Together, but seprarate.

[lazarus]

Interesting....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24765917/

[Woody]

Current laws do not allow for discrimination in concerns to adoptions. But lawmakers are seriously considering an exception. It has been determined that multiracial adoptions are not healthy.

[carolaa]

Those are interesting interviews. Thanks for sharing. It's amazing that what was illegal 50 years ago is becoming so commonplace.

[carolaa]

Current laws do not allow for discrimination in concerns to adoptions. But lawmakers are seriously considering an exception. It has been determined that multiracial adoptions are not healthy.

In what way do they think it is not healthy?

[Woody]

They 'claim' that the children become confused with their racial identity and that it is not healthy for them. Don't shoot me. I am just passing on the info about the 'studies'.

[carolaa]

I wonder how old the studies are, and if that is current information. I would think that as it becomes more commonplace, stigmas would disappear, and racial identities would become less important. I can see how it might be different in adoptive families, where a child isn't the same race as either parent and feels more like a misfit. In a biological family, the children can see how they resemble both parents and their siblings, so it wouldn't be such an issue. At any rate, I would hope that even if the states *prefer* for a child to go with his same race in an adoption, they wouldn't keep a child from being adopted at all just because there are no qualified parents available from his same race.

[Woody]

Just heard it on the news yesterday. They are talking about changing the laws so that you can't adopt a child unless you are of the same race. And it is due to this recent study. They apparently think it is important for the children to maintain their cultural identity.

[carolaa]

Wow. I'm not trying to shoot the messenger, but that begs so many questions. I wonder what the law would be for who can adopt a biracial or multiracial child.

[Woody]

I can't tell you that. But I got the feeling that they just wanted to be able to have the right to reject adoptions on the basis of race.

[Liz]

I actually heard this on the news the other day also. Like Redwood said, I think it is so that *they* can reject certain adoptions based on race. Personally I think this is really sad, there are so many kids that need forever homes, and now *the powers that be* are making it even more difficult.

[LynnDel]

A few years ago I taught in a large almost all-white/Hispanic elementary school. One of my fifth-grade students, a Black child in a White foster home, came to my class one day with her arms bleeding, her skin scratched and scraped by her fingernails.

I took her outside and asked her what had happened. She started crying, "I want to take the black off. I want to be white like everyone else." I sat down next to her on the bench and showed her my hands.

"See my hands?" I said, "See the veins and the freckles? Now let's look at your hands. You have nice, beautiful, chocolate-colored skin. You will never have to worry about freckles on your hands or veins showing through your skin."

A couple years later, when she'd moved on to Middle School, she came back to visit me, and she was obviously content and proud of who she was. I don't know if what I said helped, but I like to think it might have.

Mixed-race families can work, but it takes sensitivity and effort to help the children to be proud of who they are, to accept and take joy in their differences.

[GreatLakesGramma]

Some time ago, I read that black children raised by white parents aren't taught the coping skills black parents would teach them, that help them cope with the prejudice they are going to encounter throughout their lives. That seems like a valid point to me. In some situations, it could even be a matter of life or death.