"We're in the foster-to-adopt process, are both white, and were planning to adopt transracially. The logic is thus--our county has a harder time placing kids of color. There are more of them. There are more white adoptive parents than adoptive parents of color. And, at least in our training class, those white parents were CLUELESS about race. (I don't care if the kid is green...the world doesn't have racism any more...my all white town will be just fine with this...)
...How do we deal with the messed up foster system? For those of you who adopted through other routes, you may not know it, but the public agencies are forbidden to use race as a placement criteria or proxies for race (e.g. neighborhood), forbidden to require more training of parents adopting transracially, and forbidden to discriminate based on race. I have a friends and colleagues who were adopted transracially and have come to a place of believing that all other factors being equal, children should be placed with the family that looks more like them and is a part of their culture, that the placement agencies should evaluate the ability of a family to help a child develop a positive racial identity, and that more training should be required of parents (esp. white ones) adopting transracially but...we can't even talk about it."
Hey, we're right there with you! I still have flashbacks to that part of the foster-to-adopt training. What the facilitator said, what the people around me said... aaaaargh (bangs head on desk). And no additional training? No social worker resource with specific expertise? Seriously???
Bottom line is, we wouldn't be offering ourselves up as F2A parents in the state of South Carolina if we weren't open to a transracial placement. I can HOPE that our team of social workers won't give us a Black child who would be, according to their famous "colorblind" criteria, just as well matched with a waiting Black family they have on file. But realistically - every single family at our training was white. My region and state are in the wholesale transracial adoption business, and that's what I have signed up for. If I didn't believe I could be a competent parent to a child of any color, then I would be pursuing a private adoption.
