Other observers don’t see Black Lives Matter as seeking to go that far.
"I don't think there's any reasonable basis to claim" that the group’s website "is promoting an actual reduction in the proportion of people actually living in a Western nuclear family structure — but rather, to imagine ‘successful’ families as more inclusive than this particular vision of family," said Davin L. Phoenix, a University of California, Irvine, political scientist who studies Black politics.
Phoenix said that the statement calling for "disruption" is most accurately interpreted as disrupting agendas that give benefits to people with middle-class family structures over those without. For example, zoning laws that prioritize single-family housing or tax credits for married homeowners leave out people who are single or rent their home.
"It is a call to disrupt the notion that the nuclear family structure is the only way to ensure neighborhood stability and vitality, and to affirm that neighborhoods that contain a high volume of non-traditional family structures (e.g. households with a single parent or grandparents / other familial figures as primary caregivers for kids) are just as capable of — and just as deserving of — policies and practices that contribute to neighborhood stability and vitality," he said.
Black Lives Matter has essentially said the nuclear family is untenable and that extended families provide the necessary support to take care of one another, said Nadia Brown, a political science and African American studies professor at Purdue University and co-editor of the book "The Politics of Protest: Readings on the Black Lives Matter Movement."
"For example, if both parents work outside the home and a child gets sick, who will care for the child while also earning an income? Having a grandparent or another adult in the home who assists with care responsibilities lessens the burdens on the parents to both work and care for the children."
Black Lives Matter "is focused on improving life outcomes and opportunities for Black-identifying people in the United States, regardless of sexual orientation," said Georgetown University government professor Jamil Scott, whose specialties include race and ethnicity in politics.
"Across online materials that I’ve encountered, associated with Black Lives Matters and its chapters, I’ve never seen any statements that indicate Black Lives Matter is calling for the destruction of the nuclear family."