Color-blind Adoption

[Tim Lee]

A friend points out this post, which flags this depressing story on trans-racial adoption. The law sensibly prohibits adoption officials from taking race into account in placing children in adoptive families. Given that children in foster care are disproportionately black and adoptive parents are disproportionately white, this rule almost certainly works to the benefit of black kids. Yet inexplicably, a variety of adoption advocacy organizations, including the National Association of Black Social Workers, opposes color-blind adoption rules. Indeed, a 1972 statement by the NABSW took "a vehement stand against the placement of black children in white homes for any reason," and stated:

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

In 2005, the president of the NABSW declined to distance herself from the statement.

The language about "black as decreed by immutable law and social custom for centuries" is strikingly reminiscent of the language of Judge Leon Bazile in Loving v. Virginia, that "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and He placed them on separate continents." If the prospect of black kids being raised by white parents is "high-handed arrogance" because it will "diminish black and accentuate white," couldn't the same be said of children born to inter-racial couples?

Race and culture are separate concepts. There's nothing remotely tragic about a black kid being raised with "white" cultural assumptions (or vice versa). If a black kid is raised by white parents from a young age, then the white parents' culture is the black kid's "cultural heritage." The black kid isn't missing "his" culture any more than I'm missing my culture because I speak English rather than Gaelic. This isn't to suggest that a black kids raised in white families won't encounter the occasional bigot who feels there's something wrong with white parents raising black children, but the problem there is the bigot, not the decision to allow the adoption.

Comments

"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"

How very sad that politcally correct argument overwhelms the central focus that some more children are getting good homes. Some folk just like to get themselves all in a dither in unjustified self-righteous outrage and will find the bad in every good others do.

Posted by susan | May 30, 2008 6:40 AM

"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"

How very sad that politcally correct argument overwhelms the central focus that some more children are getting good homes. Some folk just like to get themselves all in a dither in unjustified self-righteous outrage and will find the bad in every good others do.

Posted by susan | May 30, 2008 6:40 AM

"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"

How very sad that politcally correct argument overwhelms the central focus that some more children are getting good homes. Some folk just like to get themselves all in a dither in unjustified self-righteous outrage and will find the bad in every good others do.

Posted by susan | May 30, 2008 6:40 AM

sorry! I honestly only clicked it once!

Posted by susan | May 30, 2008 6:44 AM

I don't know the American custom, but over here in Germany being adopted wouldn't be the first thing an adoptive child or his adoptive parents would mention when introducing themselves.

A bit like your pay grade being adopted is not really kept secret, but isn't advertised either. Now white people adopting a black child would make his adoptiveness very obvious. If there are many more black children then black people willing to adopt interacial adoption is clearly still the best solution. Still I do think this is a non-racist argument against interratial adoption. But maybe American culture is just different, after all Americans seem to import adoptive children from China while Germans import theirs from Russia.

Posted by occasional visitor | May 30, 2008 9:20 AM

Sadly I think is all about the money or "funding" as public sector workers call it.

The National Association of Black Social Workers want to be the self designated champion for black foster children, the less of these there are, the less power & influence the organization has. Like any other union its main goal is to strengthen first itself, then its members and finally the role its members carry out.

Asking the National Association of Black Social Workers to care about the children first and foremost is like asking the Auto Workers Union to care about the cars they produce.

I also thought the idea in the article about placement with extended family was shocking. The extended family let the situation get so bad that the child had to be placed in care, now these are the same people we want to turn to in order to raise a child? The same people who had a had in raising the now delinquent parent? The same people who if they asked to adopt a non relative would be turned down? Madness and its not even March.

Posted by JBA | May 30, 2008 9:20 AM

"...against the placement of black children in white homes for any reason..." Presumably they believe that bad things would happen as a result.

Well, I can certainly see how bad it was for a black child raised by a white family -- even if it was not, technically, the result of an adoption. That would be Barak Obama. Yep. Turned out really bad for him.

Posted by wj | May 30, 2008 10:21 AM

It's a fine line between invidious discrimination and trying to ensure that white parents know what they are getting themselves into, and more importantly, how to help them understands the various issues that might arise, with the adoption of African American children. There really are people who will adopt out of a sense of noblesse oblige -- it's not the transracial thing, it's really, are these parents adopting for the right reasons? The other thing that was mentioned in the article is that it takes special effort to recruit African American parents -- and if a lack of African American families is one reason why African American children are not being adopted, obviously, it would be a good step to take. But the law makes that somewhat problematic as well.

Posted by Barbara | May 30, 2008 11:04 AM

"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."

It seems critics of interracial adoption don't like the thought of black children being raised as cultural whites. This vaguely reminds me of the sort of arguments people make when opposing immigration, particularly Mexican immigration. People in this country always talk about how Mexicans are "taking over," "forcing their language on us," "disrespecting our heritage," etc. Similarly, some blacks must feel thethat interracial adoption robs "their people" of their "heritage".

In the end I simply find myself wondering why people are so selfish that they insist that their descendents must have the same culture as them. As long as my posterity are happy, healthy, decent human beings, I don't really care what language they speak or what they consider to be their cultural heritage. Culture is in constant flux anyway; the human condition is not.

Posted by Seth | May 30, 2008 12:27 PM

It is about numbers: the desire to have as many people as possibly in their own group, and therefore, with any luck, on their side.

The National Association of Black Social Workers may also be concerned about the thought that if the colour of the adoptive parents matters little, neither does the colour of the social workers.

Posted by ad | May 30, 2008 2:35 PM

Aren't you all misreading (part of) the NABSW statement? Traditionally, if a child is produced by (say) a black woman and a white man, that child has been considered black; after all, pretty much every descendant of slaves in the United States has some amount of European ancestry. Apparently adoption agencies were making a point of advertising such children as "black-white", "interracial", "bi-racial", etc. in an effort to make the children more appealing to white parents. That sure seems like "high-handed arrogance" to me.

I'm not defending the substantive stance of the NABSW; in fact, I would tend to disagree. But much of the criticism here seems to be off-mark.

Posted by John McCall | May 30, 2008 3:24 PM

@ John McCall:

I really doubt the that the adoption agencies are deliberately labelling the children in terms that make them more appealing to white adoptive parents. It's going to be just as obvious that the child doesn't belong to the two white parents if the child is half-black as it would be if the child was fully black. I imagine the idea is simply to give the parents the most accurate information. There's a whole spectrum of racial divisions, not simply the "black/white" divide, and some would argue that by not labelling everything in between you're robbing that biracial child of his or her 'identity'.

Besides, it's clearly not the issue of the labels (although I can see where the quote itself would lead you to believe that). It's the issue of white parents raising black children as cultural whites that the NABSW dislikes. If you follow Tim's link saying that 'the president of the NABSW declined to distance herself from the statement,' then you see that 'placing black children with white families a form of “cultural genocide"' and that 'Children should be raised by people who understand their culture and who can help them navigate this world.'

The problem with this line of thinking is that culture is not a genetic trait. Being born with black skin does not make one culturally black. Being born with white skin does not make one culturally white. I knew a white woman who was raised in black neighborhoods, and she was as culturally black as imaginable. And I know you say you're not defending the substantive stance of the NABSW, but I think most of the criticism here is of the overall view they take, not the single quote specifically. Because the fact of the matter is that in 1972, when the statement was made, it may very well have been true that adoption agencies tried to play up whiteness to create a market for transracial adoption, but for the NABSW to continue pushing this line of reasoning in 21st century society is nothing more than divisive propaganda that makes them the 'safeguards' of black identity and white adoptors disseminators of 'oppressive assimilation'.

Posted by Seth | May 30, 2008 9:50 PM

The NYT article as well as the NABSW statement got me seriously worried. Looking at this from an international perspective I always regarded the US adoption laws to be far more advanced to their European counterparts (Britain or Germany and others) and what the article tells us that this might now be challenged. I am reassured, however, that a lot of comments on this blog disapprove of these backward developments.

I strongly believe the US color-blind adoption laws to be much more progressive than their European counterparts which take race as an extremely important criteria. In other words, in Britain for example, a white couple cannot adopt a black or bi-racial child. Black children are supposed to be adopted by black couples and bi-racial children by bi-racial couples. It's absolutely ridiculous.

NB the fact that Germans (or Europeans at large) prefer white Russian children rather than Chinese children is partly due to the fact that there are no German adoption agencies working with China but it could also be interpreted as a racist bias in German couples' preferences. Germans simply prefer whites to other ethnicities. One should add, of course, that this bias is also present in the large majority of white American couples seeking adoption.

Posted by maria | May 30, 2008 11:29 PM

In other words, in Britain for example, a white couple cannot adopt a black or bi-racial child.

I once knew a black guy who was adopted by a white couple in the UK. (Admittedly that adoption occured many years ago.)

I can imagine the rules were changed, in the name of equality.

Posted by ad | May 31, 2008 11:12 AM

I only know that it is not possible for whites to adopt black children in Britian today. They must have changed their laws as you said. I just don't know when and why. I am not sure it was in the name of 'equality' (what would this mean exactly?) but with the - in my view wrong - priority that ethnic children can only be placed in ethnic families for 'cultural' reasons (same what has been proposed in the US by many organizations according to the NYT article). The consequence is that white British couples have very little chances to adopt domestically and black children are waiting in foster care...

Posted by maria | June 1, 2008 1:19 PM

I only know that it is not possible for whites to adopt black children in Britian today. They must have changed their laws as you said. I just don't know when and why. I am not sure it was in the name of 'equality' (what would this mean exactly?) but with the - in my view wrong - priority that ethnic children can only be placed in ethnic families for 'cultural' reasons (same what has been proposed in the US by many organizations according to the NYT article). The consequence is that white British couples have very little chances to adopt domestically and black children are waiting in foster care...

Posted by maria | June 1, 2008 1:19 PM