Kim states that to understand how these preferences for white or “white-looking” children over African American children, we must first understand that the majority of parents who adopt using formal, legal adoptions are white and are typically experiencing fertility issues. This is not to say that African American parents do not adopt or use formal, legal adoptions. Many African American families use “kinship adoptions” which are not labeled as legitimate adoptions by the legal system, but are an important part of family life in African American …show more content…
A stigma is a negative perception of a person, place, thing or idea. Many everyday stigmas are that all Muslims are terrorists or that everyone with depression tries to commit suicide. One parent named Molly, believed that it would be hard for her and her husband to adopt an African American child, even as an infant, because of the stigmas associated with African Americans. “In this case, race had a specific meaning for Molly. “African American” was understood as a set of distinct (gendered) cultural practices i.e., acting like a “boy from the hood”” (Kim 2007:377). Even knowing that she could adopt a perfectly healthy, African American baby at a lower cost and quicker rate, Molly believed that even though she raised the baby from infancy, it was predetermined to be a “boy from the hood”. Not only did Molly believe that race would affect her child’s behavior, she would have to be entered into a whole new