Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 27, 1995                   TAG: 9504270056
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ADOPTIONS

One reason, sad to say, is that many black social workers oppose and discourage interracial adoptions - usually between white parents and black children. The National Association of Black Social Workers has condemned this as ``cultural genocide.''

Whatever the intentions - preservation of ethnic diversity or, as some black social workers argue, to ensure that black children have black mentors who can teach them coping strategies for dealing with still-prevalent racism in society - the results are injurious.

Many black children remain for years in foster care, never knowing the security of a permanent family, even when there are white parents eager to adopt them. In some heartbreaking cases, kids are caught up in court fights that end with their being wrenched from the arms of white parents.

This week, the Department of Health and Human Services issued new federal rules on interracial adoptions that should make it easier for white parents to adopt black children. Good.

The rules, implementing the 1994 Multiethnic Placement Act that takes effect Oct. 21, pressure states to reverse long-standing practices of delaying or preventing placement of minority children into white, permanent households. At the same time, the law will require states to step up efforts to recruit potential foster and adoptive parents who reflect the ethnic and racial diversity of children needing the homes. States that balk risk losing federal funds.

Unlike some states, Virginia does not forbid interracial adoptions. But state-issued guidelines cite race as one of the factors that social workers are to consider in assessing the appropriateness of would-be adoptive parents. Many other factors are also to be weighed, as they should be.

But the most important factor of all is the child's well-being, and it is hard to imagine that any child is better off bounced around from foster home to foster home than he or she would be with loving parents of any race, including a different race. There will be less racism, and hate of all sorts, if children grow up with the love of parents - black or white - that is colorblind.