Pros And Cons Of Transracial Adoption

Opponents of transracial adoption argue that children should be placed in homes of the same racial and cultural backgrounds, otherwise know as “race-matching”. They believe “such placement enhances the development of positive racial identity and coping skills to deal with racism in society” (Johnson, Mickelson, & Davila 2013, p. 8). Randall Kennedy, a professor of law at Harvard University, argued against “race-matching” and what he termed “racialism”:
Racial matching reinforces racialism. It strengthens the baleful notion that race is destiny. It buttresses the notion that people of different racial backgrounds really are different in some moral, unbridgeable, permanent sense. It affirms the notion that race should be a cage to which people are assigned at birth and from which people should not be allowed to wander. It belies the belief that love and understanding are boundaries and instead instruct us that our affections are and should be bounded by the color line regardless of our efforts. (Kennedy, 1994)
Race plays a significant role
Aaron strongly recommends to parents, “you’ve gotta have friends that look like your kid and you have to have neighbors and people in your school that look like your kid...I felt comfortable because I wasn’t the only biracial kid and I wasn’t the only adopted kid” (Adoption Learning Partners, 2009). Racial differences can bring an added source of stress into family relationships but as parents and children develop open communication with each other and work towards accepting and appreciating racial differences, they will be able to overcome the negative feelings associated with “being different” and learn to be comfortable in there own