This is (crudely speaking) because the Catholic church stamped out such things in the core of Europe 1000 years ago. (Or perhaps that sentence should be the other way around.) Many edges of Europe skipped this process -- Sicily (under the Sacreans?), the Balkans (Byzantine & then Ottoman), the Gaelic fringe (local kings), etc.

In the USA, there are "political families" or "presidential families" who serve as pseudo-patrician organizations [0][1]. Western individualism is often performative, not structural.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:United_States_preside...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_family

> People are absolutely terrified by the idea of others belonging to a family that knows it's roots since 300+ years with an also non-local footprint and reach.

And, you know, organized crime.

yes a a crime family will need to display very similar behavior as a clan in order to protect itself. And some clans certainly are criminal.

While a large criminal syndicate would be a combination of families (that act like a clan), a clan by itself does not need to be part of a criminal syndicate. Also if a person from a clan robs a bank then this doesn't mean the clan is the cause (or the problem). Especially not when the group consists of a 600 or 1000 individuals who are part of that tribe. (whats your chances of bad apples over several extended family trees in the UK/US/France with such a size).

My point specifically is that the media will 100% of the time criminalize the word clan and by extension anyone who is born into it.

related: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/13/priti-...

There is distaste for clan-like behaviour even when no crimes are committed. For example, most westerners would not like to work in an organisation where your family connection to important people is valued over your work. Few would accept their choice of spouse being greatly constrained by what their grandfather thought was good for his little empire.

yes indeed, ... no doubt for some tribes a total contradiction (if not an adversarial intent) what Western cultures consider their right. If a group is so socially different also smaller chance they see a host country as their final destination (at least not those in power). Then an appeal to "integrate themselves" is a harder sell since the speaker has not only no authority in their eyes but what is proposed means cultural genocide in their eyes. Pretty hard place to build trust from here (maybe over generations but not years imo).

unrelated: I do not want to give the impression that I am defending behavior which belongs to the stone age within our own societies. What might come across as too vague (or apologetic - though hopefully not), IMO the process is always violent for those who are on the receiving end of the more dominant system that incorporates them. Our own imperialist crimes in not too distant history (and still ongoing ones) indicate there is a lot of housekeeping still needed before we let the word clan get hi-jacked by our own (and perhaps unconscious) racial biases :)

I find it curious and vaguely racist that the word 'clan' is almost exclusively used in reference to immigrant and poc families and with an allusion to inherent criminality. This despite the fact that many Western countries have a handful of large, old families which own an inadequate proportion of the companies, resources, have outsized political influence and so on, and those families are almost exclusively in many generations from the country in question. They are as clan-ish as a 'clan' gets, but since they do not match the 'criminal immigrant' stereotype, nobody ever calls them a 'clan'. It irks me.

Are you sure about that? Members of rich families in the US are routinely called as part of a clan - Roosevelt clan or Vanderbilt clan. Or they're collectively called something like Boston Brahmans.

It's less used in Europe, but they are still referred to as aristocratic clans.

To me the connotation has always been something like Hatfields and McCoys, not exactly positive, but not linked to race.

Brahmans isn't related to race either. It's just an alliteration. You're right that they are mostly referred to in the plural form (eg: The Roosevelts bought out....) but the clan usage is fairly common too (eg: he's a member of the Roosevelt clan/dynasty).