Letter: Black and white answers to mixed-race adoption

AS A mixed-race adoptee I would like to make the following points.

First, there is no reason why white parents should be unable to help mixed-race or black children cope with racist abuse. My white parents helped me to rise above the stupidity of racism by raising me in an environment where race was simply not an issue; to have a different colour skin ultimately mattered no more than being thin or fat. If parents can help a child understand that, then no amount of mindless racism will affect a child's self-image. This has been my experience, and I feel shocked that race has been made into such an issue in adoption, when it has never been one in my life.

Second, the people who make race an issue, whether black or white, are quite simply racist themselves. To be racist means to make distinction according to race or colour; whether this refers to the British National Party or to the assumption that dark-skinned children are to be viewed as 'black', this is divisive bigotry.

Rohan J MacCallum

London W12