I recently got an email from a woman who is contemplating adopting a child of African heritage. While she and her family live in a place that would not be considered very diverse, one of her concerns is what the reactions of the African American people in her community would be if she did adopt a black child. She asked me if we had ever had a negative experience in public with an Asian or African American person who was unhappy that we, as a white couple, had adopted children of a different race.

I thought that this was an interesting concern, and since it is one that I have heard repeated over and over, I thought I would address it on this blog. For one, no, I have never had a negative reaction for an Asian person or an African American person towards our family. I have said this before and will say it again, 90-95% of the comments our family gets while we are in public are overwhelmingly positive. Although we do not live in an overly diverse area, we do travel around quite a bit.

For example, my son Marcus is African-American, and last year he was hospitalized in Denver for two weeks. At the hospital there were many African-Americans, both patients and people that worked there. We had only positive interactions with everyone on that trip, and we made wonderful friends with an AA woman that worked at the hospital. The first couple of days she just told us how cute Marcus was and how sad it was that he was sick, etc. but by the end of our stay she had told us all about her family and her life and we greeted each other with hugs and smiles.

Yesterday there was an African American woman who we did not recognize at our church. As we were walking out she came over and said hello and shook Marcus’ hand and told us how nice our family was.

Now I am not implying that every African American person in the country thinks my family is great. I am sure that there are AA people who don’t think it is right for white people to adopt black children, just as there are still some white people who don’t think it is right. There are always going to be narrow-minded people. But I would not let that stop me from building my family the way that is right for me.

I do have a friend who had a negative experience once of this type. She was actually on her way home from an out-of-state domestic adoption of two African American little girls and was at the airport waiting for a connecting flight. An African American woman went out of her way to say something rude to my friend about her adopting the girls.

My friend calmly replied that if more African American families adopted, then there would not be a need for black children to be placed with white parents, and then she asked her how many black children she had adopted. Well, the woman hadn’t adopted any and just walked away.

So I guess my advice to anyone worrying about this sort of thing is for one, not to overly worry about it, because I believe you will find that truly negative reactions towards transracial adoptions are going to be few. And I certainly would not avoid members of your child’s race or ethnicity because of fears like this, because you want to have your child and your family be involved in culture and community, etc. Opening yourself up to meeting new people and having new experiences is one of the blessings that come through transracial adoption and you can’t let the fear that someone might disapprove keep you from doing what is right for your family.