Thanks for watching! Do you know any transracial adoptees in your life? Share this video with them and ask them what they think!

After watching this video, I asked my coworker who is black and was adopted by a white family when he was 12 what he thought. He said he was just thrilled that someone wanted him and he didn't care that they were white. A family that cared about him was better then being bounced around foster care. He said he never had these issues but was adopted older which might have been the difference.

My foster daughter has been with me for almost 2 years. Yesterday, the judge changed the plan to me adopting her. I am white and she is black. I work very hard to surround her and myself with her culture.

9:40 is really relatable. I’ve spent way too much time worrying about whether I’ll be seen as a “real” or “fake” person of my race. As well as identity issues, this idea of real/fake can play into stereotypes. Thank you for making this video, it’s helped me reflect a lot on this topic.

Absolutely they are your children and you must do everything to ensure they have everything they need it’s your job. My half brother is biracial and I can assure you it’s not just transracial adoptees who have these feelings. We have taken a job in Baltimore over Seatle so your child(ren) can have some normalcy, we’ve decided whatever colour our first child was then our second would be the same. Please choose schools, art in your home even (yes even their dolls and books), people you do business with try to have as much of the child’s culture in their lives.

Thank you for creating this video and to Isaac for sharing his experience. I was previously somewhat naive to these issues as a person who grew up primarily surrounded by a single culture. Thanks to this video and other similar videos, I am growing in my understanding of how important this topic is when considering foster or adoption.

As a transracial adoptee, this video is a good start but is missing a few key factors: 1. Parenting creates a power dynamic. Adoption inherent intensifies that power dynamic. Transracial Adoption often exacerbates that power dynamic. 2.Your adopted child's racial identity journey is not about you (as an adoptive parent). With the right education and patience, parents can walk along side their child's journey, but you can't navigate it for them. That journey may be similar to other transracial adoptees, but ultimately each is unique. A) Listen to your child. B) Be Patient with your child. C) Respect your child's lived expereince over books & research articles. D) Make room for the traditional parent/child power dynamic to shift. In my experience, without these key components, a health relationship is rather impossible.

First, thank you for this video! I'm white and considering adopting in a couple of years. I've seen your other video about interracial adoption, and my thoughts right now (at the point in this video where you asked for them) are that it is a TON of work and effort to properly do interracial adoption. I live in an all-white community and have pretty much all white friends (a few from Asia). I used to live in a diverse area and had many friends from Asia, but we moved for my husband's job. So my conclusion at this point is that interracial adoption wouldn't really be a good fit with my family where we are right now. It would lead to identity issues for the child we adopt. I'll keep noodling this over as we continue to research and consider adoption over the next couple of years. If it is something we feel strongly led to do, we would probably need to move again. AND we would need to get involved in different and diverse community again.

I’ve only known 1 adopted child living with parents of a different race. Through high school he always seemed aware that he was different from everyone else because we just didn’t have a lot of Black people were we live. Regardless, to us, he was one of the boys. But he knew his original parents and his family must have communicated a lot to him about race because he felt comfortable talking about issues of race. I think that’s the key, communication. Don’t feel threatened and embrace the child as they figure out who they are because God made all beautiful.

what really makes me annoyed is the fact that some adoptive parents really cant be bothered to acknowledge their child s ethnicity. Also why do they adopt ONE child of color and then go on to have 3 or 4 more children the same ethnicity of the adoptive parents? and then live for example in a all white neighbourhood. I think you should have to adopt sibling groups or have at least one person who reflects and can relate to that child in the family. I hate to make it about race, but ironically adoptees who's parents were coloured don't seem to have as much trauma being a different race. I think being a minority you understand what it is like to be different, micro aggressions, nuances, having a strong sense of identity and knowing where you come from. Thanks Isaac for sharing your story!! Very helpful and necessary. All the best to you!!!

My husband and I are going to start looking into adoption fairly soon, I was already planning on doing whatever research I needed for whichever culture that child was coming from. But this video really cemented that, even though I wasn’t adopted, my mom left my father, and we moved in with my step father, and I felt similar feelings of “who am I” and I want to prevent whoever we get from feeling that without getting answers. Thanks for the video!

I’m white, not married but really hope to adopt older children one day. I’m absolutely willing to adopt black children if they turn out to be the best match. But I’d be scared that id be unable to bring them a black community. It can be hard enough for me to connect even to people of my own race and background (I’m pretty introverted lol) but if my adopted child feels like I’m not connecting with a black community, I’m worried they would feel alienated. And of course that would make me feel guilty . But I was completely relieved to hear Isaac say that he still wanted to give his adopted parents another chance to make it up to him. I’d be willing to do that for my child, even if it’s hard for me

I am Irish/Mexican. I mostly grew up with my Mexican side of the family as my white side is spread throughout the country. When you look at me, you'll see a white red head. My family called me weda... lovingly. And when I was a child would ask me jokingly " you Mexican?". My mother says that anytime she went out with me as a baby, people would ask if she was babysitting. I was outcasted by Mexicans at school until they learned that I was half. That really bothered me. So at a very young age I remember thinking that the dumbest thing to be was racist. Fats forward to today, I have 4 children. 3 are white and my youngest is half black from a recent ex. I have noticed black women looking when we go out. They'll say she's so cute and kind of ignore me. 2 have basically refused to see that she is mine. My boyfriend is friends with our neighbors that are black and they made a comment a few months ago that eventually black people will take her from us cuz she's half black and basically we don't deserve her or something. Adoption is something I set my heart on when I was a child and now I'm finally preparing to adopt from foster care. I hope to adopt siblings. So naturally with everything going on and my experiences, I have wondered if I should only adopt white children in order to not enrage black women or Mexican women, even though I really don't care what they think of my children. But to say to myself" oh I should only give children that look and act like me a home and a family" that's ridiculous. I get that race is really important to black people much much more than it is to me, a white girl that grew up Mexican. On top of that I've seen videos of black women angry and saying that it should be illegal for white people to adopt black children. Is it really that important that if I was given the chance to adopt a black, Hispanic, or Asian child that I should say no? The thing that upsets me is that this topic does make it seem that it's horrible to be white and to be raised by people that don't look like you. I just want to give children a loving family

Im black adopted by white parents. Its not a good experience. Good people but never surrounded by my culture. Actually my adoptive dad has blue lives matter flags. Trump hat and betsy ross flag. Also said i shouldnt have dreads. What do you make of that?

I was adopted I'm from South Korea and my parents are white Christian family in America

Colour is irrelevant. Just be a good parent and let the kid become independent once ready.

I hope one day my mom and dad will do the work, I have to educate and enter myself in my own culture by myself and I have a really hard time to connect with others.

Thank you for this video! My husband and I are hoping to begin the process of adoption in the next year and we are open to all races. Are there any books you recommend that specifically talk about these challenges? Also, I’d love to see more content about this and things like how to approach people in your community to be resources in a respectful way. For example, I know that adopting a black child means they will likely have a different hair texture than my husband and I. How can I approach someone in my church or community respectfully about how to best care for their hair? Or other questions like this.

This channel has helped me understand adoption so much better. I'm 20 right now and know that I want to adopt and I'm so glad to learn about these things now for myself but then also to help my peers if they adopt in the future too.

for a controversial topic like this, I think maybe more than just one person should have been interviewed.

I am in tears right now! When he said “didn't feel like a real black person😭” - my heart😢 I am thinking that I am so SO GLAD that we are talking about this and it's being brought to the light!!! This is something I feel like a lot of people wouldn't even think about and i am so grateful for this information. I have no idea if my babies will be a different race but I am glad I am learning about all of this now. Thank you so much🙏

Thank you for your thoughts as we are matched with an expectant mom who is pregnant with a biracial baby. :)

Honestly, I often think that the best thing to do in terms of adoption is look for a similar-looking child. Cultural identity and community aside, kids don't want to constantly be asked if they are adopted and why they look so different from their parents. Most don't want to be reminded that they aren't bio-children every time they look in the mirror.

Commenting like you asked! I am just feeling heartbroken for that sweet young man that he was made to feel that being black was something to be ashamed of in any way. I don't give a damn what my child looks like, but I do know how important it is to feel a connection to your culture. I hope I would do my best early on, and once my child had their own opinions I would listen.

Wow I am a transracial adoptee soooo much of this I resonate with The imposter syndrome and being afraid of them founding out I’m not a “real black person” this was a nice talk thank you for doing this

My husband and I are looking to possibly adopt a child who is a different race. We are currently licensed foster parents and with our previous placement the children were mixed race, Navajo and Hispanic, more specifically Mexican. We put up pictures of women from both cultures in their room, and had multi-racial dolls/book characters etc they played with and read about. We live in a very white state and worry about bringing a child who isn’t white here. Surprisingly our school district has language immersion programs for Spanish and Chinese, so we have many Hispanic and some Asian students that attend, and we have a child in the Spanish immersion program. So our children are friends with children of color, mostly Hispanic children, there are very few black children in our area. I have sent a cousin some questions about how her transracial adoption is going, do they have community support, has she found a hairdresser that can cut 4c hair, is she able to find hair care products, etc. This cousin lives two hours away from us, but I’d like to know generally if she finds the support their family needs for their black children. I would in no way want to bring a child to a community that lacks the support that child and we as a family would need.

important subject, thanks for sharing!

Thanks for this great video

My husband and I are just beginning our adoption journey. This video was very helpful as we have been discussing being open to any race. We have the most experience with Hispanics as there are many where we live and we personally know them. I speak some Spanish as well. As far as African Americans we don't know many and there are only a few in our community. All that I know being adoptees as well. Does that mean we shouldn't adopt an African American child? Are other adoptees not enough of a racial mirror?

I teach in an urban school district, so I'm emersed in a diverse culture every day. I also grew up in this environment, but I'm very aware that being a white male limits my understanding of race. I'm always working to learn more, but when my wife and I do get to adopt, if the children are outside of our race, I know they are going to need mentors of their own race. Luckily I have friends and colleagues who could help with that. I fully understand there are things they need that I cannot provide for them.

I'm a 20 year old white woman. Since being a teenager I've known I wanted to adopt in the future. I have always been open to adopting a child of another race, but until rather recently have only seen and heard the actual complications transracial adoptee's experience. In the past, especially as a child myself, the idea of closed adoption was the most comfortable to me as I childishly and naively feared other people's influence in my child's upbringing. This was a terrible thought, even for adopting a child that looks like me, but especially for adopting a child of another race. As a white woman, if my child is a transracial adoptee, I cannot give them an authentic connection to their culture. Love is not enough. The world is going to see my child as a member of (?)race, and that isn't something I've experienced. Moreover in itself, adoption is born from loss. A relationship with the birth family where possible can lessen the feelings of loss and doesn't undermine the adopted family unit as I previously felt and as many other adoptive/prospective adoptive parents feel. It's hard to concisely word in one comment, but I think there are a lot of questions prospective white adoptive families must consider. Is your area predominantly white? Are you willing to move to expose your child to their culture and people that look like them? Are you prepared to confront racism your child will encounter? Even if it's from your own family members? Is your adoption ethical - is the child being removed from parents that would otherwise want to raise their child if not for poverty, particularly if you are adopting internationally from a country that is exploited by white nations that perpetuate the cycle of poverty such as Haiti, Ethiopia, etc? If so, could the money spent in adopting this child be better spent assisting organizations that aim to improve the material conditions of that country? If your child would have grown up with another language in the home, are you prepared to learn this language and speak it with your child/equip your child with other means to learn and engage with this language? Are you prepared to learn how to care for other hair types? Is your desire to adopt /specifically/ a child of colour? Why? Is your desire to adopt born from love or do you have a white savior complex, or is this an attempt to disassociate yourself from racism or white privilege? I'm not saying all white parents adopt for these reasons but even if it's uncomfortable I would encourage you to look inside yourself and ask yourself these questions. If you refuse to do so because it's uncomfortable/you're uncomfortable acknowledging that you have possibly racist/colonialist preconceptions/intentions, are you truly anti-racist, and are you truly equipped to support your child who is going to encounter racism if it's something you cannot confront within yourself? I still have a lot to learn. My intent is to foster and where reunification is not safe or possible, adopt. I'd like to maintain a relationship with the birth family where possible. I'm studying to become a translator and would aim to connect the child to their culture's language where applicable. While race is something that absolutely should be considered in adoption, the only reason I would not adopt a child of a certain race is if I cannot provide the support to assist them on their journey and connecting them with people of their culture. I'm grateful for videos such as these because children in the foster care system are predominantly children of colour, which is a product of racism itself (i.e children of colour are more likely to be separated from their families when white families under the same circumstances may stay together, or perhaps a consequence of poverty due to systematic racism, etc). Thank you very much for making videos like these! The foster care system and the adoption industrial complex needs to change and to listen to adoptees, and prospective white parents are going to have to have uncomfortable conversations surrounding race. Adoption needs to be considered realistically instead of under the fairy tale lens. Love to you and to Isaac!

I am from India i am 19year old I want a family to whom I can live and get love from them and I can love them so how can I find a such family who are willing to adopt me Please help me😭😭🙏🙏

Commendable of his parents to take the time to become educated.

I find this very timely as I recently got into a heated discussion with my sister in law about this issue. We are white, and are both open to adoption, and transracial adoption. I feel it is very important to surround your child of another race with others from their cultural background. Growing up is hard enough without being the only person of color in the room your entire life. That being said, I think the message here needs to be clarified. Not everything is about race. Everyone goes through their search for identity and who they are, even if they are not adopted. Those who are adopted are naturally going to need to explore their parentage as part of that, and will likely feel a disconnect from their adoptive family during that process. Those who are adopted from other cultural backgrounds and countries will have an even bigger disconnect as they reconcile their differing nationalities. Being of color would be an added element to all of the above, and adds its own challenges, but the search for identity is not unique to transracial adoptees. The message needs to be that adoptive parents need to be willing to connect to communities that share their child's background. Additionally, they need to understand how to support their child's search for identity when the time comes, because it will come. I will also note, as more interracial marriages/relationships occur, hopefully this will lead to larger communities of people who daily navigate interracial relationships.

Adoption, while wonderful, is borne from loss. A bio family loses a child, that child loses them and cultural foundations. Love is not enough in any relationship, whether it's romantic, platonic, parental, sibling etc. There needs to be a deep respect from the adoptive parents to expose themselves and immerse their children to the culture of the adoptive child.

I had a horrible experience they were old enough to be my parents and their biological son was racist and a satan worshipper and I was never defended ever.

I wish there was some way to ensure that every transracial adoption began with education of this sort! For what progress we’ve made societally, this hasn’t been on the forefront, but it’s an important truth that needs to be taught and studied! Heck, just everybody come to this video, as a starting point! 😜

i saw a white cop drive pass five white drivers to pull over a black driver for simply driving so im sure we all see color.

I am white, and when my first baby was born, I had a vision of him playing with a little black boy around his age. I had a very intense feeling that that child was my son, and since then I’ve been on the lookout for figuring out what path would lead me to find him. I don’t have any doubt That I will, and although I don’t know if he will look exactly like he did in my mind (it’s possible that he won’t be black, and it was just a symbol of a child outside of my biological family), I do feel led to search with the clues I have. Because of that, I’m very interested in adopting a black child. I only really know one black person, although he has been a friend for a long time. I haven’t seen him much lately, and watching this video makes me want to reconnect with him so that when I do adopt, I’ll have someone around who my child will be able to see. He might not culturally be a lot like a lot of other Black people, but it’s very least. He and his children might allow my baby to feel more normal. Everybody struggles with their appearance, but look in the mirror and feel like they were born wrong.

Yep, this video confirms zit: just adopt someone that looks like you, save yourself a giant mountain of problems

Why have such a disgusting thumbnail for this video?

A lot of this is true for even black kids in traditional families who live in all white areas. They often have an identity crisis. Even if you aren't directly bullied for your race it's just damaging to not be around people like you. I met a dude like that in college. He told me he's scared of other blacks and gets very quiet around them. Says he doesn't fit in. Scared to talk to black girls. Yet at the same time doesn't feel fully accepted by whites. He basically felt like he didn't belong anywhere. The show "This is Us" kind of tackles this issue pretty well, but yeah it can impact any kid who is in a non-diverse area. Adopted kids probably are worse off though since even their familes aren't like them racially.

Where I find it Isaac?

Please don’t. I was adopted by a white family with white siblings, it destroyed my mental health

Many of those bad beliefs i saw them more in middle east as the specified age, gender......

Soooooo moral of the story is just leave all kids in foster care.

Good video and message content, but the thumbnail for this video is honestly quite terrible and doesn't even match the video content. I didn't even know what to expect with that thumbnail picture.

Why is it a topic?

I would disagree here. As with all of life attitude is everything. There are many trans racial adoptees that have had a wonderful life. Everyone has to find their identity whether adopted or not. You could have similar issues just from the differences in families as well. If everyone involved has an attitude of love thankfulness and understanding there should be no color differences.

This is ignorant.

I am a black transracial adoptee that was adopted into a white family, and they refuse to let me learn about my racial identity. 🤷🏾‍♀️

I'm very dark with black hair and my Cherokee/ Irish heritage gives me a unique look. So many times I've had to answer the question, " What are you?" My biological daughter is ivory white with blue green eyes and blonde hair. It was never an issue. Good chance that college mentor stirred the pot and caused this guy's problems.

Just spreding hate shocking

I get this but I feel like this perspective overlooks a lot, our society as it function now almost by design wants others to feel ostracized but it's unfair to put that weight on both parent and child, race has always been a construct to suppress black and other minorities from society but to give into the noise that you can only rise people in communities that look like yours is self segregating and limits exposure. I just can't fully agree with this because the world is more complex than our children should ever know about

Stuff like this is why we can’t progress as a society, skin color means nothing, it’s about the character of a person. Very disappointed in the comments here

This feels like it would only be an issue in low self esteem individuals. A person is a person matter what they look like.

Don't tell people how to raise their child.

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He look and sound pretty white to me