Abstract
The wholesale marketing of Black children to suit the economic interests of others was one of the cruelest aspects of slavery. Sons and daughters who were traded away from their parents would later struggle in vain to remember their families, their customs, and their countries of origin. Even the extended families which evolved in the transient slave communities were continually fragmented as children and their caretakers were merchanted to different plantations according to the whims of White slavemasters. 1 Although due to quite different circumstances, today the Black community continues to lose its children. At present, government sponsored entities, 2 overlooking the potentially harmful consequences of transracial adoption, 3 remove Black children from their communities through transracial adoption with Whites who are unable to secure children of their own race. 4 Part I of this Note provides an overview of transracial adoption legislation leading up to the Multiethnic Placement Act (MPA) of 1994 and critiques the Act. Part II considers the effects of the transracial placement of Black children. This section focuses on the survival skills Black transracial adoptees would or would not acquire in a White home and the effect such an adoption may have on their racial identities and sense of community. Part III examines the current state of the law regarding the transracial adoption of Native American children. This section concludes that Black children should be accorded similar treatment, and moreover, that Black parents should be encouraged to adopt thereby diminishing the lengthy wait faced by adoptees ...
Citation
Jacinda T. Townsend,
Reclaiming Self-Determination: A Call for Intraracial Adoption,
2 Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy
173-190
(Spring 1995)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/djglp/vol2/iss1/11