Tranracial Adoption

“Being of color in America is like being forced to wear ill-fitting shoes. Some people adjust to it. It is always uncomfortable on your feet, but it is the only shoe you’ve got. Some people can bear the uncomfort more than others. Some can block it from their minds, some cannot. When you see some acting docile and some militant, they have one thing in common: the shoe is uncomfortable.”

It is expected that African Americans strongly value blood ties. We are a people who were created by the tearing asunder of families beginning on African shores and continuing legally under American skies. It was a common practice for slaveholders in the United States to sell black children away from their mothers and siblings. Black blood ties were of no significance. And because blood ties did not matter to whites, they mattered a great deal to blacks. This started what is known today as “the preservation of the African-American family”.

The Black community generally has strong feelings against adoption. There is this belief that our women have no reason to consider adoption. With the strength of family ties within the Black community, adoption is not necessary (“We can take care of our own”). Yet, why do statistics prove

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Everyday, before and after the birth, parents must ask themselves if they are making the right decision or if their choice is in the best interests of their child.

Some of the issues in transracial adoption involve factual disputes on questions such as whether transracial adoption is necessary at all and whether enough is being done to recruit minority adoptive families. Does racial and ethnic matching constitute a healthy identity?

There is a widely accepted belief that children have significant needs generated by their racial or ethnic characteristics, as well as by their actual cultural experiences, and further, that children have a right to placements that meet these needs. Facing the personal dilemmas of this difficult choice while also having to battle with one’s own community and meeting resistance from professionals who may simply say they have no families available to adopt a child of color is strenuous enough. However, there is one thing that is made clear, and that is “discrimination will not be tolerated.

While federal law prohibits the consideration of race in placing adopted children with families by public agencies, the NABSW is so strongly against the adoption of black children by white families, that they recommend that adoption agencies do everything in their power to place children into same - race adoptive families. They believe that psychological maladjustment, poor racial identity, and the ability to cope with racism and discrimination are outcomes of transracial adoption placements. In most states, custom reflects and reinforces these beliefs: public policy, formally or informally, discourages cross-racial adoptions or foster placements to the point where thousands of children are denied placement in loving homes.

The subject of transracial adoption cuts across the areas of law, psychology, sociology and public policy.

Approximate Word count = 1739
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

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