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Demario's Dance

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He, at the age of nine, was dancing to a tune that others would not have chosen. Likely, he would not have chosen this tune himself had he known any different. But the music started before he was even born, and it was the ever-changing beat of instability and loss. Of a mother too young to have a baby, and a father unreachable behind prison bars. When Social Services received a report, the day after his fifth birthday, that he’d been found on the steps of a local church, rocking back and forth with his knees hugged to his chest, it was the tune he was singing softly to himself.

The rythym changed again as the judge said, “They’re not your parents anymore,” and the specialists and caseworkers proclaimed that he was nothing special and that this case was like any other. And it changed a little each every single time that he moved to a new “home” and new “parents,” until the changes became the same-ness by which the little boy’s song became defined.

And so it was, the life of a black boy in a sea of black boys that make up our American foster care system. Adoption into a black family was the system’s hope for this child and the other children like him. Truth told, most agreed that, in an ideal world, black children would have black parents. Yet, in an ideal world there would be no need for a system such as this, either. Yet, in an ideal world the differences in individual appearances would be celebrated rather than used as a line of division between people.

And in all honesty, there weren’t enough willing black families for every black child needing one. Legislation in 1994 made it easier for white families to adopt black children, but as this boy entered the system and in the years he spent in this sea, the idea of black child/ white family still brought out arguments and doubts both within the system and without.

“What about culture?” White families were asked. “What do you know about raising a black child in our society?”

In the year 2000, when he was nine, this boy’s music changed once more. A white couple had stepped forward and asked to be his parents. They had heard the black and white questions. They’d done the black and white research. They’d worried the black and white worries. But they wanted this child. Not to make a statement about either black or white. Not to start a trend or to prove a point. Not in an attempt to fancy themselves white saints saving a child from black peril. Not for any reason than this one: When they asked God for a little boy, the image of this child was the one that - ever so slowly and carefully - was painted in their hearts. Because to them, this child was special. This case was different.