* Adoption and Racism

Topics: AA
26 Oct 1992

From:


There was a piece on 60 Minutes tonight about White parents
adopting Black babies, especially after having cared for them
as foster parents for the first several years of their lives.
The Black Social Workers of America (or something like that),
BS as far as I am concerened, was, of course, opposed to this.
BS said 'a Black child can never be happy in a White family'
and that 'there are sufficient quality Black homes.' When
confronted with the facts to the contrary, they said 'There are
not sufficient adoptive black parents because of racism.'

In response to a remark from someone in the BS who said 'these
children are my [Black cultural] future', a spokesman for the
NAACP (of all people!) said 'Slavery ended in 1863. No one
owns anyone anymore.'

For me, as a Libertarian, it is completely outrageous to see
the coercive power of government used to separate children from
parents, both of whom want to each other, in order to place
children, not even with their genetic parents, but with someone
who has the correct political/cultural views, no matter how dreadful
they may be as a parent.

Whatever happened to this dream of integration? I think
integration is a perfectly reasonable thing (to the extent that
it happens because people want it to and not because it is
forced). Here we have Blacks wanting separatism, wanting to
preserve Black culture as a distinct thing from White culture,
wanting to force all genetically Negroid people to be 'Black'.
It begs many of the questions of what's wrong with AA. Neither
White parent nor Black child want to split, but yet do gooders
force it to happen (contrast with Blacks wanting to keep Blacks
from joining the military). What is a Black child anyway, 50%
African? Does the BS disavow Black parents who raise their
children in White society since that destroys Black culture?
Are they going to endorse the White racist view of
miscegenation being a sin? Why should race and culture go
precisely together? I would hate to think the system forced me
to keep the same culture because of my genetic heritage. I
don't feel in the least bit German (for example, I don't
actually know my ancestry) nor particuraly want to be.

What do (either of) you AA supporters think of this?

Coincidentally, Canada is having a referendum today that
may lead to the splitting of Quebec from English Canada.
Despite all of the pampering the Quebecois have received (e.g.
other provinces being required to print everything in French as
well as English even when no on cares) they are still not happy
because, in part, they feel they are losing their culture. It
doesn't speak well for the idea of using the government to
maintain separate cultures.

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