Back in high school, random idle chitchat at one time that got into interracial adoption prompted a running joke with my friends that one day I’d adopt a little white boy & change his name to something like Malik or Hakeem. Newsweek has a story about a black couple that for real adopted a white girl, and how people around them treat that fact. To summarize (unfortunately…):
Whites: “…I think we should check on that girl, I’m getting suspicious of that big negro that keeps following her around”
Blacks: “RACE TRAITORS!!”
What if a black child was crying and being led by a pissed off white man into a van – turns out she dropped her ice cream cone and her dad is taking her back to get another one (mom insists, and he’s whipped). Don’t you think people would get a bad vibe, to the extent that some might confront the guy/dad?
I have no doubt it would get old really quick if people constantly came up to check out the situation. But I don’t see those people as operating under a racism assumption, so much as a “this is really unusual*, there is a child involved, I’d kill myself if something bad is happening and I did nothing”.
* – If black couples adopted white children at the same rate as white couples adopt asian children, you’d probably see less encounters with concerned strangers. Or you’d hope…
They probably would, since the variable of the guy seeming angry comes into play. It’s understandable even if you flip it, though black kid/white adoptive parent is much more common. Though it’s plausible that race wasn’t the reason, you really can’t know unless you ask.
I personally thought the reactions of other blacks in that story was the worse of the two, actually. As if adopting a kid of a different race means you hate yourself somehow, it’s ridiculous! A culture so internally distrusting that it demands endless racial self-affirmation to “prove” yourself is drowning in irony.
My brother’s wife is white, and she had kids from a previous relationship. He’s “Dad” now, and neither they nor their neighbors seem to acknowledge sweet fuck all about it. Banality = Win.