Black Children, White Parents: The Politics of Adoption
The adoption of African-American children by white parents has long been controversial. About the same number of white children and black children are available for adoption, but about two-thirds of families who want to adopt a child have two white partners. Many of these families are willing to adopt black children, but they face serious institutional obstacles.
In a majority of the states, government agencies prefer same-race adoptions, although each state varies in the priority given to the race of adopting parents. But in many cases, an African-American child who could be adopted by white parents must wait until African-American parents become available. For example, a Texas couple, Lou Ann and Scott Mullen, are both are white. They had been the foster parents of two black boys, ages two and six, since their infancies, and they sought to adopt another African-American child. The Mullens claimed that the state agency delayed action on a new adoption in order to find a suitable black family instead.
The history of adoption policies involving race is long and complicated. Some African-American organizations have opposed interracial adoption. Back in the 1970s, for example, the National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW) denounced the adoption of black children by white parents as a form of "cultural genocide." Although the organization has become more open to interracial adoption, the NABSW still favors same-race adoptions.
Much of the opposition to race-blind adoption is based on concern that the racial identity of black children will be distorted or even erased by being raised by white parents. Interracial adoption is a "major, major assault on black families," says Ruth-Arlene Howe, a law professor at Boston College.
But the imbalance between the number of African-American children awaiting adoption and the number of African-American adults seeking to adopt has caused a gradual acceptance of interracial adoption. "Leaving African-American kids in foster care rather than allowing them to be adopted by loving parents inflicts very serious harm on children," says Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor.
Researcher Rita Simon, an American University sociologist, followed about two hundred parents and children in interracial families for twenty years. As teenagers, most of the African-American children reported that their parents were "very, very committed" to discussing black issues with them. When grown, the majority of children reported having a strong sense of racial identity that had not been diminished by the experience of being raised by white parents.
Discussion Questions:
- Do you think that interracial adoption poses risks to a child's racial identity? Would you have reservations, on racial grounds, about a white couple adopting a black child? What about a black family adopting a white child?
- Should adoption be race-blind? Should parents make the decision? Should children has a voice? Is this an issue in which the government should weigh in?
- After reading the material on stratification which would you say is more important in this debate social class or race? Justify your answer with examples.
- How would your answer be different if we were talking about nationalities rather than race/social class. In other words how about an American adopting a Syrian, for example.