The National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW) stands opposed to black children being adopted by loving white families. Indeed, the association has gone so far as to call the placing of black children in white families as none other than a form of genocide. It is to me extremely disconcerting that the NABSW should take this stand.
It is even more disconcerting that the organization should use the term “genocide” in this context. Genocide is the willful attempt to eliminate a people off the face of the earth. Whatever else is true, the adoption of a black child by a loving white family cannot be characterized as a willful attempt to harm a black child.
The genocide argument, alas, is that a black child in the care of loving white family will be utterly deracinated from her or his black roots. The presuppositions behind this line of thinking reveal just how much ideology trumps truth.
First of all, being black is hardly tantamount to knowing the history of blackness all the way back to the continent of Africa. Most blacks in the United States do not have any such knowledge. Indeed, I am rather confident that most black social workers do not have any such knowledge. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the typical black American social worker is not likely to know anything at all about Africa. And if the typical black social worker does not, it is even more unlikely that the typical black is well-informed about the black experience all the way back to Africa.
Second, there is the issue of what happens to the black children who go without being adopted unless they are adopted by a white family. And it is in this regard that the National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW) proves itself to be morally bankrupt even to the point of being evil. For surely the argument cannot be that it is better for a black child to stay in foster care than to have the loving care of a white family. And if that is the argument, then the NABSW is an organization that is entirely lacking in moral credibility. I mean why not push the organization’s line of thought even further: Better that a black child should die than that she or he should be raised by loving white parents.
Painfully, it seems to me that the NABSW has to be committed to the morally bankrupt view that a black child should die than that she or he should be raised by loving white parents. And if that is so, then the real genocide—if indeed we are going to use that bastardly word—is being perpetrated by blacks against blacks: the National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW) is perpetrating genocide against black children. Alas, far too many people lack the moral courage to accuse the NABSW of effectively being committed to the genocide of black children.
Now, if the NABSW would retort that in a life-or-death situation, white loving parents for a black child are preferable to the child’s death, then the NABSW is no position whatsoever to maintain that foster care for black children is preferable to loving care from white parents. For nothing has ever been or ever shall be the equal of magnificent parental love. And parental love at its best is a basis like none other for psychological health at its best.
As an aside, it is my view that either psychological well-being or life roundly trumps the preservation of culture. And there are, I suppose, people who not hold that view. Alas, in the case at hand, the issue is inconsequential. There certainly are enough blacks in United States that there is absolutely no chance whatsoever of black culture dying in view the number of whites interested in adopting blacks. So even if should place the preservation of black culture over the psychological well-being of black children, the issue is mute, since there is no external threat to black culture.
And it is this consideration that makes it so palpably clear to me that the National Association of Black Social Workers is a morally bankrupt organization. Insofar as there is a threat to the survival of black culture, he irresponsible behavior of numerous blacks is far more of a threat to the survival of black culture than is the number of whites interested in adopting black children. This point holds all the more so when one considers that there is nothing at all which precludes loving white parents from making sure that their adopted black child is richly exposed to black culture and black history.
Finally, in this regard there is the issue of the experience of racism. And one might very well argue that only those who have experienced racism first hand can speak to its character. There is, of course, a way in which this is trivially true. After all, only those who have in fact been raped can speak to its horror. Just so, no one would ever think that a man whose wife died could not be a good and loving and more than adequate father to his daughters merely because he did not know first-hand the experience of rape or the fear of rape or sexism as such.
Human beings are capable of great malleability; and when we love someone dearly, we are more than capable of acquiring sufficient understanding to serve as a moral beacon even if we cannot always speak to all the details. And it is rare, anyhow, that anyone can always speak to all the details of whatever form inappropriate behavior or attitude might take.
There are no good arguments to show that loving white parents should not adopt black children. And it is patently obvious that there are no good arguments to that effect. This is precisely why the National Association of Black Social Workers shamelessly spoke of black genocide. This was and is none other than a pure rhetorical move. After all, who isn’t opposed to the genocide blacks or whites or Jews or Asians or Arabs or whomever? What is more, in terms of what is known as moral suasion we tend to be very reluctant to question whether the term is applied correctly. The analogous case is that of a woman who claims that she has been raped. It takes an awful lot to ask: Are you sure that you were raped?
Well, to the National Association of Black Social Workers: I ask is there any reason whatsoever not to see your strident stance against loving white parents adopting black children as none other than a form of genocide against blacks? You have made ethnicity more important than love and the well-being that parental love affords. And there is no argument, nor will there ever be one, that lends one iota of credibility to that stance. To see this, just try generalizing your argument against love whites adopting black children to loving whites adopting, for instance, Asian children. And then there is the issue of loving Asians adopting black children or, dare I say it, loving blacks adopting Asian children or even white children.
Consistency requires that the National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW) be against any of the adoptions mentioned in the preceding paragraph. Accordingly, the NABSW stands as the poster organization for Emerson’s observation that “Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”.
