Wait a minute! What's this? Another questionnaire?
If you are willing to adopt children of another race, i.e. a transracial adoption, you must complete a second questionnaire, known throughout the industry as the "cross racial placement assessment" form. The following three questions are representative.
The first question addresses physical considerations, which are often overlooked by prospective parents. I lived with a black family for several years, yet I still underestimated the significant differences in skin and hair care. After three months of experimentation, we finally decided to take our daughter to the beauty shop, where they know what they are doing. It costs more, but it saves us a great deal of time, and she feels better about herself.
The second question presents some plausible social scenarios that you would rather not think about, but they still occur, even in the 21st century. As parents, we should prepare for these as best we can.
Finally, the third question focuses on the child's alleged preoccupation with his ancestry, his race, and his "birth culture". I believe this is a myth, and a dangerous one at that. No doubt the adopted child will become interested in his genealogy when he grows up, just as I am curious about mine, but at age 7, he isn't staying awake nights wondering what music his ancestors played on a small farm in Kentucky (1940), on a plantation in Virginia (1840), in West Africa (1740), or in East Africa (1240). He is interested in finding a stable loving home before his entire childhood slips through the hour glass of time. Our adoptees listen to our music, eat our food, play our games, and observe our customs and traditions. My culture is no worse and no better than any other, so for the time being, it may as well be their culture too.
When I began the adoption process some ten years ago, there was nothing subtle about this bias. My social worker told me that she would never endorse a transracial placement. As long as I was under her jurisdiction, I would be adopting white children, period. This policy has since been declared illegal (see below), yet new legislation rarely changes the minds and hearts of determined individuals, especially when children are involved. Thus, as the 21st century dawns, some of the aforementioned social workers hold fast to their beliefs; they simply don't make any public statements about it. And why should they? They can apply their racial criteria behind closed doors, where families are built in secret. If a case worker doesn't want a couple to adopt transracially, he or she can usually find some other excuse for opposing the adoption. Or they can simply drag their feet.
On one occasion, a district supervisor called me and apologized, because one of his agents had buried my application deep in a desk drawer, where it would never see the light of day. According to the supervisor, the agent was primarily responsible for black children, and had rejected us on racial grounds. In this particular instance, the agent received a reprimand for her actions, and our application was back on the desk. I thanked the supervisor for his extraordinary candor. He didn't have to intervene, and he certainly didn't have to tell us what had happened.
This incident made me wonder; how many times were we rejected on the basis of race, with no followup investigation from the agent's supervisor? Looking back, I can recall dozens of agents who seemed genuinely interested in us over the phone, yet we never heard from them again once they received our paperwork. Perhaps they didn't like the way our home study was written, or perhaps my handicap was a factor, or perhaps they didn't want to climb the mountain of paperwork associated with an interstate placement, or perhaps they covertly opposed transracial adoptions. We'll never know. I only know that we sat by the phone like a single girl waiting for her second date. We jumped whenever it rang, hoping it was a social worker with good news. After all, we had sent our home study to five agencies in the past two weeks, and they all seemed eager to place children with us. "Hello." I began, as my wife listened anxiously. Was this the call we were waiting for? "No -- I don't need another credit card." I put the phone down and returned to my evening meal.
Why such strong opposition to transracial adoptions? As mentioned earlier, some people believe the child's practicing culture should coincide with that of his ancestors. Does this make any sense?
In most cases, we can only infer a continent of origin, based upon skin color. This information is extremely coarse -- perhaps 3 or 4 bits of data. those who seek to infer a specific ancestral culture from this half-byte of information have probably spent their entire lives inside the great Melting Pot of the U.S. If you visit Africa, and I have done so, you will witness a huge variation in cultures across the disparate countries and tribes of that continent. Africa has dozens of countries, and most of these embrace many different languages and lifestyles. The same holds true in Asia, Europe, and ancient America. In all likelyhood, your child's particular birth culture, as defined by his tribe of origin, has been lost in the chaos of undocumented history. Given the few dregs of information available to me, my adoptees' roots, and hence their birth culture, will probably remain a mystery forever.
When a child's true African heritage is inaccessible, some people seek to perpetuate the transient culture of American slaves, even though this artificial culture was sculpted in large part by the reprehensible institution of slavery. I'm not sure this is an adequate substitute for the child's true heritage, which evolved in a much freer society on the other side of the planet. In this light, obsessing over a child's birth culture seems misguided at best, and it becomes a crime when it blocks or postpones an adoption.
When she when off to college, she encountered some rather uneducated classmates. Since she spoke standard English, instead of the "Black English" dialect, they chided her, saying "You don't walk the walk and talk the talk." She responded in a manner commensurate with her keen intellect. "I speak two African languages fluently. How many do you speak?" Her classmates did not realize that she possessed the best of both worlds. Her adopting parents taught her everything she needed to know about this country, while retaining the customs and language of her birth country. She was, and is, a lucky individual.
When I filled out my cross racial assessment form, I was able to make a strong case, thanks to my disability. My handicap is immediately visible to teachers, co-workers, employers, and the general public, hence I have endured my share of discrimination. "Yes," I can tell my adoptees, "I know what that's like. And here's how I tried to handle it."
Of course there are many adopting parents who don't fit the legal definition of "disabled", yet they have fought many battles and endured many hardships. Must they drag their adversities out of the closet and into the light of day, just to gain a measure of credibility with their case workers? For now, the answer is probably yes. But if your disability is highly visible, your adversities are already on display, and your case worker might just grant you the respect you deserve. Every cloud has its silver lining.
Others oppose transracial adoptions because they fear the adopting parents cannot understand the child's situation. This too is unsupported, and somewhat self-serving. "Nobody can understand my plight. My suffering is worse than yours. You just don't know what it's like." Yet comparing hardships rarely accomplishes anything. We all have crosses to bear; some are more visible than others. A disabled parent certainly recognizes this, and is fully capable of understanding discrimination and setbacks, as are most able-bodied parents.
If an adoption is denied, or even postponed, because an otherwise viable candidate has the "wrong" race, the child is being harmed in ways that are almost indescribable. Furthermore, this action has no basis in fact or logic. The bias is merely an atavistic prejudice. It is irrational, unethical, and (as of 1994) illegal. I encourage all social workers to honor the letter and the spirit of the Multiethnic Placement Act. Our waiting children have waited long enough.