I don't really have a dog in this fight (I'm neither WASP nor a person of color), but to me, equating the nuclear family with whiteness is a negative stereotype in practically every direction. If my parents got divorced, am I not truly white? If I have a nuclear family, am I not truly a person of color? It's extra frustrating because it's historically inaccurate:
> A study of 1880 family structures in Philadelphia, showed that three-quarters of Black families were nuclear families, composed of two parents and children. Data from U.S. Census reports reveal that between 1880 and 1960, married households consisting of two-parent homes were the most widespread form of African-American family structures.
> In the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in 1925, 85 percent of kin-related Black households had two parents. [By 1965,] out-of-wedlock birthrate had increased to 25% among the Black population. This figure continued to rise over time and in 1991, 68% of Black children were born outside of marriage.
Similar arguments can be made against just about every point, but I'll address "Protestant Work Ethic". The NBA is majority African American, and players routinely share their workout regimen on social media: Jimmy Butler touted his 3:30a wake-up before his first Heat practice (https://www.miamiherald.com/sports/nba/miami-heat/article235...), Dennis Rodman—can anyone label him as a symbol of whiteness?—was admired for his grueling post-game workouts, Kobe and countless other players were known for hours-long shootarounds that would exhaust anyone. Are NBA players embodying white culture?
It's worrying to me that if you shared the "White Culture" traits with racists from the past, they would agree vociferously, especially when you consider the implied inverse of those traits. They would use it as an argument for white superiority. It seems that the modern left has somehow embraced the racist stereotyping of the past, with the only difference being that they are painting the same traits—many of which are correlated with individual success—as otherness and a source of oppression.
I don't understand how infographics like this could possibly make the world a better place. Are we meant to embrace them? As an individual of any group, should I somehow be factoring "information" like this into my beliefs and actions, and if so, how is it making my life and the lives of the people around me better?
Nuclear family is also about lesser importance put of relationships with grandparents, adult siblings, aunts and so on. It also implies higher isolation from community.
It is not universally objectively the best thing ever.
> Nuclear family is also about lesser importance put of relationships with grandparents, adult siblings, aunts and so on.
It could be, but I don't see the infographic saying that. The infographic could just as easily be saying that no family relationships at all is the (implied to be more desirable) alternative.
In fact, that's a big issue with the infographic as a whole: what alternatives are we supposed to compare all these things to? None are given.
Why should infographic say that? It characterised norms of one demographic in one time and place. It does not have to make rundown of everything.
Traditional alternative to nuclear family is extended family. Nuclear family as we know it is early 20 century norm, basically 1950 ideal.
Or Asian and old Eastern European arrangements where woman goes to live with husbands familly.
Interestingly, the different structure of black family (including supposed matriarchy, really) was blamed for social ills in black communities in 1965.
If the infographic covered all the possible human cultural arrangements wrt families, that part alone would be far longer than everything else in it. But the point here is not to educate about all possibilities - it's rather to point out that a specific arrangement is considered normative, and (perceived) adherence or non-adherence to it is used to establish a hierarchy of groups.
White supremacists also often hold up the nuclear family as ideal when they say it is under attack by feminism, immigration, multiculturalism, homosexuality and cosmopolitanism. The nuclear family is not typical in many other cultures that, as another poster mentioned, value many kinship relationships as well as neighbor relationships very highly and extend the family unit accordingly.
The nuclear family is an American white cultural norm. It may also be a norm for other groups. You are seeing black as the opposite of white and blackness as defined as the opposite of every white norm. That seems pretty extreme; a deductive fallacy even. The infographic didn't say anything about black culture though it would be interesting to see the identical format used to describe black culture.
> The nuclear family is an American white cultural norm.
See this UN paper [1] regarding stats on the nuclear family. The nuclear family is a phenomenon that exists on all continents. It's not the only way, but it's certainly not a "white" thing. The nuclear family is actually most prominent in Northern Africa. See figure 10 on page 19.
I cannot imagine that infographic being produced about black culture without it producing a howling firestorm of opposition.
First, who produces it? Whites? Yeah, that will go over big. Blacks? That makes it look like propaganda or wishful thinking. Professional sociologists? Is sociology objective enough to produce a consensus?
Then there's the content. Black culture? Which one? (There are several.) Any one you pick, those in other cultures find your infographic to be nonrepresentative.
But every bit of what I said is true of the actual infographic. Who produced it? Whites? Blacks? Professional sociologists? And, which white culture? There is not one uniform white culture across the US.
Thank you, I appreciate your point that white isn't intended to stand in contrast to black in this context. I'll keep that in mind. Unfortunately, that only makes less clear to me what the infographic is attempting to convey, how it's supposed to contribute to the discussion. It seems to me to be implicitly encouraging some kind of comparison that it leaves to the exercise of the reader, and I don't think that's a great idea.
Separately, I'm not clear on how "white cultural norm" is defined or what exactly it means. Is it meant to imply "majority norms in much of Europe, the British Commonwealth, and the US"? If so, why call it "white" instead of something more precise like "EBCU"? Otherwise, is it implying the existence of a shared white culture based around color of skin? When Latino and African and Asian individuals/families share similar ideals, are they contributing to the white cultural norms, or not?
I think the terminology here is important to get right, as I believe that the popular terminology is a source of a lot of the strife at present, whether intentional or not. For example, the tyranny of the majority is a well established problem in democracies. Society has debated for centuries how best to protect the rights of minorities while implementing the will of the majority. Strong individual rights is one method, as it provides a platform for all of us to actively participate to expand and protect the rights of every person. Recasting that debate as white vs. black seems to needlessly alienate potential allies and to reinvent a bunch of concepts without benefiting from the lessons and debates of the past.
For a concrete example of the terminology issue, I think that a big part of the controversy around the Black Lives Matter movement is disagreement about the meaning of the omitted, implied adverb. Does it mean "Black Lives Matter too", or does it mean "Black Lives Matter more", or perhaps something else? Radicals and dissidents on both sides of the spectrum seem to assume the "more" interpretation and react accordingly, whereas sympathizers interpret it along the lines of the "too" interpretation. To complicate things further, some sincerely respond that "All Lives Matter" in a well-meaning way, apparently attempting to clarify and agree with the "Black Lives Matter too" interpretation. Declaring "All Lives Matter" is currently a fireable offense, which brings us back to the theme of PG's essay.
To summarize, I think that terminology is incredibly important. Using "white" as a placeholder for a nebulous concept, especially when it routinely has a negative connotation, only seems to make unified progress more difficult.
> A study of 1880 family structures in Philadelphia, showed that three-quarters of Black families were nuclear families, composed of two parents and children. Data from U.S. Census reports reveal that between 1880 and 1960, married households consisting of two-parent homes were the most widespread form of African-American family structures.
> In the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in 1925, 85 percent of kin-related Black households had two parents. [By 1965,] out-of-wedlock birthrate had increased to 25% among the Black population. This figure continued to rise over time and in 1991, 68% of Black children were born outside of marriage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_family_struct...
Similar arguments can be made against just about every point, but I'll address "Protestant Work Ethic". The NBA is majority African American, and players routinely share their workout regimen on social media: Jimmy Butler touted his 3:30a wake-up before his first Heat practice (https://www.miamiherald.com/sports/nba/miami-heat/article235...), Dennis Rodman—can anyone label him as a symbol of whiteness?—was admired for his grueling post-game workouts, Kobe and countless other players were known for hours-long shootarounds that would exhaust anyone. Are NBA players embodying white culture?
It's worrying to me that if you shared the "White Culture" traits with racists from the past, they would agree vociferously, especially when you consider the implied inverse of those traits. They would use it as an argument for white superiority. It seems that the modern left has somehow embraced the racist stereotyping of the past, with the only difference being that they are painting the same traits—many of which are correlated with individual success—as otherness and a source of oppression.
I don't understand how infographics like this could possibly make the world a better place. Are we meant to embrace them? As an individual of any group, should I somehow be factoring "information" like this into my beliefs and actions, and if so, how is it making my life and the lives of the people around me better?