*A research initiative at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities is facing scrutiny over online materials that characterize “whiteness” as a pandemic requiring intervention.
As Fox News reports, the Culture and Family Lab, operating under the Institute of Child Development, maintains a webpage offering guidance on what it describes as addressing systemic racism through family systems. The site frames racism as an epidemic with an underlying cause it identifies as the “whiteness pandemic.”
According to the webpage, “If you were born or raised in the United States, you have grown up in the Whiteness Pandemic, and you can play a role in halting and reversing this pandemic, especially if you are White because of the power and privilege you hold in this racialized society.” The materials stress that adults bear responsibility for self-education and action regardless of their childhood socialization.
The lab’s framework explicitly targets family structures as transmission points for what it considers problematic cultural patterns. “Naming the Whiteness Pandemic shifts our gaze from the victims and effects of racism onto the systems that perpetrate and perpetuate racism, starting with the family system,” the university states. The site emphasizes that children in White families undergo socialization processes from birth that the researchers link to systemic racism.
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Defining its central concept, the university clarifies: “Whiteness refers to culture, not biology: the centuries-old culture of Whiteness features colorblindness, passivity, and White fragility, which are all covert expressions of racism common in the United States.” Resources on the platform include works by authors Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo, alongside practical guides such as one titled “How to explain white privilege in terms simple enough for a child.”
Among the research informing these materials is a study surveying predominantly liberal White mothers with household incomes averaging above $125,000. The study determined that “Family socialization into the centuries-old culture of Whiteness – involving colorblindness, passivity, and fragility – perpetrates and perpetuates U.S. racism, reflecting an insidious Whiteness pandemic.” Financial backing for the project includes grants from the National Institute of Mental Health.
The initiative features various experts who provide specialized resources for White parents to cultivate what the site terms a “healthy white racial identity.” The webpage states that for White adults, “antiracist action involves an ongoing process of self-reflection in order to develop a healthy positive White identity while engaging in courageous antiracist parenting/caregiving.”
A University of Minnesota spokesperson defended the lab’s work, noting that the school is “steadfast in its commitment to the principles of academic freedom.”
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