{"id":1125,"date":"2006-08-31T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-08-31T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/multiracial.com\/wp\/index.php\/2006\/08\/31\/cultural-stereotypes-die-hard-the-case-of-transracial-adoption\/"},"modified":"2016-12-13T07:48:51","modified_gmt":"2016-12-13T07:48:51","slug":"cultural-stereotypes-die-hard-the-case-of-transracial-adoption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/2006\/08\/31\/cultural-stereotypes-die-hard-the-case-of-transracial-adoption\/","title":{"rendered":"Cultural Stereotypes Die Hard: The Case of Transracial Adoption"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><font><font face=\"helvetica, arial\"> Cultural Stereotypes Die Hard: The Case of Transracial Adoption<\/font><\/font><\/h2>\n<p>Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law <\/p>\n<p><font face=\"helvetica, arial\">Ezra E. H. Griffith, MD and  Rachel L. Bergeron, PhD, JD<\/font><\/p>\n<p>September 1, 2006<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><font face=\"helvetica, arial\" size=\"-1\"> Transracial adoption (commonly understood as the adoption of<sup> <\/sup>black children by white families) has been the subject of a<sup> <\/sup>persistent debate among adoption specialists, legal advocates,<sup> <\/sup>mental health professionals, and even civil rights advocates<sup> <\/sup>in this country for a long time. This has been so despite cumulative<sup> <\/sup>research evidence indicating that transracial adoptees can thrive<sup> <\/sup>and develop into confident adults with strong senses of identity<sup> <\/sup>and self-esteem. We contend that the evidence undergirding transracial<sup> <\/sup>adoption has not been effectively persuasive because of the<sup> <\/sup>tenacious and ubiquitous cultural belief that children and their<sup> <\/sup>potential adoptive parents should be matched along racial lines.<sup> <\/sup>However, the cultural principle of racial matching has also<sup> <\/sup>been diluted by judicial decisions that have narrowly allowed<sup> <\/sup>the use of race as one factor rather than as the controlling<sup> <\/sup>factor in adoption decisions. This article focuses on the use<sup> <\/sup>of a third element&mdash;federal statutory attempts intended<sup> <\/sup>to remove race as a controlling factor in child placement decisions.<sup> <\/sup>We will show how as a matter of public policy, the statutory<sup> <\/sup>efforts were meant to promote race-neutral approaches to adoption<sup> <\/sup>and to support transracial adoptions. However, in practice,<sup> <\/sup>the statutory attempts may still leave the door open to continued<sup> <\/sup>race-matching, which suggests that the cultural preference for<sup> <\/sup>race-matching in the construction of families remains powerfully<sup> <\/sup>ingrained and difficult to eradicate. As a consequence, transracial<sup> <\/sup>adoption appears to maintain its status as a culturally suspect<sup> <\/sup>phenomenon.<\/font> <\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;Read the rest here:&nbsp; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jaapl.org\/cgi\/content\/full\/34\/3\/303\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.jaapl.org\/cgi\/content\/full\/34\/3\/303<\/a> &nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cultural Stereotypes Die Hard: The Case of Transracial Adoption Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law Ezra E. H. Griffith, MD and Rachel L. Bergeron, PhD, JD September 1, 2006 &nbsp; Transracial&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4352,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10,141],"tags":[131],"class_list":["post-1125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-mixed-blog","category-news-clips","tag-intercultural-and-transracial-adoption"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p89tuq-i9","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/News-Clips.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1125"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3348,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1125\/revisions\/3348"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}