Here at WordScrawl we have talked about adoption quite a few times. Today I came across yet another adoption issue that I would like to share with you. There is currently a movement to repeal the 1994 Multi-Ethnic Placement Act and its 1996 revisions. The legislation is the first thing that said that race cannot be used as a factor in adoptions and stopped white family being denied black children and vice versa. In addition to disallowing racial bias, the legislation told state agencies to find more adoptive parents of all nationalities, to circumvent the issue entirely.

If this legislation were to be repealed it would mean that social workers could mandate classes for parents adopting children of certain ethnicities. It also means that potential adoptive parents could be denied the ability to adopt a child of a different race. This movement to strike the MEPA is based on the fact that 20% of black children are adopted by white families, and many believe that these families need to take longer to adjust before adoption because of the culture clash.

Now, I’m not naïve enough to think that the black/white divide in America is completely gone but I never thought that things were this bad. Yes, the cultures within families are different. Be you Hispanic, Caucasian, Indian, Asian, or whatever, your culture is going to be different from someone else’s; I don’t think that fear should keep us away from racial mixing and matching.

If you were to adopt a child from another country what would you do? You would raise them as your child, maybe exposing them to some things from their country or culture. Why wouldn’t it be the same if you adopt a child of another ethnicity? Do we send all Russian, Polish, Chinese, Japanese, Pilipino, Haitian, Ethiopian, and German children who have been adopted by U.S. couples back so that they can live with “their own kind”? I don’t think so. I think that adoptions should be kept the way they are, colorblind. Besides, who is to say that there is a black or white culture that the other race is not privy to? A black child in Orange County is not the same as a black child in the Bronx; just like a white child in Georgia is not the same as one in Canada, or any child in one area is the same as another based on skin color. Please people, relax and encourage adoption, let’s not make it harder.