You must hang in some especially woke circles
Many/most social movements start on college campuses, so I would consider it pretty relevant.
I've never otherwise had a difficult time supporting that position in front of young SJWs at all.
ie, a single parent.
BTW, I'm kind of on the left as well, in some ways (eg, I think income inequality and poverty is a huge problem). I just can't stand the current leftist orthodoxy, which is belligerently anti-fact if they don't like where the facts lead (two-parent households being a great example).
I guess I'm a Laschian leftist, or Laschian conservative, depending on your view of Lasch.
Woke twitter is a small minority.
And if you don't believe that the media doesn't have any influence on people, particularly Biden's base, try reading Chomsky's _Manufacturing Consent_, or even Walter Lippman, if you want to read someone who thinks this influence is a positive thing.
Not saying that makes it bad, but it's certainly boldly progressive.
You speak as if single parent households are that way by choice. I'd wager 99.99% wish they had a stable partner helping them out.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23766155
The implication of your comment is that the alternative to "the nuclear family" is "single-parent families". But the other alternative to nuclear families is "extended families", which you yourself have written about on HN numerous times.
There is an important racial justice issue involving nuclear vs. extended families; to wit: high-status municipalities (and their school systems) discriminate against them, both by mandating single-family housing and by working to exclude students who reside with extended family care networks. That's a thing we're grappling with in Oak Park, where I live just outside of Chicago, right now. It's not random; it's in fact a lot more legitimate than other BLM grievances (against, for instance, capitalism writ large).
I agree with you about the need to remove barriers to multi-generational households that include other relatives in addition to two parents. I just don’t read the platform that as being directed to that.
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. (em mine)
It's explicit about extended families.
I think we should be able to quickly agree that there are two things going on here:
First, the part you're responding to: Black culture contends with a great deal of blame and social disapproval regarding single mothers and absence of fatherhood (something Thomas Sowell talks a lot about).
Second, like many cultures around the world, including several in Europe, Black culture relies on multigenerational extended family networks for child care. Those family networks were, as I'm certain from previous discussions you agree, explicitly targeted by housing segregationists to keep Black families out of suburban enclaves and to keep Black students out of the best-performing schools.
There's apparently this whole sort of internal cultural debate about Black advancement --- I'm a white dude and talking out of my ass here, but, like, I read some stuff --- between what you might call the Booker T. Washington school, which says Black advancement has to come from Black people improving their own circumstances and correcting the problems that are holding them back, and the W.E.B. DuBois school, which says that the first order of business is to secure formal, recognized equality with white people. It strikes me that you can read Sowell vs. BLM in that light.
They might both be right, with regards to families! Certainly, Oak Park needs to stop rigging systems to keep extended Black families from taking root here. And it's hard to deny that children are better off raised by more than one loving stable caregiver, though we might go back and forth about how important it is that the other stable caregiver be a father, vs. for instance a same-sex partner or a committed grandparent --- I had friends growing up raised by grandparents and those grandparents were probably a lot more conscientious than a lot of our parents.
At any rate, my main argument here is that this "nuclear family" stuff is a weird bone to pick with BLM. They're an easy target! They believe that we can beat back racism without reforming all of capitalism! Pick that fight, not the one that actually does implicate 75 years of racist housing policies that created the impoverished neighborhoods that have trapped and killed so many Black people.
> There's apparently this whole sort of internal cultural debate about Black advancement --- I'm a white dude and talking out of my ass here, but, like, I read some stuff --- between what you might call the Booker T. Washington school, which says Black advancement has to come from Black people improving their own circumstances and correcting the problems that are holding them back, and the W.E.B. DuBois school, which says that the first order of business is to secure formal, recognized equality with white people. It strikes me that you can read Sowell vs. BLM in that light.
My point is the internal debate is filtered through a media and academic framework controlled by white social progressives that elevate one view and suppress the other based on their ideology. Don Lemon faced intense criticism when airing the Booker T. Washington view, because Bill O'Reilly said the same thing: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/local/wp/2013/07/29/don.... It's pretty hard to get tenure at an American university doing work based on the Booker T. Washington view. But the W.E.B. DuBois view gets amplified through those same outlets. That's not because the Booker T. Washington view isn't extremely common. It's because the alliance between Black people and white social liberals suppresses the strong social conservatism in the Black community, as a matter of political necessity.
Now, I understand why the alliance exists. But as applied to Asians, I think the Booker T. Washington view is obviously correct and the W.E.B. DuBois view would be disastrous. I worry that the increasing affiliation of Asians with the left will suppress the very necessary and important social conservatism that exists in the Asian community.
We probably don't disagree that much! The bullshit I am on, generally, is that left liberals underestimate just how conservative Black people are, and instrumentalize them in the service of their own policy agendas. It's not hard to find Black advocates of the Booker T school; I think you provided one a week ago!
I think it's important to recognize the validity of both trains of thought.
By all means, take potshots at trust-fund leftists. They richly deserve it! But I'm going to call you out when you pick bad targets, as you did here. There's stuff to criticize even in the specific BLM messaging about families (BLM is a deeply imperfect advocate), but to suggest as you did that "nuclear family" bias is a baffling leftward shift is beyond the pale. It's square in the middle of real, practical problems.
I appreciate the response, as always!
> We've been through this argument, recently, and I'm a little disappointed that you're framing this observation as if that discussion hadn't occurred already.
As a south Asian person, I find the aggressive push to move Asian Americans to the left quite troubling. The intense social norms in south and East Asian culture in favor of two parent households is an incredible advantage we should not give up lightly. But it’s almost taboo in socially progressive circles to say that family structure matters (even though this is obvious to Asians).