I have nothing but love for people who adopt Haitian orphans. Cross-cultural adoption is the opposite of cultural imperialism as far as I'm concerned.

The only thing I'm dogmatic about when it comes to adoptions is that the family demonstrates a capacity for love. The only cultural litmus test that matters should be the size of the family's heart.

I'm not saying that if a family of suburban albinos from Idaho adopted a Haitian baby and renamed the kid "Snowflake" that I would be completely OK with that, but my cultural chauvinism would be ameliorated if the child received a loving home and an education. A good education includes a respectful acknowledgment of the child's Haitian roots.

I confess that until I got an e-mail from one reader and a phone call from another, Robin Rombach's front-page PG photo of 7-year-old Dania clutching a blond Barbie didn't register beyond her immediate adorableness. Dania is one of the Haitian orphans, now adopted by a family in Georgia, who came to Pittsburgh on Tuesday.

"I'm writing to express my embarrassment as a white person and outrage as a female with regard to the photo in today's paper of the sweet little Haitian girl, Dania, holding a very white 'trampy' looking Barbie doll," an e-mail from a concerned Mt. Lebanon reader said.

"While I'm glad to know that this little girl is not suffering among the hundreds of thousands of other survivors left in Haiti, it saddens me to know that her culture and experience as a Haitian will most likely be filtered and diluted in her new Southern U.S. home."

As the father of three boys between the ages of 19 and 21, I've never had to wrestle with the "Barbie isn't feminist enough" question. As far as I know, all little girls love catatonic-looking plastic dolls with unrealistic waist-to-hip ratios and long blond hair.

The fact that Dania is clutching a white Barbie instead of a black doll offended both the writer and the caller, also identified as white women.

Perhaps both are concerned about studies done in the early 1950s on black children who picked white dolls over black dolls, given a choice.

Their assumption is that the white family adopting Dania might inadvertently cause her to internalize notions of beauty and racial hierarchy that will eventually undermine pride in her Haitian roots.

Perhaps there was something to that argument a generation ago, but contemporary notions of beauty have erased once-rigid racial categories. As a percentage of the population, there are just as many "blond" black girls in the East End as there are natural blondes in the whitest North Hills suburb.

As Chris Rock's controversial 2009 documentary "Good Hair" made clear, African-American females pay a fortune for imported hair from India so they can paint and twist it in ways that cost hundreds of dollars a month to maintain.

There's no indication in the story whether Dania arrived in Pittsburgh with the doll in hand or was given it by her adoptive parents or a nurse's aide at Children's Hospital. Dania could have selected it herself from a pile of Barbies of all races because she's more fascinated by a toy that doesn't look like her than one that does.

I'm not an apologist for the Barbie Industrial Complex, believe me, but the only thing any of us can know for sure about what's going through that child's mind is her obvious delight at being fussed over.

The expression of wonder on Dania's face is more interesting than the doll she's holding. It probably occurred to her that in leaving the troubled land of her birth, she has a lot more toys and unconditional love in her future.

Though it sounds like I'm trivializing very powerful racial dynamics that should be considered and respected in trans-cultural adoptions, I'm really not. I'm simply giving the benefit of the doubt to adoptive parents of all races who have found room in their hearts to provide a good home to a child that wouldn't have one otherwise.

Part of being a good parent is helping these children look back at their birthplace with gratitude and love for contributing to who they're ultimately meant to be.

Tony's Take on Comix by Tony Norman is featured exclusively in the Opinion section on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.