A Transracially Adopted Child’s Bill of Rights
*Every child is entitled to love and full membership in her family.
*Every child is entitled to have his heritage embraced and valued.
*Every child is entitled to parents who are not adopting to save the world.
*Every child is entitled to parents who know she will experience life differently than they do.
*Every child is entitled to parents who know that transracial adoption changes the family forever.
*Every child is entitled to parents who know if they are white, they benefit from racism.
*Every child is entitled to ongoing opportunities to connect with people of his or her race.
This is taken from our last session for adoption. We had two more sessions than normal b/c we are looking at bi-racial or transracial adoption. My prayer is that we can give a child all of this and more!
Always necessary and uncomfortable to remember this. White adoptive parents not only benefit from racism as white people in general but specifically as adoptive parents. The racism where I live is such that we waited 3 months to adopt a child, while families who won't adopt a child of a different race generally wait 5 years. At least, here we don't have adoption fees, so we can't have cheaper babies, depending on skin color, but that is another example. We're not talking just, you benefit from racism because you grow up in a society that tacitly says you're better. You benefit, because you get to adopt a child easier. If it weren't for racism, our adoption process would have been a lot longer and harder. That is the cold hard truth. I don't know what exactly I am supposed to do about it, but at the very least I have to face it without excuses.
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