Abby Johnson’s Video Shows the Problem With White Parents Adopting Children of Color

Adopting a child of color does not make adoptive parents automatically anti-racist

Melissa Guida-Richards
ZORA

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In this screenshot from the RNC’s livestream of the 2020 Republican National Convention, anti-abortion activist Abby Johnson addresses the virtual convention on August 25, 2020. Photo: The Committee on Arrangements for the 2020 Republican National Committee/Getty Images

Abby Johnson, a Republican National Convention speaker and prominent anti-abortion activist, is a White adoptive mother who recently posted a problematic video about her biracial son. In the video, she said that if police officers acted extra cautious around her biracial adopted son, versus around her white biological children, she wouldn’t get angry.

“Statistically, when a police officer sees a brown man like my Jude walking down the road, as opposed to my white nerdy kids, my white nerdy men walking down the road… they’re going to know that statistically my brown son is more likely to commit a violent offense over my white sons,” Johnson said in a video posted on YouTube. “So the fact that in his head, he would be more careful around my brown son than my white son, that doesn’t actually make me angry. That makes that police officer smart, because of statistics.”

As an adoptee of color myself, this is one of the many instances where I see evidence that white adoptive parents are not vetted or trained properly before they are approved to raise a transracial adoptee.

When adoptive parents…

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Melissa Guida-Richards
ZORA
Writer for

Author, TRA adoptee, & podcaster. | WHAT WHITE PARENTS SHOULD KNOW ABOUT TRANSRACIAL ADOPTION, available for preorder! | http://www.adopteethoughts.com/my-book/