Once you're born black

By Bill Hoyt

Saturday, May 31, 2008

Child welfare groups say you have to go back:

NEW YORK (AP) -- Several leading child welfare groups Tuesday urged an overhaul of federal laws dealing with transracial adoption, arguing that black children in foster care are ill-served by a "colorblind" approach meant to encourage their adoption by white families...

Of the black children adopted out of foster care, about 20 percent are adopted by white families. The Donaldson report said current federal law, by stressing color blindness, deters child welfare agencies from assessing families' readiness to adopt transracially or preparing them for the distinctive challenges they might face.

"There is a higher rate of problems in minority foster children adopted transracially than in-race," said the report. "All children deserve to be raised in families that respect their cultural heritage."

I'm a white foster dad with two black daughters, and so at least to a small extent I'm sympathetic to the argument that there are special problems that come with that. I suspect that because a) they are young, b) they are cute, and c) they are girls, we probably have not incurred the kind of racism we would if they were, say, teenage boys.

Sure, we've had people tell us, in all earnest, that it's ok to have black friends so long as they don't enter your home, and we've had occasional nasty glares* at the grocery store. As a couple who entered the foster system looking to adopt bi-racial kids, were were prepared for that and expected that. And I frankly don't know that my kids' social lives will be any different if they have white parents or black at home; they'll still be black, living in the same town Gordon Parks once swore he'd never return to (he eventually did and is buried here) because of the ill-treatment he received as a young boy**.

That said, I have significant problems with proposals that seek to take into account race or assign special training before black kids can be placed in a white home, because such training is superficial at best and liberal gatekeeping at worst.

I've been through MAPP classes, the classes that all foster parents and would-be adoptive parents have to take before they can work with state agencies. My wife is even a certified MAPP trainer. So I think I can say with some authority that they are of limited utility and one will learn far more in a month with foster kids than one ever did "preparing" to get them. I really question the value of any training given by my white social workers on how to raise black kids. Far more valuable is asking a black friend for help with hair care, skin care, and other issues that I as a white parent have never had to deal with.

The second problem is with the phrase "cultural heritage," because it presumes that if you are black, there is something wrong with you taking the majority culture as your own. I guess it means that unless white parents provide rap music, saggy pants, and an unpronouncable name, the kids will never be 'authentic' or something. If you are born black, you are to be permanently, culturally segregated from the majority of your fellow citizens. That's not considered a problem if you're a Korean kid or a Chinese kid or a Romanian kid - I guess there aren't enough of them*** to worry about it - but if you're black, it's black culture for you, buddy. And you can't be named Buddy, either.

But that's not the main problem. As the article notes, black kids already languish longer in the foster system than white kids. That's a system that wounds them, whether it tries to or not, and the longer they remain in the system, the more psychological and emotional damage they accrue. Kids in the system are never settled, they are never secure, they are never "home." And if there's one thing that foster kids need, it's a home, whether mom or dad pays any attention to their "cultural heritage" or not. Anything that throws up roadblocks to getting kids adopted - especially if it allows idealistic, young, childless social workers to act as gatekeepers to keep kids from getting adopted - is going to destroy more kids than will ever be helped by having parents whose skin tone is acceptable within a politically-correct margin of error.

*though more to my wife than I. When she's alone she's seen as a white mom with black kids, when we are together we're seen as a white couple caring for black kids. They are two completely different things.

**On the upside, it's amazing and heartening how quickly a white couple can be accepted at the "black table" at any event when they show up with black kids. The girls are not mascots (hat tip: Snoop) but they are occasionally keys that can open pretty stubborn doors.

***Or enough racially-conscious social workers of their particular skin hue, yet.

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Posted by alm77 (anonymous) on June 1, 2008 at 3:53 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Wow! Thanks for this blog. My husband has always wanted to adopt kids from "the system" or out of the system rather, but I've always been afraid that we'd have to foster first and I don't want to end up in jail for punching some kid's biological parent square in the face. Not only that, but I do worry that my kids would be physically or emotionally hurt by bringing in some kids who have been through more trouble than my kids could ever imagine.

Right now, it's not in the cards, but maybe when our kids are a bit older and I've matured, have some patience and am a bit more diplomatic. I can't imagine that in Lawrence, race would be an issue either way. I'd be really nervous taking non-white kids to my hometown where my parents still live, though.

Lots of things to think on...

Posted by El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) on June 1, 2008 at 6:41 p.m. (Suggest removal)

"my kids would be physically or emotionally hurt..."

That's a real concern and one reason why we made a rule that all of our foster kids would be significantly (5+ years) younger than our youngest kid. You want teaching to occur and it will; you just want to make sure it goes the right way.

You don't have to foster first, technically, but in our case we decided to after taking the MAPP classes I mentioned. And you may have to live with the kid for 6 months before the adoption becomes final, so it's kind of the same thing. That's not a bad thing, as we did have one girl that we planned on adopting who lived with us for better than a year. She had some deep-seated emotional problems we were working through, but those problems were not manifest in their full glory until we had babies around. Had she not been with us for better than a year, we never would have seen it until it was too late and would never have been able to have babies from that point forward.

I'm not sure we'll adopt these ones should the opportunity present itself. That has nothing to do with them specifically but with the fact that since I'm on the long side of 40, I'm a little leery of enlisting for another 20-year term, you know? But I'm perfectly happy to have them here a couple years anyway.

Posted by OtherJoel (anonymous) on June 1, 2008 at 7:05 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Yeah, I realize that, practically speaking, we still live in a world where multi-racial families have a tougher time than most. I can only imagine the challenges adoptive parents face when bringing a child of another race into their home. However, in general, families are the main conduit of cultural norms. Any child is born with a racial and cultural heritage* and it is important (I think) to try and educate them to the best of the parents' abilities about it, but it can't be easy when the parent and child do not share that heritage.

That said, the idea of putting up what seem to be essentially roadblocks for the creation of multi-racial adoptive families will probably make an existing problem worse. The logic seems to push towards racial/ethnic compartmentalization; I could see how this could incrementally push us backwards in terms of cross-cultural understanding. And we're not doing all that well to begin with. Americans still have a lot of room for improvement when it comes to balancing assimilation and pluralism.

*My use of this term implies mainly culture of the historical kind, although kids are still faced with the modern manifestations; it makes sense that they should be able to understand it, regardless of whether or not they choose to subscribe to it.

Posted by alm77 (anonymous) on June 2, 2008 at 2:07 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Bill have you ever had one of those moments where you've wanted to (or have) confronted a bio-parent? Seriously, that is one of my biggest hold ups.

My husband has worked in a group home setting with both teens and six year olds. The teens he did well with, the six year olds situations broke his heart to the point he just couldn't do it anymore.

Thanks for the tip on the 5+ years rule. Sounds like great advice.

Posted by El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) on June 2, 2008 at 10:09 p.m. (Suggest removal)

More than confront, but you simply can't. And if you can't not, then it's not for you. It will break your heart, no doubt.

Posted by alm77 (anonymous) on June 3, 2008 at 11:32 a.m. (Suggest removal)

I'd have to have a lot of faith (in the system and in Ultimate Justice) to be able to, but so far, I've matured with age (not everyone does...) and when the time comes, I may be ready.

Once you're born black

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