recently conducted a study on transracial adoptions that indicates that race should be a factor in adoption placement and that agencies should be allowed to screen “non-black” families for their “ability to teach self esteem and defense against racism or for their level of interaction with other black people”. The authors’ recommendations reflect the findings that transracial adoptees report struggling to fit in with their peers, their communities and even with their own families. The study also says that minority children adopted by white parents are likely to express a desire to be white, and black transracial adoptees have higher rates of behavioral problems than Asian or Native American children adopted transracially; they also exhibit more problems than biracial or white adoptees, or the biological children of adoptive parents.

All good on paper and great in statistics (but provisions have not been adequately enforced…like recruiting same race adoptive parents?) but is it better to leave children in foster care or hopping from one foster care home to another than to give them a permanent home? The problem then lies in the support adoptive parents are given but that just may be my opinion (or is it?)

Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute makes a fine point regarding transracial adoption when it actually defines the term: Transracial adoption – defined as occurring when a child’s race/ethnicity is different from that of both parents when a couple adopts, or from that of a single parent when only one adopts – adds an additional layer of complexity to the issues faced by many adoptive families. While transracial adoptions can provide much-needed homes for boys and girls who may not otherwise have them, it is important to address the potential challenges in this growing practice in order to best serve everyone involved, especially the children.

Do we, as parents learn to be color blind? Do we become immune to the pure and simple fact that our children are a different color or do we just tune it out, making choices every day to ignore the looks, grimaces, and comments people make about us and our children?

Should we be colorblind because we love our children or should we recognize that children need to be with their own race to have a more fulfilling life?

This is hard for me because one of my sons is Caucasian/Russian and another is/will be Guatemalan. There will be an obvious difference between the two and some bystanders may only recognize that Gus is adopted. In our community there are plenty of Hispanic and South Americans so Gus will have access to a part of his culture. In fact, several Hispanic community members have already told us they are very excited that he is joining our family.

Several leading welfare groups are now calling for an overhaul of the federal laws that were put into place in 1996 to create the so called “color blind” system that created so many white-parent/black-children families. The recommendations can be found in the report by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute (but the key revision is to prohibit race from being taken into consideration about adoption from foster care, meaning race is a factor when selecting parents).

So, hypothetically, if a white couple wants to adopt a black baby and race is now a factor…that couple can not adopt that child until (or if) a black couple does or does not come forward, right?

Detroit Free Press