Mark Riding’s African-American family is adopting a white girl in Baltimore.
You can listen to the story on the NPR website.
And for those who might have missed it, Lisa Marie Rollins of A Birth Project was featured a few weeks ago.
Lisa Marie Rollins, founder of Adopted and Fostered Adults of the African Diaspora, wrestles with so-called baby lifting and the impact of transracial adoption. Rollins herself was adopted by a white family in Washington state when she was 3 months old.
Rollins says her birth papers described her as Mexican, Filipino and Irish. "My theory is that it was basically kind of a marketing decision," says Rollins, who writes about the transracial adoption experience at A Birth Project.
She describes growing up in a family of people with blue eyes and blond hair, not just the only black child in her town but the only child of color. In those early years, she says, "I basically am going through life with people telling me that I’m not black, when it’s clear that I am black."
Today, Rollins says she loves her adoptive family and remains close to her adoptive parents, but would like to see the end of adoption as we know it. In the present system, she argues, black women are more likely to have their children taken away and less likely to be offered chances for reuniting with them. "These are the types of things that we’re concerned about it," she says.
Check out the story here and be sure to visit Lisa Marie’s blog, A Birth Project and the Adopted and Fostered Adults of the African Diaspora group.
Harlow's Monkey 