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Race In Adoption

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The Consideration of Race in Adoption Should adoption social workers first try to place a child within a family of the same race and culture? It is this that makes it almost impossible for a black family to adopt a white child (Maxwell). Adoption is a legal process by which people take a child who is not born to them as their own son or daughter. Most adoptions take place when children are young. According to Adoption and Race, “Overall, however, adoptions are declining. Instead, more children are being placed in foster care these days, due to the foster care grant. The department also lacks accredited social workers,” (“Adoption and Race”). Families considering adoption first need to agree (particularly the mom and dad) that it is something …show more content…

For these reasons, many adoption agencies offer incentives to families willing to adopt black children, including subsidies to make the process more affordable (Dunham). No family should be given a ‘subsidy’ for adopting a black child. If they cannot adopt a black child, then they are not ready to be parents. The outcomes for children adopted by parents of a different race are positive. With affordable and easier adoption processes, more children will have lovely adopted parents more quickly. There is a significantly higher amount of ethnic, or non-white, children that need to be adopted. This creates a win-win situation for both the parents and the child because the child can be placed with their new family much faster. Whites who understand the significance of race, and who are otherwise qualified, should be permitted to adopt black children (Maxwell). If a white family is willing to learn and understand what it means to be a certain race, then they should be allowed to adopt black children. If whites could just adopt black children, then the interracially adoption will be quick and black children will have homes quicker. Some prospective parents wait three years or more for children of the same race (“Adoption and …show more content…

The more awareness that intercultural adoptive parents have, as well as a willingness to act on behalf of their child, the better prepared the growing child will be to live as an adult in a society where heritage still matters (Ramos). When a family adopts a transracial child, it helps them open to the racial issues around them. Interracial adoption gives homeless children a better home and family. In 1994, Congress passed the Multiethnic Placement Act, or MEPA, to ban race matching, thereby barring agencies from routinely presuming that same-race placements are in the best interests of children (Wagner). Adoption agencies should focus on the interest of the child and getting the child a happy home. Race matching in adoption delays the adoption processes. Even worse, some agencies continue to race-match even when it means pulling children away from different-race families to whom they have bonded (Wagner). White parents can learn to deal with racism, especially if it concerns their child. It’s crazy to think that instead of trying to find a child the perfect home, agencies are focused more on finding families of the same

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Regardless of race, one particular adoption issue that steadily occurred in the past was the need to almost conceal the fact that the parents adopted the child, as if adoption was something to look at negatively but contrastingly, corresponding with social standards of the time, “childlessness was considered deviant” (Patton 34). Perhaps the underlying reason for wanting the child to look like the parent is so that a nonstandard act like adoption appears natural. An example of this occurred during the baby boom after World War II until the late 1960s. Unwed white women and infertile couples that sought to have kids could easily match with a white baby with similar physical characteristics and ethnicity. In this way, it served as a beneficial arrangement for both the parents and the child, making the adopted children seem “as if they had been born into their families” and to mask the “sexual deviance of White unwed mothers and infertile White couples” (Patton 20).

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The issues that children face today are intense and tremendous. These issues continue with discrimination in adoption. These people see by color instead of the child. The love for a child should not matter by the color of their skin, but by who they are. Children need loving homes with caring parents.

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“Color Blind!” “But if white parents treat race as if it doesn’t matter, the kids have to figure out what it means to be color on their own,” says Judy Stigger, an adoption therapist (Dunham). According to At Issue, from SIRS data base, Trans – or interracial adoption involves the adoption of a child of one racial or ethnicity by parents of another. In the United States, interracial adoptions were almost unheard of until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. In 1972, the Black Association of Social Workers issued a statement condemning interracial adoption, calling it a form of cultural genocide.

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Social workers like to match children with parents that are of the same ethnicity because they believe it will help them, it states, “Meanwhile, the social workers search for homes that will supposedly promote these children's "cultural awareness"--never mind the other ingredients, such as love and stability, that make childhood and life fulfilling.” (Source C). Showing how many think the children should be placed with people of the same race, because they would fit into the community better; additionally it is where “they belong”. Social workers are only doing this because it would better the community, rather than thinking about the type of household it is and if it is safe. It has been shown that a person of adoption acts more like the people around them, unlike popular belief, it states, “Given this social power, an adopted person of color navigates her self-formed identity among her affiliated communities, her family, and herself.”

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Interracial Adoption & Why Race Should Not Be an Overriding Factor The process of adoption was legalized in the United States in the 1850s, and over the past 150 years since then, the institution has drastically changed with our society(Fogle). One of these changes being the growing concern of interracial adoption. The conversation about whether or not race should be a determining factor in adoption first surfaced in 1972, when the concern for children being placed in a household with adoptive parents of a different race was first introduced at the national conference of the North American Council on Adoptable Children (Liem).

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Tie to the audience: Some of the children that are in foster care might be related to you or the child could be someone that you know like a friend’s child. C. Thesis and Preview: Consequently, we need to do something to make adoption easier and better not only in the United States, but all over the world. Today I will give you a few solutions to fix the foster care system. I’ll begin by telling you about the need to improve foster care. II.

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The experience of many African American Transracial Adoptees with America’s racial complexities parallels the narrative above, an internal struggle to understand racial discrimination, solely due to the skin they inhabit. Transracial adoption, the placement of children in families of differing racial and cultural, began in the 1950s to provide shelter to Asian orphans displaced after World War II; it later expanded to include African Americans and Native Americans (Barn 1273). However, adoption of blacks into Caucasian families encountered sharp criticism in the black community. In 1970, The National Association of Black Social Workers argued that the adoption of African Americans by Caucasians promotes “cultural genocide”, seeking to protect black’s racial and cultural identity (Bradley and Hawkins-Leon 434). Despite thereof, Multiethnic

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The psychological welfare of the child is harmed as they undergo the struggles of their cultural identity, and emotional burdens. Some proponents of transracial adoption will say every child needs a home. One can argue whether or not it is harmful to grow up in a home not of your own racial and cultural background versus not having a home at all. For others, the adoption of their child led them to a greater awareness of racial issues. Transracial adoption will change your life forever.

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Because of racial discrimination, the kids are left in the foster care system longer, and the kids aren’t being adopted. If potential adopters were more open to adopting kids of other races, all of these statistics would be much lower, and many kids would be adopted, thanks to no more racism within

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In the 1940s, psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark, performed an experiment using four dolls, identical except for color, to test children’s racial perceptions. The majority of the children chose the white doll, because it was prettier. Segregation had a horrible effect on black children’s self-esteem. The children didn’t want to be black, because being black was considered bad. African American’s were not given the opportunity to achieve an adequate education, only the necessities.

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Firstly, Huh and Reid (2000) argue that talking about adoption and having racial discussions at home is beneficial for the adoptee. Their argument is supported by Liow (1994) who contends that children’s knowledge of their racial and cultural roots is important in forming their personal identities and such knowledge should be conveyed in a manner that coincides with the children’s understanding ability. Secondly, parents should teach their child how to cope with racial discrimination. Studies have shown that the inability to cope with discrimination will result in the child being unable to deal with racism in a way that protects their self-esteem and positive racial identity (Butler-Sweet, 2011). There are also other protective factors like children’s involvement in cultural activities, parents having friends or colleagues who are of the child’s race, being in racially integrated schools and living in a multi-cultural neighbourhood (Huh & Reid, 2000; Liow, 1994; Robinson,

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Germans refused adoption because of negative biological inheritances. White Americas interested in adoption highlighted the possibility of positive environmental impact which can lead to child improvement (Fehrenbach, Race After Hitler 137). After a lot of discussions and law amendments, it seemed that neither West Germans nor U.S. officials “were eager to claim responsibilities for the children and the social problem they were perceived to embody” (Fehrenbach, Race After Hitler 142). Individual efforts were exerted to adopt colored children. An example is Mabel Grammer who, and her husband, adopted “eleven German children” (Fehrenbach, Race After Hitler 148).

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Starting in the late 18th century, the process of naturalization and racial equality has plagued America. In 1790 congress decided to extend citizenship only to free whites in the Naturalization Act of 1790. That standard changed after the War when citizenship was also granted to people of African descent but that change did not mean equal treatment or equal rights. Although blacks and minorities were indeed citizens, they were stripped of many basic rights and privileges such as unhindered ability to vote, access to facilities, restaurants and businesses, and housing. Black codes, passed in 1866, restricted African Americans’ economic potential by ensuring that blacks remained a cheap labor force.

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In fact, many sociologists now see the significance of the changing aspects in the gap of the varying pace of racial and ethnic minorities with diverse demographic, physical, social, professional, family, and religious attributes and pressures added Lewis, Wilson and Robertson. Similarly, studies and researches regarding interracial relationships and interracial children are done all around the world, especially in the U.S.A. Those of Ross, Walker, Todd and Johnsons’ are just few of the many studies that have explored about interracial bonds. Most of these researches focused on sociodemographic factors (Johnsons’ in Walker, 1995), impact with college students (Ross, 2004), as well as perceptions, attitudes and stereotypes (Walker, 1995 & Todd,

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Young adults’ opinions and values are tremendously influenced by the people that surround them because an estimated, "7 in 10 teens (71%) say their social and political ideology is about the same as their mom and dad 's”(Lyons n.pag.). Although many parents may believe that their children do not listen to a word they say, they do. Parents are the most influential people in their kids’ lives, which means that they have the biggest impact on them. Children watch their every move, they mimic them, and idolize them. This is especially true when it comes to cultural differences.

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