    
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 424
Registered: 07-2006
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, August 24, 2006 - 07:20 pm: | 
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More white families adopt black kids
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060824/LIFESTYLE/608240336/1005
Breakdown of racial barriers and long waits for white children among reasons cited in analysis.
Lynette Clemetson and Ron Nixon / New York Times
When Martina Brockway and Mike Timble, a white couple in Chicago, decided to adopt a child, Brockway went to an adoption agency presentation at a black church to make it clear they wanted an African-American baby.
But their decision provoked some uneasy responses. One of Timble's white friends asked, "Aren't there any white kids available?" Brockway's black friends were supportive. "But I also sensed that there was maybe something they weren't saying," she said.
Brockway and Trimble are among a growing number of white families pushing past longtime cultural resistance to adopt black children. In 2004, 26 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 Department of Health and Human Services.
The 2000 census -- the first in which information on adoptions was collected -- showed more than 16,000 white households included adopted black children. Adoption experts, however, say there has been a notable increase since 2000.
The reasons for the increase are varied. The Multiethnic Placement Act in 1994 made it illegal for federally financed agencies to deny adoption based on race. The foster care system has changed significantly in recent years and now includes financial incentives for finding more adoptive families.
Both black and white families, at times, feel discriminated against. A white judge initially denied Nick and Emily Mebruer's petition to adopt a black child, ruling that the Mebruers, a white couple who live in rural Lebanon, Mo., were "uniquely unqualified" to parent a black child because of their limited interaction with black people and culture. The ruling was overturned, and their daughter, Maggie, is now 3.
The combination of legal changes and greater embracing of multicultural families and identity -- Americans have adopted more than 200,000 overseas children 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 play a role. |
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