‘Black Baby White Hands’ Takes a Hard Look at Transracial Adoption

Part 1 in a 5-part series

Book Review: Black Baby White Hands by Jaiya John

An adoptive mom e-mailed me, writing: “We focus more on our children’s Christian heritage than on their racial heritage. We don’t have contact with the black community, but we don’t think that is altogether necessary.”

That got me to wondering: Is it better for parents who adopt transracially to be ‘color-blind’, or should they be deliberate about acquainting their child with his or her ethnic heritage?

I came to the following conclusion:

Our ultimate identity is defined by our relationship with our Creator and by the fact that we are God’s children. However, race matters. More than we’d like to admit. Part of loving our transracially adopted children unconditionally means helping them develop a positive sense of identity with their race or ethnic background.

My thinking was shaped, in large part, by Jaiya John, author of Black Baby White Hands: A View from the Crib. Jaiya John has the distinction of being the first African American baby adopted by a white family in the state of New Mexico. John’s lyrical memoir details his life as a black child growing up in a mostly-white community during the late 1960s and ‘70s.

John describes himself as “an acutely sensitive Black child” who was imprinted from birth with African American culture—a culture his adoptive parents denied him—not of malice, but simply because they didn’t know better.

His memoir chronicles his growing-up years, focusing mostly on his perception of himself from birth to age 10. John enjoyed a loving family who doted on him. He never felt any sense of racial bias from members of his immediate family. But from a very young age, John intuitively sensed that he and his brother Greg (also an adopted black child) were somehow different from the rest of his family. That realization saddened and angered him because John wanted, more than anything, to belong.

He tried to fit in by being popular, athletic, and funny. Intensely aware of anything that could be construed as racial bias, John gradually withdrew from the world, marinating in self-hatred and anger.

It wasn’t until John was in his early 20s and had reunited with his birth family that he finally admitted to himself just how deeply resentment, negativity, self-pity and selfishness had taken root inside his soul. He writes, “I realized I had a choice.  I could either commit myself to becoming a healthy person, or I could to throughout life unhappy and forever isolated.”

John began to initiate conversations with his parents about why they had never addressed his Blackness, or the fact that he and his brother were adopted. His mother’s response simultaneously saddened him, enlightened him, and put his entire family on a path to relational healing.

While John’s memoir is ponderous in places and a bit repetitive, it is beautifully and poetically written. Adopted people who have grown up in transracial families will greatly appreciate John’s musings. Black Baby White Hands should be on the required reading list for all planning to adopt transracially, particularly for those who adopt a black child.

The next posts in this series will be posted on my Christian Adoption blog at adoption.com. I will add links to the posts as they go live.

Part 2: Excerpts from Black Baby White Hands –The pervasiveness of White culture

Part 3: Excerpts from Black Baby White Hands – Growing up Black in a White Culture

Part 4: Excerpts from Black Baby White Hands – Adoptive Siblings: Black Brother, White Sister

Part 5: How to Handle the ‘Ancestral Map’ School Assignment

For more news and information about adoption, please visit my Web site, www.laurachristianson.com.