Critical Analysis of Contemporary Issues.
Is it appropriate to use race or ethnicity in child placement decisions?.
Transracial adoption is one of the most controversial methods currently being utilized to improve the welfare of children. Advocates of transracial adoption argue that adoption provides a permanent loving home for children who would otherwise languish in the out-of-home care system, and that the race of the potential adoptive parent should be irrelevant in a "color blind" society (Courtney, 1997). They believe that what's in the best interest of a child stuck in the child welfare system to become part of a nurturing loving family, who will provide stability to the child's life, regardless of whether the adopting family is black or white. They feel that families wanting to adopt should not be judged on their skin color, but instead on their ability to provide a good home and to be good parents. Otherwise, black children in foster care will not find homes, leaving many of them feeling unwanted. They claim that black children will not lose their identity if white parents adopt them. Opponents of it claim that black children will lose their cultural, physical, and psychological identity if adopted by parents of another race. The National Association of Black Social Workers has hindered the transracial adoption process by calling it "cultural genocide" (The New Republic, 1994). The opponents of transracial adoption rest essentially on two issues. One, public agencies do not try hard enough to find black families, and the criteria required by these agencies discriminates against black families who cannot meet the standards. Two, white families cannot provide a sense of identity for black children. .
Many believe that the need for transracial adoption for African-American children is due to institutional racism. "Institutional racism is one of the primary reasons that more black children are not given to prospective black adoptive families"(Simon and Alstein 17).
