LAUSR

ABSTRACT As it pertains to the adoption process, social work practice is in fact not a color-blind profession. The incidence of skin color discrimination by practitioners who place children is a consequence of the somatic norm image rooted in the mulatto hypothesis. Subsequently, light-skinned children are idealized at the expense of their dark-skinned counterparts as both are objectified. Discrepancies relative to skin color in the adoption process are a formidable challenge to investigate, given the limited available social work literature. While skin color as a demographic category may exist in the peer-reviewed literature, it is conspicuously absent from the databases which archive such literature. What is more, skin color discrimination is a breach of the National Association of Social Workers code of ethics. The elimination of adoption process discrimination will require macrostrategies grounded in policy. Said strategies for ethical adoptions couched in macropolicy must be fashioned from an evidence-based practice model.