HAPPY VALENTINES DAY TO MY MOM & DAD!

I love you Mom. I love you Dad.

I have noticed that many of the white people I've known say it frequently. Women more than men, of course. Lucky me, some might say, to be around so much love. But then, is it "love," when people say it so often, almost like a habit, or like, a duty? And even if these expressions of love usually are genuine, is saying "I love you" the only way to express love? Of course not. But maybe saying it a lot is an especially white thing. Which is not necessarily to say that it's not something that some other racial or ethnic groups say a lot too. I see white people habitually ending phone conversations this way--kind of, hurriedly.
"I love you! Bye!" I've seen them saying it to their children as they drop them off at school, again as the last or second-to-last thing they say: "Bye! I love you, you know!" It's sweet, I suppose, and as I was growing up, my own mother said it a lot too. I know she meant it, but I sometimes cynically wondered how sincere she really was, if she kept saying it so often. My father didn't say it often. He hardly ever said it. I now realize, with gratitude, that he showed it instead. Actually, that's how I hear it generally works in some other cultures -- don't say it, show it.
Maybe, instead of saying "I love you" a lot being a white thing, not saying it much is more of an Asian thing? No -- I'd need a lot more evidence before I could safely say that. Again, at this point I can only speculate, and sift through largely anecdotal evidence.
I don't know much about how love is expressed among other groups, and I suppose even what "love" itself is could vary widely across cultures. Who knows, when different people say "I love you," they might be saying very different things.
I also imagine other factors play a role, such as gender, as well as socioeconomic status, and all that goes (or doesn't go) with it. Being exhausted or frustrated or frantically busy can leave little time or inclination for expressing one's love. And yet, people still do find ways, don't they? I remember the following poem, by African American poet Robert Hayden, about a father who found ways to show his love, apparently instead of saying it.

Those Winter Sundays
Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?

What do you think?

Is it an especially white thing to say "I love you" a lot? Or maybe, to say it lightly? And to put less emphasis on instead showing it?

Do you think white people tend to say that more often than members of other racial or ethnic groups?

And if so -- why might that be?