Insanity on inter-racial adoption

This is going to be a good one. Professional playwright Lemn Sissay weighs in on the issue of inter-racial adoption.

Lemn argues, or perhaps "rants" describes it better, that the Government is reversing all the good work done in the past 25 years for black children in care:

These policies play into the popular misconception that colour blindness is a goal when in fact it is a disability. In this context, a disability is used to make those of colour and their needs invisible.

So seeing people for who they are rather than what the colour of their skin is a bad thing? Didn't we, the citizens of the Western world, just spend 40 years trying to fix that very problem?

He's keen to blame the authorities of course:

The point made in 1983 still stands: why has the government not put as much energy into finding black adopters?

Well, the Government can only do so much. If a black married couple want to adopt, they can put themselves forward. If they're not putting themselves forward, what should the Government do - bang on their door and demand they volunteer?

And besides, why say a family environment is all a child in care needs as quickly as possible when 50% of children in care have fled an abusive family environment as quickly as they could?

I'd like to think that we take a little more care these days in checking out couples who wish to adopt. Indeed, from the experience of my friends who attempted to adopt, you would get a less exacting examination if you went through airport security with a large lump of Plasticine studded with wires and batteries. The record of criminal behaviour of children who went through care is appalling. Heaven knows, I don't envy them the experience. If we can do something to put them in a stable home environment then who gives a flying fox what colour skin the adopting parents have?

Lemn also fails to note that colour is not a discrete thing. Should a child from Nigerian parents have a West Africa adopting family? What if one parent is Nigerian and the other is a Scottish Islander with red hair and green eyes? How about Vietnamese-Indian? Who produces the scheme for ranking parents' ethnic origins for each potential ethnic mix?

And why say care is a bad thing – rather than "we can make it better" – if it is care under your watch?

Well, we've tried to fix care and we failed. The general problem seems to be that no-one is really invested in its success. Perhaps there really is no substitute for a real family who cares for a child, even if the child is not biologically theirs.

Lemn, you're either very hard of thinking, or you're just an asshole who doesn't care what damage your ideas do to kids as long as they're right-on.

[hat tip: NickM at the Kitty Counters]