We adopted our son, Graham, now twenty, in late January, 1990, when he was five weeks. Tamar and I, then 32 and 39, respectively, were living in southern Vermont and had consulted a Burlington-based agency with a stellar history and credentials. It also enjoyed longstanding relationships with sister-agencies in several states, including Florida, where Graham was born. While we were told that an interracial, domestic adoption of a healthy baby could result in our having a child faster than were we to insist on a healthy White baby born in the States, or were we to travel overseas to adopt, we were surprised at just how fast it all unfolded. From the day of our final agency interview and paper-filing (an overall seven-month, largely upbeat process) to our bringing him home with us from Orlando, Graham was our child in six weeks' time.

     We were lucky to be living in Vermont. Had we been, say, several miles east, in New Hampshire, we may very well not have been able to adopt our son. Interracial adoption, long controversial in some quarters, while not illegal in the Granite State, had been next-to-impossible because the National Association of Black Social Workers lobby was very strong in Concord and had the ear of the then-New Hampshire governor. The NABSW was and is very much opposed to transracial adoptions.

     The NABSW view was and remains that adopting Black children into White families, by definition, cannot be a Social Good regardless of the intent and specific qualifications of the White parents. On its view, such an adoption aggravates, even if unwittingly, social ills and harmful perceptions that have plagued African-American communities for far too long. Since 1972 the association has argued that African-American children should be adopted into Black families only, except in extraordinary circumstances (and, even then, only given a complex set of procedures).

     The NABSW bases its arguments not only on ideology and historical analysis. Its claims are based also, it points out, on social/psychological studies. I don't doubt that there are studies that suggest that children might do better in same-race families. What I doubt is that these studies are in any way inclusive, conclusive, or that they should be dispositive as to public policy. I know that there is research showing that transracial adoption results in psychologically healthy children.

     I am hardly making a case for transracial adoption necessarily making for healthier children. And I am also not suggesting that we, as White parents of a Black son, didn't and don't have special, additional responsibilities. We do. Or that we didn't make mistakes. We did. I am saying, in addition, that there's no evidence to suggest that interracial adoption helps to create less healthy, less able Black young men and women. And, conversely, there's no long-term evidence suggesting that intra-racial adoption results in healthier children and young adults.

     We also know the numbers:  it's not in dispute that there are still, yearly, many, many minority babies put up for adoption needing stable families who are simply not accounted for by minority couples or singles who adopt. The enduring and horrid historical conditions that have contributed to this does not mitigate the impact on babies and children of keeping them in limbo. Moving children from one, even genuinely warm and loving same-race, temporary family to another, cannot be better than placing a child into one, stable and loving (now-interracial) family. There does not exist a study that suggests that a series of foster homes, regardless of race, is more desirable.

     I think I understand why the NABSW takes a position that would consign chidren to foster care before adoption into White families. I understand the argument that says what my wife and I have done helps delay the day  when parity exists, when most Black couples and singles are able to adopt as readily as we did. While I understand the position, I reject it, along with the idea that we've participated in the harming of the African-American community. We have not helped to foster (as the NABSW says we and couples like us have) a "fatalistic" approach to the issue.

     No one, Black or White, and certainly no child, benefits from waiting until our society is fully what it should and must be. While I have never lived in the Black community, I am certainly qualified to understand and say that. Children cannot wait until parity exists when the consequence of waiting is increasing numbers of children with no permanent families at all.

National Association of Black Social Workers

Welcome to Pact, An Adoption Alliance