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Sparkle (3)
Happy Black History Month!
As an adoptive mother of two African American children (one Black, on biracial Black/white), I am often asked what I think white people who are considering transracial adoption* should do/think/know/read. As with most parenting questions, I think there are just about as many answers as there are families. That said, there are some issues unique to Black/white interracial families -- especially when the parents and white and the children are African American -- that can be addressed in a way that is useful to most if not all of them.
My partner and I did not stumble across transracial adoption. It so happened that we knew quite a bit about African American history and culture -- both specializing in it academically -- than the average white prospective adopter. We decided we were equipped to do a transracial adoption because we were already comfortable and familiar with Black America, both at the academic level and the personal, family and friend and colleague level (translation: we have “Black friends”).
But many people find themselves on the threshold of transracial adoption without having given issues of race in America much thought beyond the pop-culture, Black History Month school assembly level. These aren’t bad people -- not at all -- they are just living in the United States, which is still quite a segregated place. Opportunities to cross race boundaries in deep, meaningful ways just don’t crop up in most U.S. Americans’ daily lives.
So, as a teacher of American literature and a specialist in literature of race, I offer those of you who want one, my beginner’s list of books addressing critical Black/white race history and issues:
1. When and Where I Enter by Paula Giddings will give you a nice overview of U.S. history through the lens of Black women’s experience. It is quite readable and a great place to discover who and what you might like to learn more about.
2. The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom by Herbert Gutman is a good background on the effects of race relations on Black families throughout U.S. history. It’s one of many places where you begin to see the groundwork for the breaking up of Black families in the present day, but it’s also a complex, thoughtful response to the knee-jerk, racist analysis of the infamous Moynihan Report.
3. Now with some historical knowledge under your belt, you can move on to some contemporary work on Black families and the effect of living within white supremacy. A great place to begin is Dorothy Roberts. There are two books you should read that are pertinent to this topic, but if you read only one, Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare is the one to choose, as it relates most directly to the social welfare system and adoption, including the controversial history of transracial adoption in the United States. (The other is Roberts’ Killing the Black Body.)
4. For more detail on how the criminal justice system specifically harms Black mothers and their children, read War on the Family: Mothers in Prison and the Families They Leave Behind by Renny Golden.
There are two adoption agencies in Chicago that do many of the transracial placements all over the country. Roberts’ and Golden’s work is in large part focused on Chicago, giving many transracial adopters an excellent opportunity to learn quite a bit about the specific forces at play in their children’s mothers’ lives that brought them to place (or have their children removed) for adoption.
5. You will notice that most of the books on my list are not adoption-specific. For that information, you can read a hundred blogs, join a group or take a class offered by your adoption agency, or just browse the bookstore “adoption” shelves. But there are two books about transracial adoption it’s worth being sure you don’t miss and those are Birthmarks: Transracial Adoption in Contemporary America by Sandra Patton and
6. In Their Own Voices: Transracial Adoptees Tell Their Stories by Rita Simon and Rhonda Roorda.
These books explore mostly first-person accounts of transracial adoption from adult adoptees born between about 1968 and about 1972, when, for all practical purposes, transracial adoption placements were banned until the 1990s.
Considering the historical moment in which these adoptions occurred, the white parents were really pretty clueless about
