Black Bigots Re-Enter the Adoption Game

News to me.

My wife and I may not be suitable parents to our two girls, who we adopted from China. Why? Because we're white and they're Asian, and we received no tutoring to cope with this horrible handicap (ours or our kids', I know not). We might have overcome our innate cultural imperialism with some sort of sensitivity training or re-education regimen prior to the adoption. Certainly the missus and I should have been given a test to ensure we would keep our kids in sufficient touch with their Chinese roots. That's because "All children deserve to be raised in families that respect their cultural heritage." (I can just picture adoption experts coming to our house to check if we frequently feed them dumplings and let them watch Ni Hao Kai-lan. Which, actually, we do. But I digress.)

All this piffle emanates from — or is underwritten by — a loose coalition of adoption organizations, including the North American Council on Adoptable Children, the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, and the National Association of Black Social Workers. Granted, they're talking about white parents adopting black kids, but it's hard to see why they would allow blanket exceptions for children with Asian or Native American backgrounds.

What's doubly disheartening about this is that such démodé racial gamesmanship was explicitly taken out of the adoption process only 14 years ago, with the Multi-Ethnic Placement Act. That legislation

...prohibits race from being taken into consideration in most decisions about adoption from foster care. For example, white parents seeking to adopt a black child cannot be required to undergo race-oriented training that differs in any way from training that all prospective adoptive parents receive.

Which is as it should be, of course. Anything less is a return to the basest of identity politics, and a shameful endorsement of a racialist view that, besides being offensive on its face, also puts the interests of non-white adoptive children last. After all, their adoption would be subject to (in the words of professor Elizabeth Bartholet of the Child Advocacy Program at Harvard Law School)

"...a pass/fail test that turns on whether [the adoptive parents] give the politically correct answers. If social workers are allowed to use training to determine who can adopt, there's lots of experience showing they abuse that power."

Quite. But now the National Association of Black Social Workers and their equally misguided brethren at the Dave Thomas Foundation (remind me to not visit a Wendy's again anytime soon) want to turn the clock way back:

A key recommendation in the new report calls for amending the law so race could be considered as a factor in selecting parents for children from foster care.

Apparently, the NABSW hasn't fundamentally changed its loathsome tune in three or four decades. In 1972, the group issued a position statement in which it took "a vehement stand against the placement of black children in white homes for any reason." Vehement is right. Among other things, the NABSW called the adoption of black children by white families "cultural genocide." And there's this, straight from that same lovely statement:

We fully recognize the phenomenon of transracial adoption as an expedient for white folk, not as an altruistic humane concern for black children. The supply of white children for adoption has all but vanished and adoption agencies, having always catered to middle class whites developed an answer to their desire for parenthood by motivating them to consider black children. This has brought about a re-definition of some black children. Those born of black-white alliances are no longer black as decreed by immutable law and social custom for centuries. They are now black-white, inter-racial, bi-racial, emphasizing the whiteness as the adoptable quality; a further subtle, but vicious design to further diminish black and accentuate white. We resent this high-handed arrogance and are insulted by this further assignment of chattel status to black people.

Un-fucking-believable. Black bigots playing politics on the backs of vulnerable children — kids whose success and sometimes survival will likely depend on finding a suitable family of any race to feed them, clothe them, educate them, guide them, protect them, and love them.

The result of the NABSW broadside was surprisingly far-reaching. According to a PBS documentary,

Although white parents continued to care for black and biracial children through foster care, many states legally barred them from formally adopting these children.

It took twenty years to undo the damage — and now this ghastly crapola is coming back, albeit packaged slightly differently?

Jim Crow was perhaps the vilest thing this country has ever produced. Apparently, even with a black man (who's got my vote) within striking distance of the White House, that nasty, antediluvian skin-is-everything legacy endures — just not always in the direction you'd expect. 

Comments

[Martin Owens]

How many of the colored children up for adoption ( did I get that right? Ooh, sorry; children of color, is that better?)- how many of them were abandoned , neglected, abused?

So where were these know-it-alls then? How many children of their own race have THEY adopted, since same-race families are so damned important?

[Cynical prof]

I have the impression that plenty of Americans who adopt Chinese kids make an effort to keep them in touch with Chinese culture, but given the relative inaccessibility of Chinese language and culture here, I'm skeptical that it can work.

On the other hand, a couple of months ago I ran into a woman who adopted a Chinese girl, but her daughter had so little interest in Chinese culture the mother didn't even want to talk about it in front of her.

Meanwhile, when I asked another woman who adopted a couple of Russian girls if she was going to teach them Russian, she looked at me blankly.

[Rogier]

Prof:

Our kids know where they're from and have taken a moderate interest in their erstwhile country and culture. They go to a Chinese-language class on most Sundays; our oldest went to a Chinatown-based (Manhattan) daycare for a while where Mandarin was the prevailing tongue; we all pay a little extra attention whenever China is mentioned and frequently discuss the country; we'll go and visit again in four or five years, etc.

But this is mostly driven by the girls themselves, not by bureaucrats and social workers.

If the NABSW had had its druthers, I suspect the four of us would never have become a family; or we only would have grudgingly been allowed to adopt our kids after much genuflecting before the gods of multiculturalism, and after passing a battery of tests aimed at rubbing in our racial differences. I gather the social workers wouldn't dare use terms like "cultural genocide" anymore, but their mindset isn't all that different, as I believe the CNN article I linked to demonstrated.

I don't think I'm naive, but in transracial adoptions, it seems to me that race is only a big issue if you choose to turn in into one. I fail to see the advantages of color-conscious adoptions over colorblind ones. Let me rephrase that: I fail to see why the matter of race legitimizes or delegitimizes an adoption between parents of a certain skintone and kids of another. It's especially galling if race is again used as a determinant for whether such an adoption can be allowed AT ALL.

Colorblind adoptions sound better to me all the time, as we inexorably move into an age where race is increasingly less important, and is increasingly stripped of its totemic, explosive power. Anything that pushes the pendulum back in the other direction is less than helpful, to put it very mildly.

[imk]

I don't know Rogier, those kids look pretty miserable to me. Maybe the NABSW have a point

(/sarcasm)

[George Arndt]

The only problem I can see with trans-racial adoption is that many white parents might be ignorant of the pockets of racism that still exist in the country. Besides, "race" is a cultural, not scientific concept

[Ambayat]

When I was a kid growing up in the San Fernando Valley in the 60's there was a family across the street in which the elder 4 kids were mixed-race (all different) and adopted. The youngest was the patents' "own". What I remember most was that the adopted kids were happy, healthy, fun-loving, and clearly loved by their parents. 40 years on, I hear that all of them are doing quite well as adults. That experience gave me at an early age a life-long appreciation and respect for parents who adopt. Kudos to you, Rogier, and all like you and your wife who give so much of yourselves.

[Rogier]

Thanks Ambayat. It doesn't feel like we give so much of ourselves, frankly. No more than other parents, I'd say (OK, apart from he one-time adoption fees). Having kids is a two-way street, and as parents, we get as much out of it as we put in -- maybe more. I'd do it all again in a heartbeat.

[James S.]

Good on You! Nice looking, obviously happy kids.

Sad to think that race politics would keep any child from a home where he/she is wanted. The whole race equality must have worked, because now the progressives want to work back to inequality.