For example, at the Republican National Convention, former NFL player Jack Brewer
said the organization "
openly on their website calls for the destruction of the nuclear family. My fellow Americans, our families need each other. We need black fathers in the homes with their wives and children."
We found that while Black Lives Matter seeks change in how "family" is defined, especially with respect to public policy, it’s a leap to conclude that it wants to eliminate traditional family structures.
What Black Lives Matter says
First, Brewer’s statement doesn’t fully represent what the Black Lives Matter
website says about families.
"
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," it says on the page titled "What we believe."
The movement, which
was formed in response to the 2013
acquittal of George Zimmerman, a neighborhood-watch volunteer who fatally shot teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida, also says:
"
We make our spaces family-friendly and enable parents to fully participate with their children. We dismantle the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work ‘double shifts’ so that they can mother in private even as they participate in public justice work."