Comments on: Black Kids in White Houses, On Race, Silence, and the Changing American Family http://www.nyhomestudy.net/2008/12/07/black-kids-in-white-houses-on-race-silence-and-the-changing-american-family/ Domestic and International Adoption Homestudies. Mon, 08 Dec 2008 04:27:23 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Lori http://www.nyhomestudy.net/2008/12/07/black-kids-in-white-houses-on-race-silence-and-the-changing-american-family/comment-page-1/#comment-1527 Lori Mon, 08 Dec 2008 04:27:23 +0000 http://www.nyhomestudy.net/?p=94#comment-1527 I am trying to analyze what it is about this article that makes me so uncomfortable. Perhaps it is the tone of the article, rather than its content. To me, it feels accusatory and very angry. For example, in criticizing the removal of barriers to adopting across racial lines it says: Federal adoption laws mandate silence. Social workers aren't allowed to talk to families about whether they already have black friends. They aren't allowed to tell families they might want to get some. Any of that would be seen, according to federal law written in 1996, as a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The 1996 law prohibits the placement of an adoptee on the basis of race, color, or national origin. To begin with, it hasn’t been my experience that social workers who talk with adoptive parents about a potential trans-racial adoption, don’t talk with them about the social and emotional issues involved. The fact that a law says that race should not be the primary factor in placing a child with a family, does not mean that no one considers racial factors at all. It just means that there are many variables involved and race is just one of these. It mans that a child’s race should not be used as a reason for keeping him or her in the child welfare system. Then, there are a number of descriptions of people who were adopted transracially and who feel that their adoptive families didn’t truly understand them or whose responses to their problems weren’t helpful. Many of these stories were told in a workshop attended by transracially adopted young people. Of course, enter any group of young people who are talking about their family situations and you will hear some stories of being misunderstood, mistreated, lack of communication. This isn’t specific to transracially adopted young people. And, if you set up a work shop for people to discuss their problems in relation to trans-racial adoption, you’re going to attract people who have problems they want to talk about. Folks whose experiences have been relatively problem-free, probably won’t attend. Of course these workshops are helpful, but what happens in them isn’t a random sample of the experience of trans-racial adoption. The anger that bubbles to the surface in this article is exemplified by the following: Transracial adoption is awkward to discuss at first, because although it is designed to chart a radically integrated future, on the surface its structure repeats the segregated past. Just look at the basic structure of a family and apply race to the equation. The most crude way to put it: Whites are in charge, children of color are subordinate, and adults of color are out of the picture. And that's not even talking about class. In the above quote, the normal family structure has been drowned in a racial equation. I do think that there is some confusion in the article between race and class. I also find it ironic that it comes from Families With Children From China. In my experience, so many adoptive parents of Chinese children, emphasized culture rather than race when they talked about helping their children accept their adoptive status. And I always felt that for Asian children in America, just like for children of other races, race was the most important issue that had to be dealt with. I am trying to analyze what it is about this article that makes me so uncomfortable. Perhaps it is the tone of the article, rather than its content. To me, it feels accusatory and very angry. For example, in criticizing the removal of barriers to
adopting across racial lines it says:

Federal adoption laws mandate silence. Social workers aren’t allowed to talk to families about whether they already have black friends. They aren’t allowed to tell families they might want to get some. Any of that would be seen, according to federal law written in 1996, as a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The 1996 law prohibits the placement of an adoptee on the basis of race, color, or national origin.

To begin with, it hasn’t been my experience that social workers who talk with adoptive parents about a potential trans-racial adoption, don’t talk with them about the social and emotional issues involved. The fact that a law says that race should not be the primary factor in placing a child with a family, does not mean that no one considers racial factors at all. It just means that there are many variables involved and race is just one of these. It mans that a child’s race should not be used as a reason for keeping him or her in the child welfare system.

Then, there are a number of descriptions of people who were adopted transracially and who feel that their adoptive families didn’t truly understand them or whose responses to their problems weren’t helpful. Many of these stories were told in a workshop attended by transracially adopted young people. Of course, enter any group of young people who are talking about their family situations and you will hear some stories of being misunderstood, mistreated, lack of communication. This isn’t specific to transracially adopted young people. And, if you set up a work shop for people to discuss their problems in relation to trans-racial adoption, you’re going to attract people who have problems they want to talk about. Folks whose experiences have been relatively problem-free, probably won’t attend. Of course these workshops are helpful, but what happens in them isn’t a random sample of the experience of trans-racial adoption.

The anger that bubbles to the surface in this article is exemplified by the following:

Transracial adoption is awkward to discuss at first, because although it is designed to chart a radically integrated future, on the surface its structure repeats the segregated past. Just look at the basic structure of a family and apply race to the equation. The most crude way to put it: Whites are in charge, children of color are subordinate, and adults of color are out of the picture. And that’s not even talking about class.

In the above quote, the normal family structure has been drowned in a racial equation.
I do think that there is some confusion in the article between race and class. I also find it ironic that it comes from Families With Children From China. In my experience, so many adoptive parents of Chinese children, emphasized culture rather than race when they talked about helping their children accept their adoptive status. And I always felt that for Asian children in America, just like for children of other races, race was the most important issue that had to be dealt with.

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