BLM's site also used to have something about a "western prescribed nuclear family". I forgot what verb they used with it - it wasn't defy or reject but it was one of those revolutionary, cool sounding terms. I remember! The term was "disrupt".
They realize that the language needs to be toned down a bit, otherwise even Prius drivers will take offense of their "progressiveness".
Yes, "We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable." Is there a problem with alternative family models such as two fathers, two mothers, more than two parents, more than three children, or single parents with other caregivers? For most of human prehistory children likely would have had a mother and no 'father,' just the rest of a tribal group as carers. The increasing atomization of modern, especially Western societies can make single-parent households suboptimal in terms of available income, available attention for the child/ren, and not least the role-modelling of conflict and resolution between respectful partners; hence it is a widely held social assumption that the nuclear family structure is a
requirement and, sometimes implicitly or often said out loud, that other models just aren't right. But in light of human history, prehistory and the array of different cultures even today, that is obviously just a cultural assumption - one rooted primarily in the traditions of Christianity.
So do you think it's a big "gotcha" moment that they had that sentence on their website? Doesn't seem like one to me. Or maybe it's a big "gotcha" moment that they removed it. Assuming that was due to public perception rather than some more innocuous reason, wouldn't that kind of prove their point about the strength of this cultural paradigm, apparently even among many of their supporters? Perhaps they simply decided it wasn't a battle they needed to fight right now.
Yep, advocacy for the "nuclear family" is often cast as a form of white oppression. This one was actually posted at, of all places, The Smithsonian ...
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Saw the same sentiment expressed recently from a group calling itself the "D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice." Posted about it
here.
As far as I can see that doesn't describe any of those things as "oppression"; that seems to be a bit of hyperbole on your part. But that, like Rickeroo's post raises the interesting question: When we seem to treat it as essentially blasphemy to question the nuclear family (or any of those other things), doesn't that suggest an implicit assumption that this nuclear family aspect of Western culture is
so obviously superior that we can't even understand why it might be critiqued? And if so, how is that not a form of Western/white cultural supremicism?
Offhand it seems that to greater or lesser extents the same might be said of all the things listed there, besides the scientific method; a society and culture can survive and flourish without that 'rugged individualism,' without that 'nuclear family,' without that historical perspective, without that particular 'work ethic' and so on. In fact a case can be made that some of the major 21st century problems both globally and for individuals psychologically are being caused or exacerbated by some of those cultural values, particularly extreme individualism. That's not to say that they are always or even mostly
bad, inherently - at a glance I don't see that suggested anywhere on the
original page archive. But they are values predominantly associated with Christian, European and eventually other Western cultures and not framed in the same way or emphasized as much (if at all, in some cases) in, say, many African or Middle Eastern or Asian cultures.
So why do you consider it problematic for those cultural assumptions to be spotlighted by the National Museum of African American History and Culture?
Is it because they are so obviously superior that they shouldn't even be questioned? I find this a rather interesting topic; trying to think outside the box of my own upbringing and culture is indeed quite difficult despite my habitual efforts to be open-minded, so it's not hard to see how something like that might rub other people the wrong way.
www.nationalreview.com
