Uncle Tom Declares War on Transracial Adoption
Posted by: Not The Only One in New Yawk, Hypocrisy, Civil Rights, Race & EthnicityI was annoyed to learn recently about a molehill that has been built to mountainous proportions: transracial adoption, or to be exact its opposition to it.
For those unfamiliar with the term, transracial adoption is when a child is adopted by an adult or couple who is of a different race or ethnicity. The aspect of transracial adoption which has been deemed the most controversial among over reactionary so-called black advocacy groups is when white families adopt African-American children.
Though the CNN.com article above mentions that the opponents of whites adopting black children include the Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption (pretty funny considering he was a white guy!), the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, the North American Council on Adoptable Children and the Child Welfare League of America, I will focus on the National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW), who is the most vocal opponent and, presuming from the name, is comprised completely of black people.
The NABSW is calling on the federal government to revise the 1994 Multi-Ethnic Placement Act, which sets regulations regarding children in foster care. This law, among other things, requires state agencies to recruit more foster parents from the same race as the children available for adoption. NABSW argues this law is not adequately enforced and insists that state agencies have taken a “fatalistic” approach to the adoptability of African-American children. What’s more, this group wants this law amended to require state agencies to make prospective white parents undergo race-based parenting training as a prerequisite to adopting an African-American child.
(I will refer to adoptable children as “abandoned” even though I acknowledge that not all children are given up for adoption but also seized by the state from unfit parents)
Consider the use of “fatalistic” by the NABSW to describe transracial adoption, almost comparing it to genocide. Unless these white parents are lynching these black children after adopting them, I can’t understand how adopting any child could prove to be fatal to them. To imply that state agencies are advocating genocide by matching willing parents with abandoned children who need a loving home is ridiculous.
But take a look at the NABSW web page on their Family Preservation Task Force.
“…adoption should be the last option to be considered for African American children with the service of choice being in-home services focused on avoiding out-of-home placement.”
I suppose if the African-American children in question are infants, adoption should also be considered the last option. I was raised to believe that abortion was the last option for an unwanted baby. Black professional organizations that would rather unwanted black babies be aborted before being put up for adoption? Now who’s the one advocating genocide?
It’s nice to see that the NABSW is so concerned about the welfare of black foster children…just not concerned enough to adopt them themselves, an act that would guarantee these children would be placed with African-American parents.
But the real problem here is that these state-run orphanages are supposed to place these children with willing foster parents. It is well known that children who have no parental figures in their lives are less likely to become functioning, self-sufficient adults. There are prisons full of inmates who grew up in broken homes; imagine the fate awaiting people who grew up in no home at all?
I’m not saying that unadopted foster children are inherently immoral or prone to crime or promiscuity, but the odds of them growing up to be healthy, well-adjusted adults are stacked against them.
It’s bad enough for a child to acknowledge that their birth parents didn’t love them enough to keep them; I’m sure most abandoned children just want someone, anyone of any color, to adopt them and give them a loving home.
But if NABSW gets their way, even more black foster children will grow up in group homes run by government administrators rather than in households run by adults who actually love them. I’m sure years from now, black teens and young adults who grew up in foster homes will appreciate the fact that NABSW had their best interests at heart.
So NABSW and other self-appointed child advocacy organizations want abandoned black children to have fewer chances than abandoned white children to having an emotional and financial base of support to better equip them to achieving the American Dream later in life. They are basically advocating for white children to have better lives than black children. To me, this is the most sophisticated form of selling out that I’ve ever seen.
One of the reasons it is crucial that black children be adopted by anyone regardless of race is because black foster children are the least wanted children to adopt. Because white couples on average are more likely to have the finances to adopt a child and more likely to have fertility problems than blacks, white couples make up the majority of foster parents. Understandably, white couples may want to adopt a white child that looks like them, to create a more natural-looking family. So white children are in higher demand than non-white children by foster parents. Add the fact that many white couples and white lesbians (at least here in New York) are adopting baby girls from Asia, and the demand for African-American foster children drops even further.
Another reason, mentioned by the CNN article, is that the number of black children in state-run foster homes outnumber their white counterparts in almost every state.
Out of curiosity, on June 10, 2008, I decided to visit the website of New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services to see how many available white foster children there were in New York City and compare it to the number of available black foster children in the same city. For search criteria I left my search range wide open: I searched for children of any age (infant to 18 years), of either gender, and I indicated that I would be willing to adopt up to 12 siblings of any child I wished to adopt (as siblings are required to be placed together). Bear in mind that Black is separated into three categories: African-American, West Indian, and Multi-Racial.
Here were the results of that search:
Available white children: 5
Available African-American children: 65
Available West Indian children: 2
Available multi-racial children: 14
Total children of possible African descent: 81
81 Black children to 5 white children. In other words, for every white child waiting for a foster parent in New York City, there are at least 16 Black children, or 13 African-American children, also waiting.
Keep in mind that new York City is by no means a black-majority town: according to the 2000 Census, blacks made up only 26.6% of New York City residents, compared to whites in the same city who make up 44.7% of the population.
These black children need and deserve a loving home just as much as any white child. And with the odds of being adopted stacked against them even further, why is the NABSW advocating that the government implement obstacles to keep Caucasians from adopting them?
NABSW argues that birth parents have a right to say whether or not they want their child to be adopted by someone of the same race. Seems to me if the birth parents are so concerned about the welfare of their children, perhaps they shouldn’t give them up for adoption in the first place and instead take responsibility for the child they brought into this world.
In an ideal scenario, it would be great if the number of abandoned black children matched the number of eligible black foster parents. But this is not a perfect world, and in a world where so many children, regardless of color, are lacking of a loving home and family, it should be everyone’s concern that these children get the support they need today because it is they who will inherit the world tomorrow.
True unconditional love knows no color.
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