Dr. Williams Releases Statement on Black Families Flourishing (BFF) initiative

June 17, 2025

By Dr. Christopher Williams

In June 2025, the Black Families Flourishing (BFF) initiative hosted its first webinar on its research efforts on the well-being of Black families in the US (Source). Project leads discussed their survey that aims for a "nationally representative sample of Black families" that totals 1,500 respondents. Since the study is focused on families, respondents are parents or caregivers. They defined an eligible family as, "A group of at least one self-identified Black adult related by birth, marriage, adoption, or choice to more or more child (infancy up to age 26)." They indicated that their survey would seek to underscore Black family heterogeneity. 

The BFF makes an errant assumption on the relevance of racialization that I directly addressed in my dissertation study, the Critical Race Framework. That study was a methodological appraisal, but the broad criticism of crude racialization is relevant to the BFF. Namely, the supra-construct of race does not have any scientific justification whether in culture, history, religion, language, or genetics. The researchers are perpetuating deeply ideological and arbitrary research - imposing a belief system unto research participants and science. They discussed no construct of Black identity or affinity in determining eligibility or framing. Rather, they rely on a globalized "Black" self-identification - a centuries-old construct that developed to justify the transatlantic slave trade.

They purport to have a nationally representative data sample, but 1,500 is far too small to explore true heterogeneity. In other words, the sampling strategy would need to first account for dimensions of heterogeneity, then determine an adequate sample size. Limitations of their strategy manifest in reporting of regional differences in "shared" (at least one "Black" parent or caregiver in household) versus "different" (no caregiver or parent with a "Black" identity). It is worth noting that their sampling strategy is based on a nationally representative sample - not regional - so regional data are unlikely to be representative.

Further, there is a lack of practical significance. Their research questions are entirely too broad and imprecise, "facilitate understanding how, under what circumstance, and in what ways, systems that are serving Black families are working well" and "highlight and support research focused on understanding Black family heterogeneity, strengths, and cultural assets." These are research questions in seek of a problem as opposed to clearly defined research aims in terms of structural inequity, political determinants, neighborhood factors, or health behaviors.

Finally, their research is not inclusive and seems to perpetuate a legacy of overstudying Black people to mine for data. I would argue that it is unethical to want to understand how systems are not working well while limiting analysis to "Black" families. A better use of funding would seek to unpack a specific population related to salient questions that can be scientifically sound and practically important. For example, they could have explored highly disadvantaged neighborhoods in urban cities above a certain total population that experienced redlining and could have assessed dimensions of the public health economy that ill-serve those populations today - looking at the interplay among economic, political, social, community, educational, and regulatory factors. They could have used similarly sized cities without redlining or highly disadvantaged rural populations for comparisons.

The BFF resembles the approach to research that the Critical Race Framework targets - race essentialism disguised as science.