I Want a Snickers Bar, I Don’t Want Dark Chocolate

Dark-skinned Black children last to be adopted

In the early 80s, a twenty-something-year-old White woman attended an informational session about adopting children in Oregon. During the meeting, a family seeking to adopt commented that adopting Black children was “different” and “hard.”  The White woman said to herself that she was committed to adopting Black children. She adopted one, then two, three, and finally four Black and mixed-race Black children. How do I know this? She is my mother. 

It turns out the royal family isn’t the only one concerned about the skin color of children ready to join the ranks. Let’s look at how dark-skinned children face discrimination in the adoption process, while lighter-skinned children jump right into the stork’s cloth carrier.

White child $35,000, Mixed child $25,000, Black child $18,000

Dark-skinned children cost less than White or mixed-race children because programs and agencies offer incentives to families reluctant to adopt them. Leeat Yariv (Oliwenstein, 2010) led a research team to explore adoptive parent’s race and gender preferences in adoption. A striking aspect of the study found that parents were willing to pay $38,000 more for a baby who is not African American. 

While the Lanz family was looking into adoptions, they were surprised to hear how agencies made race-based cost calculations (NPR, 2013). The family was told that the cost to adopt a White child was around $35,000, a biracial child between $24,000-$26,000, and a Black child would be $18,000.

Some social workers discriminate based on skin color

Social workers favor White children in the adoption system as found by a report by the ACLU in 1999 to review 50 adoptions in the state of NY (Hall, 2019). This could mean that social workers portray White children in more positive terms, and highlight the skin color of light children leading to an increase in light-skin adoptions.

 Hall notes that social workers facilitate discrimination against dark children by providing skin color information to parents, which is against the social work code of ethics. The NASW code of ethics explains “that social workers ‘should not practice, condone, facilitate, or collaborate with any form of discrimination’ on the basis of race, ethnicity or color, along with other factors” (Hall, 2019).

Positive biases towards light-skinned children

The Caltech research team found that a non-African American child is 7 times more likely to be attracted by potential adoptive parents than an African American child (Oliwenstein, 2010).

Caldwell, the founder of Lifetime Adoption, notes a similar preference for light-skinned or biracial children rather than dark-skinned children, remarking that prospective parents say,

“ 'I want a baby to look like a Snickers bar, not dark chocolate’ ” (Blake, 2009).

Caldwell also reported that a family turned down a dark-skinned child because they thought he would not look good in photographs.

The underlying assumption is that lighter skin children are more attractive, and more valuable simply for having lighter skin. This light preference or light bias shows up across parents of all races. A study at Black Parenting, an adoption agency in LA found that 40% of Black parents, regardless of their own skin color, preferred lighter-skinned children (Hall, 2019).

So, what is driving this dislike of dark skin?

Negative associations of dark skin go back to the one-drop rule. Historically, dark skin was synonymous with dirtiness, ugliness, and behavior problems. Some might say, “Oh, these are just preferences,” but how are preferences formed? Usually, preferences are reflexes, expressions of unexamined cultural values that operate sometimes unconsciously. You could say, “Well, couples are adopting Black children, they aren´t discriminating.” Yes, they adopt Black children, but they look for the lightest ones they can find.

 Let’s get some facts out there. Dark-skinned Black people will face more discrimination in jobs, in finding romantic partners, in school, in housing, and in academic advancement. Dark-skinned Black people are overrepresented in the criminal justice system. These prejudices have been well studied, and many are described in the book Caste by Isabel Wilkerson (2020). The research lays it out, but we need to be saying the conclusions out loud and more often, which are the following:

There is no reason related to the actual child´s abilities, looks, or temperament that warrant this discrimination. Dark skin is just as beautiful, dark-skinned children are just like any other child, it's society that makes dark skin an undesirable trait. Adoptive parents and social workers should remember this. 

In an interview, Nefertiti Austin, a Black adoptive mother who wrote the book Motherhood so White explains the negativity associated with Black children.

“[Black kids] are perceived as behavior problems. They are considered aggressive, but their White counterpart is considered rambunctious. And our girls are sexualized at an early age. They are thought to have attitudes. But if another girl, a White girl, says the same thing or responds in a like manner it's, 'Oh well, she was annoyed,' or it's excused” (Mosely, 2019).

These assumptions based on race about behavior are compounded even further if the child is of dark skin. 

Results of discrimination in adoption

White children wait 23.5 months on average to be adopted out of foster care, while Black children wait for an average of 39.4 months, which is much longer than any other race (Hall, 2019).

As Yariv (2010) notes,

"Long-term foster care leads to bad outcomes” (Oliwenstein, 2010).

We all know what those outcomes could be. Increased mental health challenges and fewer support systems and a list of problems that go with that.

I know there are plenty of caring and loving foster care families, but we must remember that with stability and love, children can face many difficulties, this should be a right for all children. Let’s do our part to challenge adoption discrimination based on skin color.

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Resources

Blake, J. (2009, July 20). Single black women choosing to adopt. http://edition.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/07/01/bia.single.black.women.adopt/

Hall, R. (2019, February 19). The US adoption system discriminates against darker-skinned children. The World. https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-02-21/us-adoption-system-discriminates-against-darker-skinned-children

Mosley, T. (2019, September 16). ‘Motherhood so white’ author finds race matters in adoption. WBUR. https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019/09/16/motherhood-so-white-author

NPR. (2013, June 27). Six words: ‘Black babies cost less to adopt.’ NPR.

https://www.npr.org/2013/06/27/195967886/six-words-black-babies-cost-less-to-adopt

Oliwenstein, L. (2010, April 20). African-American babies and boys least likely to be adopted, studies show. Calteach. https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/african-american-babies-and-boys-least-likely-be-adopted-study-shows-1610

Wilkerson, I. (2020). Caste: The origins of our discontent. Random House.