A black couple from Pennsylvania has been accused of kidnapping their two adopted white boys. A woman threatened to call the cops when their sons had a tantrum at a playground, according to a report. Jennifer McDuffie-Moore, 43, and her husband, Harry Moore, 37, have revealed the racist encounters they face as a result of adopting two white kids.
Although the couple has been subject to racial abuse for a while now, things went out of control a month ago when they were accused of abducting their own kids. The Moores had adopted the two white boys officially but couldn't imagine that they would have to suffer for the noble decision they took few years back.
Absurd Allegation
Jennifer and Harry took in 3-year-olds Brayden and Trevor as foster children after they were separated at birth from their biological mother, who suffered from drug addiction, South West News Service reported. Two years later, the couple officially adopted the two boys, who joined the couple's biological children, Joy, 21, and Kourtney, 11, and their two other adoptive kids, Keenan, 10, and Sanchez, 8.
Jennifer, who is an early learning specialist and co-owner of a childcare program, and her husband Harry Moore, 37, a mechanic, have been fostering children since 2009. However, the Collingdale couple never imagined that they would have to pay in a different way for this noble decision of theirs.
The incident happened last month when they took their children out on the playground. "A month ago, we were playing at the playground and the twins didn't want to go home. A lady had been watching us playing and when one of the twins had a tantrum, she told me she was going to call the police," Jennifer told the outlet.
The white woman didn't want to believe that the kids were adopted and that Jennifer was now their mother. "I scooped the kids up and she thought I was stealing them," she said. The woman was unwilling to believe and started yelling at Jennifer claiming that she was kidnapping them. Luckily, he son came to her rescue.
"One of the twins said, 'No, that's my mom!' I don't want to justify it because people should mind their own business," Jennifer added. She then somehow managed to take her kids away and get back home.
Repeated Accusations
Jennifer claimed that this was just one of the many incidents. She and Harry have time and again been subject to racism and abuse because of the two white kids. This included harassment by the police also. The family was pulled over by police "countless times," with the couple recalling one incident five years ago that occurred when they were fostering two white foster girls.
"We were coming back from a family outing from Delaware and we got pulled over," Jennifer said. "We had our children and two little strawberry blonde girls who we were fostering with us and the first thing the cops asked my husband was: 'Whose kids are those?'
Harry said the officer claimed he had pulled them over because the minivan's windows were too dark. "But we knew why he pulled us over," Jennifer added.
However, racism was not only limited to this. The couple also experienced challenges associated with transracial adoption in 2016, when they adopted Keenan, who is also white but it was more difficult when they were adopting the twin boys, especially in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder and at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement.
"Even doing the paperwork, there are a lot of questions about our ability to foster children who are white. It took us 2,695 days to adopt Keenan because we are black," she said.
"We have conversations about race all the time. In our home we talk about it, we know that everyone is different, you have to acknowledge it and not pretend to be color-blind," Jennifer continued.
That said, Jennifer and Harry love the adopted kids like their own. "They were supposed to stay for a weekend and now they are here forever," Jennifer said.
"We said they could stay with us until they had found a home but then time passed and they were nearly a year old and our whole family, my nieces and our church, pitched in and we eventually started the adoption process," she added.
