Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg recently opened up about the adoption process he and his husband went through on their journey to adopt their two children, explaining that he was shocked to learn of the racial disparities in the process.
“By the way, anybody who says race is not a thing in this country should experience an adoption process where there are literally different lists,” Buttigieg said during an appearance on the "Flagrant" podcast released Wednesday. “If you say that you want a white kid only vs. if you say that doesn't matter, like literally a different list."
"The list for white kids is longer," he continued. "Not only that, there was actually a discount, or you didn't have to pay a deposit on the fetus. This is like, how it works. I couldn't believe it.”
Though the number of Black children in foster care is at its lowest point in two decades, Black children remain overrepresented in the foster care system.
In 2021, Black children represented 14 percent of the nation’s total child population but accounted for 22 percent of all kids in foster care.
A 2023 study found that white children are 1.27 times more likely to be adopted than Black children. White children also had fewer days from termination of parental rights to adoption finalization, a required step in the adoption process, with an average time of 273.5 days. Black children had to wait 328 on average.
Studies show the disparities are often rooted in implicit biases harbored by prospective adoptive parents.
But with Black children harder to place than white children, some adoption agencies have begun to lower the cost associated with adopting Black children.
In 2015, foster care newsletter reported that it cost approximately $35,000 to adopt a white child — but only $18,000 for a Black child.
When interracial adoptions first began to take off in the 1970s, some organizations including The National Association of Black Social Workers advised against interracial adoptions. At the time the association expressed concerns that Interracial adoptions would cement the idea “that African-Americans continued to be assigned to “chattel status.”
As time has moved on, however, many have argued that the disparities are based on racism, and the lower adoption cost is an effort to devalue Black children.
Buttigieg, a father to two Black twins, said that he has to study and potentially find others to help mentor his children in the future in order to be the best dad possible for children who have a different racial identity than he does.
“The reality is, like, this is not a colorblind society, and, like, their lives will be affected in some way by their race — all of ours are — but one thing about being white is you don't have to think about the fact that when you're white, your racial identity is not something that you're reminded of all the time in a way that they will be,” Buttigieg said.
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