A white father has sparked internet outrage by asking ‘black TikTok’ for help styling his adopted black baby girl’s hair.
The dad, better known as Will, posted a video on Sunday of himself brushing his baby Zoe’s locks and asking about products or techniques that would make them more manageable.
The 36-year-old from Dallas, Texas, deleted the video after users expressed outrage over his poor parenting and for using the baby to gain attention.
The case shines an uncomfortable spotlight on interracial adoptions and how social media fuels attention-seeking and virtue-signaling behavior.
Will deleted a TikTok post that went viral and sparked outrage over the interracial adoption
“We adopted a black baby, her name is Zoe, and I don’t know what to do with her hair,” Will told his 34,000 followers in the now-deleted video.
“Please, any black parents or anyone who knows what to do with black children’s hair, please help me in the comments.”
The clip then focuses on Zoë, an adorable baby with more hair than the average newborn.
Some TikTokers responded with heartfelt suggestions for managing her frizzy hair.
But most reacted angrily that Will and his husband, who is also white, had adopted a black baby for social media posts.
“Pray for baby Zoe,” it read.
“Will’s concern was to go viral,” said the creator known as @mannylifedaily.
“And in the end you did it, Will, on the back of a black baby.”
Some commentators said Will had failed to do basic research on raising a black girl.
Others noted that he went straight to social media, instead of Googling afro hair or asking an African-American friend.
Cute baby Zoë has a little more hair than the average newborn
Will says the original message was an innocent request for information and he was surprised by the response
But critics accused him of using the cute child to gain attention online
“You have a few months to become anti-racist,” says mary_says, a TikToker who posts about childcare.
“If you ever want to pass for this person as a barely acceptable parent.”
Will appears to have set his social media accounts to private amid the outrage, but not before other users reshared his previous posts.
Some show Will and his husband wearing expensive designer clothes and posing with Zoe and their dogs.
The couple also documented what appears to be a private adoption process, including scans of the unborn child and in the hospital during the birth.
Will did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com’s attempts to contact him.
But he told NBC News that he thought his original post was innocuous and was shocked by the response.
“I can have the best intentions and still make a mistake,” Will told the newspaper, on the condition that his last name not be used.
He said he regrets asking the original question.
“I’ve learned that I have to be very intentional about the community that surrounds us and her, and let people who look like her talk to her,” he said.
The case shines an uncomfortable spotlight on interracial adoptions
‘I want Zoë to grow up and love herself. That includes her personality, her skin color, her hair, everything.”
The case puts a spotlight on transracial adoptions, where white parents often adopt black or Native American children in the US.
Between 2017 and 2019, about 28 percent of all adoptions were transracial, according to a study from the University of Nevada, Reno.
Among them, the parents were white 90 percent of the time.
Proponents of transracial adoptions say that enlightened parents are colorblind and that it is easy to love a baby of any skin color.
They also say black and brown babies are less likely to be adopted and more likely to languish in some form of state care for years.
But critics say babies like Zoe end up being raised by parents who don’t understand their cultural and ethnic backgrounds.
Black adoptees have spoken out about the hardships of growing up in a family culture that conflicted with their skin color.