Here is an October 13, 2013 New York Times oped piece by Frank Lilgtvort, a white father with black adopted children. It drew some pretty angry comments. The views are not necessarily those of Not in Our Town Princeton.
“In ‘Far From the Tree,‘ Andrew Solomon’s book on families with children who differ profoundly from their parents, he developed the idea of horizontal and vertical identity. Vertical is the identity you inherit from your parents, like race and religion, and horizontal is the identity that comes with your difference. The horizontal identity is a centrifugal force: it leads the child to look for “fellow travelers” outside the family to find support and culture, or subculture.
And in summary:
“Raising kids of color by white parents is not just a matter of love; it requires a racial consciousness that is common in families of color, but rarely developed in white families.” Read the article here.