Reflecting on this week’s discussion, I was struck by Khytie’s point at the beginning of lecture about “fictive kinship ties,” interpersonal connections that aren’t rooted in marriage or blood. These ties are a fixture of black community relations, as in their 1994 article, Chatters, Taylor, and Jaykody write that they are central to “the maintenance and functioning of the extended family network of African Americans.” Given this popularity, however, it seems improbable that these relationships could be deemed fictive, or quite literally “imagined.”

Who has the privilege of designating these ties fictive? With fictive kin often expected to “participate in the duties of the extended family” as Chatters et al. find, what makes these relationships less real or legitimate than those undergirded by marriage or blood? Of course the state and Christianity, both of which regard marriage as the consummation of a romantic relationship, govern our understanding of what a family is. However, I’ve also realized that confining family to blood and marital relatives fails to encompass more and more black families’ lived realities because of a growing racial gap in marriage rates. As Pew Research Center found in 2012, 36 percent of black adults aged 25 and older had never been married, compared to 16 percent of their white counterparts (http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/09/24/record-share-of-americans-have-never-married/). In-laws who would typically be considered family thus fall into the fictive sphere. Perhaps this growth in the unmarried black population and/or declining marriage rates across races will ultimately allow for these ties to be regarded with more legitimacy, prompting a change in our lexicon.

Also, in googling “Gay Black Family” today, I stumbled upon upon this Nikon ad featuring two black fathers whose selfie with their daughters went viral, drew homophobic backlash, and brought them to fame. You can check out the video and original photo here: http://time.com/3668594/gay-black-fathers-kordale-and-kaleb-nikon/. After taking a closer look at the picture, I am interested in how it perpetuates myths about gay men being more effeminate than heterosexuals, as well as how it pushes our understanding of black gender roles, and some may consider helping girls with morning routines to be a feminine responsibility. It seems to at once be a site for challenging gender norms and broadening social conceptions about gay and black families’ composition, while reinforcing the myth that gays are more concerned with preening themselves than other segments of the population.