ethnic group. I am happy to see that the foreign countries have clamped down, since some babies have lived a horror life and even died in some of these crazy adoptive homes. Personally, I would be a foster Mom to young adults trying to be independent. At 18, they are dropped and have not a clue on being self supporting. America first.

Kimberle Crenshaw, a law professor at UCLA and at Columbia Law School, best explains why some of us capitalize “Black” but not “white.” She writes:

“I capitalize ‘Black’ because ‘Blacks,’ like Asians, Latinos, and other ‘minorities,’ constitute a specific cultural group and, as such, require denotation as a proper noun. . . By the same token, I do not capitalize ‘white’ which is not a proper noun, since whites do not constitute a specific cultural group.”

Kimberle Crenshaw, Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color, 43 STAN. L. REV. 1241, 1244 n.6 (1991).

Obviously not everyone agrees with some scholars’ capitalization of Black but not white. Some writers capitalize both while others capitalize neither.

But I think the availability heuristic comes into play. In America, you see many middle and upper-middle class families that have raised successful East Asian adopted daughters (usually Korean) who are now in their 30s or even early 40s. It is not much of a jump for a white family to think they can successfully raise an adopted daughter from China — they “see” such successes in their milieu.

It may be that role models of “white family successfully raising African American daughter/son” are not as cognitively available.

Of course, this can become a chicken-and-egg problem . . .

Also interestingly, the tougher adoption requirements in Russia and China are in part response to domestic opposition to foreign adoptions. In China, the tougher rules strengthen the government’s claim against its critics that it is giving these girls something “better.”

Another factor here is a sort of path dependence that may have sprung up. Chinese adoption seems relatively common, and these days, people aren’t surprised to see a white family with a Chinese child. But white adoption of blacks seems relatively rare, which means that people are more surprised to see it, which in turn means that people who are considering adoption might be dissuaded by the fact that they’ll draw stares or quizzical looks everywhere they go.

Thank you for your comments.

Although some African-Americans oppose transracial adoptions, 70% actually support it. I think we often only hear from those who oppose it. Keep in mind that many Latinos and Native Americans oppose transracial/transcultural adoption of Latino and Native American children. Yet, there is no shortage of white families wanting to adopt those children. Adoption agencies don’t have to subsidize those adoptions because the demand exceeds supply.

Some white families believe that they lack the ability to raise an African-American child with a healthy racial identity. That is definitely a valid concern but why do these families believe they are any more competent to raise a Chinese, Vietnamese, or Guatemalan child, for example? Is it because we believe that racism against non-Black minorities is less virulent than that against African-Americans?

Despite my own experience, however, I’m not prepared to say that all such bias is irrational. Some is, of course, but I don’t know that it’s irrational to prefer to have children that look more like oneself. In addition, interracial adoption is often disliked (and sometimes rather intensely) by portions of the black community, and I can’t really blame those whites who might feel a bit wary of stepping into a potential minefield, or who might be convinced by the argument that white parents won’t be as able to prepare a black child for dealing with society’s racism.