Pact, An Adoption Alliance - Adoption and Race: Articles

Adoption and Race: Articles

Adoption and Race
By Elizabeth Bartholet

One day when Christopher is three and a half, he says to me across the kitchen table at dinner, "I wish you looked like me." I respond, wanting not to understand him, "What do you mean?" And he says, "I wish you were the same color." I try to reassure him, telling him that it makes no difference to me that he and I look different - in fact, I like it that way. But my comments seem not to the point. He repeats that he wishes I looked like him, and his voice and eyes reveal his pain.

I am left to puzzle at the meaning of this pain. Is it one of a thousand pains that a child will experience as he discovers differences between himself and others - in this case, a difference between himself and his school friends, with their same-race parents? Is it, as the opponents would have us believe, part of a permanent anguish caused by the sense that he does not truly belong in the place where he should most surely belong - his family? Or is it simply a signal that living as part of a multiracial, multiethnic, multicultural family will force us to confront racial and other differences on a regular basis?

This child is as much inside my skin as any child could be. It feels entirely right that he should be there. Yet the powers that be in today's adoption world proclaim with near unanimity that race-mixing in the context of adoption should be avoided if at all possible, at least where black- or brown-skinned American children are involved.

Racial matching policies represent a coming together of powerful and related ideologies - old-fashioned White racism, modern-day Black nationalism, and what I call "biologism," the idea that what is "natural" in the context of the biologic family is what is normal and desirable in the context of adoption. Biologic families usually have same-race parents and children. The laws and policies surrounding adoption in this country have generally structured adoption in imitation of biology and reflect widespread and powerful feelings that parent-child relationships will work best between biological "likes" and related fears that parents will not be able truly to love and nurture biological "unlikes." These feelings and fears have much in common with concerns among both Blacks and Whites in our society about the dangers involved in crossing racial boundaries. It is thus understandable that there is so much support for racial matching in the adoption context.

But the question is whether we should be so reluctant to cross boundaries of racial "otherness" in adoption - whether today's powerful racial-matching policies make sense from the viewpoint of either the children involved or the larger society. It is a question of growing practical importance. Children of color are pouring into the already overburdened foster care system. In the five-year period from 1986 to 1991, the number of children in foster care rose by 50 percent. There is increasing talk of bringing back the orphanages of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Current policies stand in the way of placing the children in need of homes with available adoptive families.

The major argument made in support of racial matching is that transracial adoption would hurt children. Many claims have been made as to how and why Black children would suffer if denied a same-race upbringing. However, there is virtually no evidence in the entire body of empirical research on transracial adoption that it has a harmful effect on children. By contrast, there is extensive, unrefuted, and overwhelmingly powerful evidence that delays in permanent placement do devastating damage to children.

These studies of transracial adoption were conducted by a diverse group of researchers that included Blacks and Whites, critics and supporters. The research shows that transracial adoption works well from the viewpoint of the children and the adoptive families involved. The children are doing well in terms of achievement, adjustment, and self-esteem, and they compare well with children raised in same-race families. They seem fully integrated in their families and communities yet have developed strong senses of racial identity. The studies provide no basis for concluding that placing Black children with White rather than Black families has any negative impact on the children's welfare.

The research does indicate some interesting differences in transracially-adopted people's attitudes about race and race relations, which critics of transracial adoption cite as evidence that supports their position. But this evidence is positively heart-warming for those who believe that Blacks and Whites should learn to live compatibly in one world, with respect and concern for each other and with appreciation of their racial and cultural differences as well as their common humanity. The studies reveal that Blacks adopted by Whites appear more positive than Blacks raised by Blacks about relationships with Whites, more comfortable in those relationships, and more interested in a racially integrated lifestyle. They think race is not the most important factor in defining who they are or who their friends should be.

These findings are taken as evidence of inappropriate racial attitudes by the critics of transracial adoption. But studies of transracial adoptive families have given voice to the positive implications seen in this evidence. Noting that transracially-adopted people perceive "their world as essentially pluralistic and multicolored," one report concludes that they represent "a different and special cohort, one socialized in two worlds and therefore perhaps better prepared to operate in both. The hope is that having had this unique racial experience, they will have gained a greater sense of security about who they are and will be better able to negotiate in the worlds of both their biological inheritance and their socialization."

These conclusions challenge many of the critics' claims. Many of these adopted people have essentially as strong a sense of Black identity and racial pride as other African American children. White families do vary as to how much they help their Black children feel part of the Black community and proud of their Black heritage, but there is no evidence that Black parents do a better job than White parents of raising Black children with a sense of pride in their racial background. Nor is there any evidence that any differences that do exist in racial attitudes have any negative implications for the well-being of those raised transracially.

In the context of a society that is struggling with the issue of how to deal with racial hostilities, the studies of transracial adoptive families are extraordinarily interesting. They show parents and children, brothers and sisters, relating to one another as if race were no barrier to love and commitment. They show the Black and the White growing up with the sense that race should not be a barrier in their relationships with people in the larger social context. In a society torn by racial conflict, these studies show human beings transcending racial difference.

Editor's Commentary: Adoption & Race

It is hard to imagine any parent of color responding to Christopher's pain by saying that their color differences make no difference. Although it makes no difference within the context of the parent-child relationship, Christopher needs to be assured that his observations and feelings are valid. He then needs to be provided with positive images about why he can feel proud of his skin color and racial heritage.

To say "studies reveal that Blacks adopted by Whites appear more positive than Blacks raised by Blacks about relationships with Whites, more comfortable with those relationship" implies that greater familiarity creates greater comfort. Probably Whites raised by Blacks would appear more positive about Blacks than Whites raised by Whites, as well. Is this a positive argument for transracial adoption? If we want to encourage children to be "interested in a racially integrated lifestyle," perhaps all children ought to be raised by parents of a different race. Doesn't it also follow that children raised in transracial homes would be less comfortable in same-race relationships than those raised in same-race homes? Transracial adoption can offer some unique and positive outcomes for children, but it also results in losses which those same children must work to overcome. Transracial adoption is neither something to be believed in or against: it is a reality to be dealt with, good along with the bad.

In a racist society, people of color must come to understand how they are being viewed in order to protect themselves both emotionally and physically. To say that "race is not the most important factor in defining who they are or who their friends should be" seems to ignore the realities that in certain circumstances race is the defining factor for people of color.

Generalizations about human relationships are dangerous because no single class of people or circumstance can be neatly categorized. Implying that transracial adoption always works well for children or their parents is no different from suggesting it never does. Transracial adoption itself offers no guarantees that adopted people will grow up with "the sense that race should not be a barrier in their relationship with people in the larger social context." Each parent's ability to honor and understand his or her child's point of view and place the child's best interests first affects the child's self-esteem, development of clear racial identity, and ability to function in the world.