The exporting of Black Babies...

60 minutes ran a piece last night about the exporting of Black Babies born in America to white families outside the U.S. I have in the past voiced my concern and objection to white families adopting Black children. My concern and objection was met with the remarks that “in order for these children to have some stability and a chance, being adopted by a white family may be necessary especially when there is no Black family available.” Black Children are far less likely to get adopted than all other children and Black children make up the bulk of children in foster care waiting for adoption. This reality is often thought to mean that Black men and women are not adopting Black children but the truth is Black men and women are adopting Children in numbers higher than we ever have and there was a significant Rise in Black single men adopting Black Children in the mid to late nineties. The real problem lies in the bureaucracy that keep Black folk from adopting Black children and there is more Black children in need of homes and families than there are Black men and women willing to deal with all the scrutiny they get when trying to adopt, thus if these children are to find a home it may be with a non-Black family because of the racism that has infected the adoption process.

We all have seen the stories of white folk in America adopting Russian, Chinese and various other Babies from around the Globe. This reality is born from the fact that Racism is a problem that white folk are aware of and are not ready to deal with here in the U.S. I am not advocating the adoption of Black babies by white folk in America, I am simply pointing to their actions being acknowledgement of deep seated racism in this country that they would rather not face or deal with. This is not true for all white folk as there are plenty of white folk raising Black children here in the U.S. However we can say generally speaking this is true. What is it about the Black and White dynamic here in America that lead white folk here to pay thousand of dollars to get a baby from another country? While white folk outside the U.S. are paying thousands of dollars to get a Black baby from the U.S.?

My objection and concern with white folk adopting Black children is rooted in things I have heard from men and women who were adopted by white folk. The most difficult time for a Black child in a white family is the teenage years when we all start trying to discover who we are. Many Black children that grow up in white families in white towns and attended majority white school found themselves confused and the target of racist comments and remarks and living with parent who had no idea how to deal with the racism targeted at their Black Child nor did they know how to comfort their Black Child, thus the child in many instances rebel and the rest is history.

One of the things I liked about the white families that are adopting Black children in Canada as noted in the 60 minutes piece is that there are so many of them and they all have come together and they have play dates and they bring in Black mentors and Black adults to interact with their adopted Black children. A few of the white families have what is referred to as an open adoption which means the birth parents are still involved in the children’s life and are a big part of the child’s life. 60 minutes profiled this one young Brother whom mom wanted to finish school and thus gave her son up for adoption. She went on to get her masters degree and is doing very well for herself and her daughter; her son that was adopted by the white family is a part of their life. They visit him in Canada and he visits them in Houston.

Can transracial Adoption work? It has worked in instances where the white family that adopts a Black child understands the racism that their adopted child or children will deal with, when they make an assertive effort to connect that child with the culture and history of his or her people and when the birth parents are involved in the life of the adopted child.

The biggest of all questions is still how can we stop the exporting of Black Babies and help defeat the bureaucracy that Black men and women face when trying to adopt a child. It is commonly known and understood that the scrutiny Black families get when trying to adopt a child is overbearing and often times lead to the families changing their minds or simply being told for what ever reason they can not adopt although they are more than qualified.

One of the comments a white couple received when they took their adopted Black child to school was “The school Basketball program just got a big shot in the arm.” The parent’s response was that they can not blame people that speak like this for their comments because families like theirs are unusual in their town. This to me is white folk covering for white folk; the comments made were not that the science or other scholastic subjects just got a Big shot in the arm it was that a sport just got a big shot in the arm. This is an example of the commonly held belief by white folk that Black men and women are superior when it comes to sports and athleticism but the underline and unspoken part of that is we are inferior when it comes to academics. This reality escapes even the adopted parents and to me represents a future of uncertainty for this Black child with this white family in regards to the racism he will face that his parents may otherwise miss or not understand that would immediately be picked up by a Black family.