The New York Times
August 17, 2006
Overcoming Adoption 's Racial Barriers
By Lynette Clemetson and Ron Nixon
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When Martina Brockway and Mike Timble, a white couple in Chicago, decided to adopt a child, Ms. Brockway went to an adoption agency presentation at a black church to make it clear they wanted an African-Americanbaby.
Their biological daughter. Rumeur, 3, is accumulating black dolls in preparation for her new brother or sister. Black-themed children's books like "Please, baby, Please" by the filmmaker Spike Lee and his wife, Tonya Lewis Lee, share shelf space with Elmo and Dr. Seuss.
But the couple's decision provoked some uneasy responses. One of Mr. Timble's white friends asked,” Aren't there any white kids available?'"
Ms. Brockway's black friends were supportive. "But," she said, "I also sensed that there was maybe something they weren't saying,"
Mr. Timble cut in. "Like maybe they were thinking, 'What do these people think they are doing?'
Ms. Brockway and Mr. Timble are among a growing number of white couples pushing past longtime cultural resistance to adopt black children. In 2004, 6 percent of black children adopted from foster care, about 4,200, were adopted transracially, nearly all by whites. That is up from roughly 14 percent, or 2,200, in 1998, according to a New York Times analysis of data from the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect at Cornell University and from the New York Department of Health and Human Services.
"It is a significant increase," said Rita Simo a sociologist at American University, who has written several books on transracial adoption. "'It is getting easier, bureaucratically and socially. With so many people going overseas, people are also increasingly saying, Wait a minute, there are children here who need to be adopted, too."
The 2000 census - the first in which information on adoptions was collected - showed that just over 16,000 white households included adopted black children. Adoption experts say there has been a notable increase since 2000.
The reasons for the increase are varied. The Multiethnic Placement Act and its amendments prohibited federally financed agencies from denying adoption based on race. The foster care system has sharply changed in recent years and now includes financial incentives for finding more adoptive families.
The combination of legal changes and greater embracing of multicultural families - Americans have adopted more than 200,000 children from overseas in the past 15 years - have lessened resistance from both blacks and whites. The long wait for white children and the high costs of international adoptions - typically $15,000 to $35,000 - also plays a role.
And agencies are offering courses to help adoptive parents enter the process with more cultural openness and awareness.
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