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Who Am I?
The Importance of Racial and Cultural Identity
By Michele St. Martin
Roberta Rosenberg of Maryland offers advice for those considering transracial adoption. "Be strong, be loving and be aware," she says. "Don't kid yourself that love is all you need and that race doesn't matter. Race in a racially diverse and divided culture such as ours always matters. As adoptive parents, it is up to us to embrace the reality that when we adopt children outside our race we, in effect, become minority families. We therefore have to accept that reality and see it for what it is and the opportunities/challenges race presents us –and more importantly, our non-white children. From well-meaning stereotypes to the cruelest jokes, this is the world our children will live in."
Rosenberg says that along with unconditional love and support, parents must give children the tools "to cope with a world that will judge them by criteria that have nothing to do with the content of their character (to paraphrase Martin Luther King). "Then, and only then, are we ready to parent the children we are privileged to raise and love."
* Last name withheld to protect privacy.