George Mason Professor Bethany Letiecq is at the center of a firestorm of controversy over his article in the Journal of Marriage and Family declaring that the institution of marriage plays a key role in white supremacy. In considering what she labels “marriage fundamentalism,” Letiecq lashes out at the “two-parent married family” model. It is the latest example of what I have called the “radical chic” of academia, faculty who find publication and promotional opportunities in advancing highly racialized and radical theories challenging institutions, values, and even common expressions.
In today’s academic environment, there often seems a rush to racialize common practices or terminology. Publications clamor for such articles and discovering another hidden racist element in society can bring academic accolades. However, others have already staked out many areas such as mathematics, astrophysics, statistics, meritocracy, climate change, dieting, tipping, skiing, chess, and organized pantries. Most recently, the American Psychological Association declared that merit-based hiring may be racist. Even robots are now declared to be part of the supremacist menace because they are often made of white plastic.
Letiecq has spoken up to say that we should not forget marriage as we address “elements of White heteropatriarchal supremacy, such as structural racism, sexism, heterosexism, anti-immigrant nativism, and settler colonialism, operate and interlock to condition and constrain diverse family formation and functioning.” She notes that “there is abundant critical scholarship to unsettle the self.” That unsettling journey should include dismantling the institution of marriage.
As a threshold matter, Letiecq defines marriage as “the belief that a family composed of a cisgender heterosexual married couple (i.e., a man and a woman as husband and wife) is the ideal family form for rearing children, is the foundation of civilization, and is necessary for ensuring White, heteropatriarchal supremacy in America.”
As one might expect, that definition leads to fairly predictable conclusions on combating white heteropatriarchal nuclear families (WHNFs). She details how the institution was used for white domination:
“These efforts to coercively eradicate, delegitimize, and transform sex, gender, and reproduction via systems of racist heteropatriarchy were forms of assimilative violence understood as necessary for the production of marriage fundamentalism. … In colonized America, this new gendered and racialized social contract was institutionalized in the context of a White heteropatriarchal supremacist social order where the White heterosexual married-parent family served a particular purpose: to channel the flow of resources between generations of White male property owners to maintain their domination, power, and control over others.”
She notes that this will not be easy since “building new theories and models to understand and explain White heteropatriarchal family supremacy in a field heretofore dominated by White people, many of whom have benefited from Whiteness as property and WHNF advantaging, will require deep reflexivity and self-interrogation to unsettle the self.”
The fact is that many of us have long supported the right of adults to marry and foster families according to their own values and morals. I supported same-sex marriage for decades and have challenged “morality laws” that seek to impose such rules on others. As someone with long-standing libertarian values, I oppose orthodoxy in the law and efforts to coerce others into living their lives according the values of others.
However, this research, in my view, is emblematic of the scholarship that is now in vogue in academia. I encourage you to read the paper. It is a collection of jingoistic catch phrases and conclusory observations. The fact that marriage as an institution has existed throughout periods of colonialism and oppression creates a false cause-and-effect relationship. It may also be true that marriage was found early in human development to be socially, economically, or religiously beneficial institution — entirely separate from the racial or cultural conditions of any given country or time. The fact that the conventional family unit is fairly common throughout the world indicates that it may have other more universal benefits. This historical record does not inherently support the view of the institution in fostering “assimilative violence understood as necessary for the production of marriage fundamentalism.” It is also possible that such problems exist in society but correlation does not mean causation.
Letiecq works to show how marriage as an institution is “cisgender” and heterosexual even though most countries now have a broader definition. The core of the institution remains the union of individuals in establishing a family unit or relationship.
My disagreement with the paper of Professor Letiecq does not mean that I do not believe that it should have been published. It is provocative and challenging. My concern is the dominance of such scholarship in academia with the declining number of conservative or libertarian voices on faculties. These publications are far less likely to publish a work by an academic espousing the value of a traditional family unit. The result is a new type of orthodoxy and intolerance in higher education.
The only word that can adequately describe this article and its content is “claptrap.”
Her overtly racist psuedo-intellectual rant deserves to be mocked. Mercilessly.
Kindegarteners could stop her in her tracks with innocent questions, such as “What’s wrong with
me wanting to have a daddy like my friend Joey has?” Or, “Why aren’t you more like my friends’ moms?”
“Why are you talking about skin colors so much?”
I can’t believe none of these “radical chic” professors has published on the real cause of oppression to all groups in society, The Law.
Having laws is the perhaps the bluntest instrument of all forms of oppression to all groups. Take theft for example. Just because someone claims ownership for something should not give them exclusive entittlement to that thing. Oppression… Want to charge for your work producing a loaf of bread to put on your store shelf, you racist, capitalist colonialist !
These professors are floating around in Crazytown.
Wait a sec….if I truly believe that brand new SUV parked in your driveway is mine, then why shouldn’t I be free to act on my belief? How did you come into possession of my car? My lawyer told me I own it and you don’t.
Enough Cultural Marxism!
Higher education is a species of organized crime whereby academics steal money from working people by spouting gibberish.
JT please get an editor!
I second that emotion. Or at the very least a proofreader. Pretty sure it’s George Mason and not George Masson University.
Ooh, Anonymous had her day ruined because Turley accidently used a second s.
The grammar police exist because they are wrong about everything
That requires the embracing of pedantry, in a desperate attempt to be right about something.
TM, please appreciate that we get one or two pieces of work product from Professor Turley every day and as for you…get some patience and respect.
“[P]lease appreciate that we get one or two pieces of work product from Professor Turley every day . . .”
Hear, hear!
And a *free* forum in which to express your opinions.
Absolutely a I am guilty of these too!!! However, anyone of us here would voluntarily and anonymously provide a quick proofread to avoid these errors which happen so often. Like it or not, misspellings reduce the credibility of the author, criticism of this type is only offered from a place of great respect!🙏🏻
The entire Woke agenda should be labeled “The War on Children.” It seems like every cause it champions hurts children and destroys their lives, abortion, trans-activism, porn in elementary school libraries, etc.
Read Rob Henderson’s new book “Troubled.” Not only does he provide documentary evidence of this notion he calls “Luxury Beliefs,“ those which the academic elite espouse but do not impose on themselves, he describes in painful detail how he lived the harms it caused.
Highly recommend.
Granny62,
I would take it a step further, “The War on Reality.”
@Upstate @Granny
You are both right. They go hand in hand!
Can a person say, “Jerry Springer Show?”
We must be scraping the bottom of the barrel to hire professors who are so disconnected from reality. She is being paid? If this were Jonestown, persons such as this would be first in the Kool-Aide line.
E.M. Said: “If this were Jonestown, persons such as this would be first in the Kool-Aide line.”
I would cheer an outcome of that nature. It is far too late to try to educate or rehabilitate creatures like her. If that time ever existed, it has passed. If their values are the values of Death, not Life, I would encourage them to complete their chosen path as quickly as possible, without damaging the rest of us. Yes, that is extremely mean. But it is realistic.
Half them immigrants are male. Get back liberal pinkos. Be careful what u demand, u boobs
Like 1600AD sorry
“…to maintain their domination, power, and control over others.”
She says this like it is a goal and not a burden to necessitate a civilized environment.
What choice do we have? It is either that or we’re still living in the Bronze Age or Baltimore.
My affair with Big Tush Willis beg
an in third grade. That chick is all that. Backwards dress and all. Hot, Hot Baby
She has been duped by racist heterosexuals into advocating against conventional marriage. If blacks follow her advice, they will remain at the bottom of the economic barrel. Congrats to the cabal of crafty white supremicists for manipulating this useful idiot.
The grift never ends. Which is not to say I would suppress her nearly incomprehensible jargon. But I also believe laws against fraud are misplaced. It was a wise man who said, “If God didn’t want them shorn, he wouldn’t have made them sheep.” Let the sucker beware. Grifters gotta grift, and Commies gotta commie.
I would suppress her if I could. I would fire her for being a stupid moron.
what has taken them so long? duh! of course we are reponsible for all the evil in the world. man, wake up. everybody else is perfect.
These woke, so called academics and so called intellects are the greatest threat to American society.
Nah. They are lovely, totally innocent, perfect people! They can’t do anything wrong. Can’t. Ain’t possible. U got to have white skin and testicles. White skin and balls are the causes of all wickedness. Just look at Big Tush Willis.
I fully endorse this so called academic, in exercising her 1stA rights, to prove to the whole world what an idiot she is.
From this point forward, I shall question the value of any higher education.
Upstate, my only quibble with your point is not that she has 1st A rights, it is that we pay to support “education” that is harming us.
Remember the famous case of P*ss Christ with the jar of urine and the left was bent out of shape because of the outcry against it? Well the outcry wasn’t due to the “art” itself, it was that the NEA, a tax funded inst, paid the artist to create this “art”. Now forgetting that there would never be a similar “artwork” with Mohammed, the point is we shouldn’t pay for such things.
We should not be forced to pay the salary of people that are harming our youth. These nut jobs can say anything they want, but not on my dime.
Of course I agree with you 99% of the time and I consider you a great part of this site. Keep up the good work.
Yep! I would fire the knucklehead, too. In fact, if I was a married white woman, or even unmarried white female, I would be all for yanking the hair out of her head for trying to talk a man, or my husband, out of marriage. Because nothing says stress like trying to be a single parent.
The publication of papers such as this serves only to show how low the standards of academia have fallen.
And by featuring such garbage on his blog, and treating it with some degree of respect while disagreeing with its premise, shows only that Professor Turley needs a vacation. Or at least some serious editorial supervision.
wiseoldlawyer said: ” treating it with some degree of respect while disagreeing with its premise, shows only that Professor Turley needs a vacation”
Turley strives to be civil and balanced. Maybe he sometimes overdoes it. But what did you expect him to write: “Get a load of this f**kin garbage masquerading as an academic paper – it’s suitable only to use for wiping a rank, shitty ass crack?” I would defend that as a perfectly accurate analysis, but Turley isn’t going to win over any readers by writing it.
Let me help. “family serves several critical purposes, one of which is to channel the flow of resources, knowledge and culture between generations to maintain social stability and wellbeing for the benefit of all.” There, fixed it for him/her/them.
When you look at the world through white supremacist racism glasses, everything looks like white supremacist racism – even white commodes in public bathrooms. Surely they are tools of white supremacism intended to subliminally subjugate colored folk, leading to excess incidence of bowel dysfunction, further skewing health outcome inequities in a heterogastrointestinal-dominated medical system.
Wow she proofs her theory by going all the way back to the 1600 BC
I wonder what humans did a few years earlier? like 1600BC?
Not surprising a PhD in Wokism, believes history started in the 1600’s. For a “researcher”, she has a serious case of confirmation bias. She starts with her conclusions and then choose stuff to support said conclusion.