“Minority children in foster care are being ill-served by a federal law that plays down race and culture in adoptions, a report released on Tuesday said.
“The report, based on an examination of the law’s impact over a decade, said that minority children adopted into white households face special challenges and that white parents need preparation and training for what might lie ahead.
“The report recommends that the law — the Multiethnic Placement Act, which covers agencies receiving federal dollars and promotes a color-blind approach — be amended to permit agencies to consider race and culture as one of many factors when selecting parents for children from foster care.
TheStateOf. . .Race and Adoptions. I (J) think race should be “a” factor to consider, but not at all a determining factor in who gets what child. I know a black woman that adopted a white baby. There are many white parents in my part of town who have adopted black kids and things seem to working out well. Do you think a white parent has the “duty” to teach a black kid “blackness?”
J: Do you think a white parent has the “duty” to teach black kid “blackness?”
The first question is what is ‘blackness’?
I can’t dance, I can’t play basketball worth a damn and I don’t like cornbread. Does that make me not black?
I sure as hell look black when l look in the mirror.
Considering all of this l don’t know how a white parent can ‘teach’ a black child ‘blackness’. It is what it is.
Whatever you want to call it, I think the child should be familiar with their ethnic background. It just kills me when people adopt some Chinese kid and name them “Virginia” or something. If it was me, and that’s a big-ass IF, and I adopted a Chinese kid and professed to love them, I would take the time to learn their cultural name.
I think a white parent has a duty to expose the child to all he or she needs to be exposed to have a healthy sense of self. A white person doesn’t have the perspective to teach ‘blackness’ (whatever that is) but a human can teach another human how to love one’s self for who they are.
In other words: COMB THAT BABY’S HAIR, take them to the Black (history/art) museum, enroll them in an Afro-Carribean dance class, and reach out to other Black parents that can serve as an additional resource for the child.
Short story: Once on a plane I was sitting next to a white woman and we got to talking. Turns out her brother and his wife had adopted a black child. She said it bothered her that whenever the girl came around, her hair was wild and disheveled. She asked me what she could do because she had already mentioned it to the parents and they did nothing. I told her the next time she has the girl, take her to “a black area of town” (Kansas City) to a salon and get her hair braided. She thanked me and said she thinks they’re doing a great job, but some things they just are not ‘informed’ about when it comes to raising a black child. I couldn’t have put it better myself. It’s good for parents who adopt to have a good support system, like this woman as well.
Rich, I have to disagree with you about the name thing.
Maybe you could name the child an American name and tell them what their name would be in their native tongue. But giving the kid who is going to live in America a Chinese name is going to isolate that child at school and in life. Little kids can be very cruel.
If the child is the only Chinese person in the family the name difference is going to make him or her feel like an outsider and remind them that they are different maybe even rejected.
Cookie, I agree with your points but l guess l was thinking along the lines of how can white parents relate to how these black children are treated by the rest society and the simple fact is they won’t be able to relate.
White parents teaching their non-white kids about their culture is all well and good but what is the white parent going to tell the black son when a white woman clutches her purse when he passes her or what about the virgin black daughter when someone asks her how many baby daddies does she have?
I think white parents have an obligation to expose their black children to people who look like them. No you can’t teach “blackness”, but you can certainly expose your child to the things that make them who they are. Then if a child does have an experience as Roderick describes and the parent can’t address it, the child has someone to connect with.
Roderick.
Gotta agree with you on the name thing.
And if any kid is lucky enough be adopted by somebody who is even purple, GBT.
But a parent has a duty to teach the kid about their heritage. You see these white folks with these black kids and their hair is toe up from the flo’ up.
And somebody has to SUGGEST to the mother to take the kid to a black salon to get their hair done. Isn’t that common fcuking sense.
That’s how you end up with a confused black kid; dumb @ss white adoptive parents. ‘Informed’ in this case is a synonym for being culturally ignorant and not giving a fcuk about your black adoptive child.
Cookie, you’re nice. I would have straightened her azz out on that plane for her relatives’ being being stupid and selfish.
Thanks for pissing me off.
On the name thing. I’m talking about situations where the parents have the kids’ official/legal name be Sally. I can see them having a nickname that kids at school can call them, sure. But I think they should keep their cultural name legally for when they grow into it.
Cookie,
Thank you for saving one more black child from having bad hair.
By the way my sister lives in KC, for another week or so. She’s a professor in Liberty at William Jewel College. I visited her once and KC’s not a bad town to visit.
Pres,
you’re funny. The part i left out was that she was pretty pissed about the situation. i could tell there was some other stuff going on with her and the sister-in-law.
you can’t choose your relatives, nor their spouses, so she was just trying to do her part. I actually kind of talked her out of the anger and told her just be cool for the kid, her niece. That’s when she asked, “well what should I do, cause they won’t listen.”
I really like visiting Kansas City. It’s only about 200 miles south of my hometown.
Cookie,
200 miles north of Kansas City is call “Bumfuck.” haha
Nah, just playin’. You’re the female Barack Obama. A star in a dark night.
I deal with this issue in my work. I represent parents against the Dept. of Children and Family Services. I’ve dealt with cross-racial adoptions and I gotta say race plays little to no factor in adoptions in my experience. A dirty little secret is that the Feds pay the State approx. $7,500 for each kid that is adopted out (through the dependency process). So, as long as the “prospective adoptive parent” has a completed homestudy they could be alien and the DCFS will be looking to get that kid adopted. And this will make J cringe, but you know what one of the fastest gowing segments of adoptive couples are, gay men. Personally, if the only issue with a child is that they’re adoptive family doesn’t know how to handle the kink or can’t speak personally about racism they experienced imo that’s inconsequential for the kids involved. Hmmm lets look at it from the kids perspective, spend the rest of my minority in long term foster care, (institutions, not a family) or a family from a different race, culture, etc… that loves me although they may be somewhat ignorant of my culture. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely think that adoptive parents of different races should make an effort to expose the child to their culture but I know plenty of Black people walking around that have a limited sense of being Black in America. And I think as we get further away from the Civil Rights Era what it means to be Black will continue to evolve and depend upon the generation.