Adoption, Race and Pets

In August of 2021, I was finally able to escape the hell that I had been suffering living in the state of Oklahoma. You will find a longer post about the many trials, indignities and troubles I endured there on this blog. There are also previous posts about some of the many horrid things that happened to me during my 6 years, 8 months and 3 days living there.

I moved to New Orleans and began my new life. One of the things I thought about doing was getting a pet. When I was very young in the early 1970s we had a family dog for a while. Back then, the process was pretty simple in that a person would go down to the local dog pound and pick out a mutt. You simply paid a couple bucks and took the animal home.

However, things have become much more complicated these days and it has me angry and troubled. These days, pets are considered "family members" and a person does not simply buy a pet but "adopt" it. I get it, people become really attached to their animals and love them but I'll never consider myself the parent of a damn dog or cat. I have one simple reason: So many Black children CAN NOT get adopted in this country. People will go half the way around the world to adopt a child while hundreds of thousands of Black children languish in foster care each year.

Am I overstating the case? No, actually I'm understating it. Look at this 2019 report: Click here. Just one statistic in the report is shocking enough if you don't read the entire thing. White children waited an average of 23.5 months to be adopted. And Black kids? They waited on average 39.4 months.

The report also noted: According to Washington University law school professor Kimberly Jade Norwood, “In the adoption market, race and color combine to create another preference hierarchy: white children are preferred over nonwhite. When African-American children are considered, the data suggest there is a preference for light skin and biracial children over dark-skinned children.”

The bottom line for me is that I love pets. I'm still going to consider buying one and anyone who knows me knows that I'm a responsible pet owner. But I refuse to use the term "adoption" for a pet which in essence elevates an animal to the level of a child. If you ever hear me talking about adoption it will be for one of the thousands of unfortunate Black babies in the US.