A Black family adopted a white orphan and shared his life online, then trolls said he’d ‘rather be back at the orphanage’

A Black family in Illinois documenting life with their adopted white son online has drawn a wave of racially charged comments after one of their videos went viral, as reported by The Nerd Stash. The account, which posts under the username @biracialfamily, shared a TikTok video on July 12 showing the family dancing to rap music together, captioned “Watch my white son when his big brother [expletive] beat drop.”

In the clip, Daxtyn shows little expression at first while everyone else moves to the music, prompting some viewers to guess he wasn’t enjoying himself. By the end of the clip, he joins in on his own and looks to be enjoying it. In an earlier video from several weeks prior, the mother running the account had written captions describing Daxtyn as “the finest/dopest lil white boy raised in a black family” and adding, “My white son, he really a ninja in real life.”

According to the family’s account, Daxtyn has reportedly faced bullying at school over having a Black mother, and the family says they have received uncomfortable stares in public settings such as pools since at least 2023.

Reactions online were sharply divided

Many commenters expressed support for the family, with some writing that Daxtyn appeared to be “in safe space” and pointing to physical resemblance between him and his mother as evidence of a close bond. Other viewers took issue with the specific language used to describe him, with one commenter writing, “You got me agreeing with white ppl but yea pls stop saying my white son and just my son.”

Some reactions on other platforms went further, with a small number of commenters making speculative and racially charged remarks about the child and the family. Situations involving race and family dynamics have drawn public scrutiny before, including a mother who claimed her Black daughter was denied a children’s museum ride before witnessing a white child get on the same ride.

Transracial adoptions like this one represent a meaningful share of adoptions from foster care in the United States. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, roughly 28 percent of all adoptions between 2017 and 2019 were transracial, and 90 percent of those involved children of color adopted by white parents, making arrangements like this family’s, where a white child was adopted into a Black household, comparatively less common.

The same HHS report found that Black children spent the longest median time in foster care before adoption, at 33 months, compared to 27 months for white children and 28 months for Hispanic children during the same period. The family’s account has kept posting updates since then, including clips of home-cooked meals the mother describes as traditional soul food, which Daxtyn seems to genuinely enjoy based on his reactions on camera.

The identities of the family members beyond their TikTok handle have not been independently confirmed, and the circumstances described in the videos reflect the account as shared by the family online.