English 11

B3
Freestone
Adoption between Races
The fact that the color of someones skin and their ethical background can
interfere with someone wanting to love and nurture a child whos birth parents for
whatever reason cannot is very sad. As the number of black-white transracial
placements rose sharply, however, black social workers began to question whether
sufficient efforts were being made to find homes for black children within the black
community and whether transracial adoption was diminishing and destroying the
integrity of that community.
Transracial or transcultural adoption means placing a child who is of one race
or ethnic group with adoptive parents of another race or ethnic group. In the
United States these terms usually refer to the placement of children of color or
children from another country with Caucasian adoptive parents.
The latest data show that about 40% of adoptions in America involve such
families. Among children from other countries adopted by American parents, 84%
are trans-racial or trans-ethnic, says Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan
B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, a non-profit research, policy and education
organization.
I believe that it does not matter if you are the same race or come from the same
racial background as you parents/legal guardians.

Interracial adoption (also referred to as transracial adoption) refers to the act

of placing a child of one racial or ethnic group with adoptive parents of another
racial or ethnic group. Interracial adoption is not the same thing as transcultural or
international adoption though in some circumstances an adoption may be
interracial, international, and transcultural.
Some experts have different opinions about this kind of adoption. Some say
that children available for adoption should always be placed with a family with at
least one parent of the same race or culture as the child. This is so the child can
develop a strong racial or cultural identity. These people say that adoption agencies
that have a strong commitment to working with families of color, and that are
flexible in their procedures, are very successful in recruiting same-race families.
Other experts say that race should not be considered at all when selecting a
family for a child. To them, a loving family that can meet the needs of a particular
child is all that matters. Still others suggest that after an agency works very hard to
recruit a same-race family for a certain period of time but does not find one, the
child should be placed with a loving family of any race or culture who can meet the
child's needs.
The good outweighs the bad. Race should not be considered at all when
selecting a family for a child.