A viral post claimed Black families are having fewer reunions. There's just one problem.
“It seems clear that this alleged decline is based on a fabricated study,” one expert said.
You may have seen it come across your social media feed: a viral post that claimed Black family reunions have declined by 47 percent since 1997. The post sparked a heated discussion over the alleged slump online — older family members dying, a lack of interest among younger family members, or perhaps something else altogether.
There’s just one problem. The statistic appears to have been completely fabricated.
The post seems to have originated from Raphouse TV, a sketchy hip-hop entertainment aggregation platform whose ownership remains unclear.
“Black Family Reunions Have Dropped By 47% Since 1997, With The Main Reasons Being The Loss Of Elders And Lingering Unresolved Family Conflicts,” the page posted across its social media platforms on July 5.
The platform followed up that post with a seemingly AI-generated response that appeared to debunk the statistic. “[While] exact numbers like a 47% decline since 1997 are not officially confirmed in academic sources, studies do suggest a noticeable reduction in reunion gatherings over the years,” the follow up post said, neglecting to provide the studies.
Not long after, several similar hip-hop and entertainment aggregation platforms began to share the dubious statistic.
Raphouse TV did not respond to a request for comment.
Experts at the Program for Research on Black Americans (PRBA), a research institute founded in 1976 at the University of Michigan that studies the lives of Black Americans, said they hadn’t heard of such a study.
“The trend regarding Black Family Reunions would be interesting, but I don't think we have asked questions about that on any of our surveys,” said Deborah Robinson, assistant director at PRBA. “To assess a decline, one would have to ask the same question over time on a nationally representative sample. I'm not sure if anyone has done [that].”
“It seems clear that this alleged decline is based on a fabricated study,” said Robert Taylor, a faculty associate with PRBA and professor of social work at the university. “This is a prime example of disinformation.”
The Pew Research Center also said they don’t have any research on Black family gatherings and couldn’t confirm the validity of the statistic.
“[The statistic] is probably made up because so much of the internet is made up right now,” said Ashanté Reese, a native Texan and associate professor of anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin. “But if it is real research, I would really love to know who did it, because there's just not a lot on Black family reunions. This is someone’s dissertation waiting to happen.”
Reese, who has been conducting research on how Black people gather around food since 2022, has been attending family reunions across the country from California to Delaware to Michigan.
“The figure itself struck me because I spent all of 2023 and a good part of 2024 going to people’s family reunions and the tradition is alive and well,” she said.
Even though the statistic appears to be fake, the conversation it generated is real. Reese, whose book about food justice and gathering comes out next April, has her theories.
“Depending on the crowd that graphic is reaching, it is showing up on the screens of people who left, meaning they're the ones who moved away. They're not necessarily as connected to the everyday lives of their families in the ways that they were,” Reese explained. “Family reunions have a different meaning if they’re already disconnected.”
“Family needs are also important and are distinct. I think we neglect to sometimes see how people gather in many different ways throughout the year,” she continued. “And so families might be having big reunions; they also might be gathering for other reasons like Thanksgiving or 4th of July, even if it's not a family reunion. So I think that there are ways that gatherings are much smaller in general.”
Reese also pointed to land loss as a significant factor. “In the interviews I did with people, many of them talked about the loss of their homes, the loss of their family farms, the loss of these places where they have been gathering for a long time.”
“We can be so hard on ourselves and critical as Black people in thinking everything is our own fault because we are losing our traditions. But there are structural things that are happening that are impacting the ways that we literally get together for things like that. And land loss is one of them.”
Chenelle Ingram, who lives in Maryland and was on the planning committee for her family’s reunion in Virginia Beach, agreed with that factor. “My son was saying that [our family] is unique because we still have our grandparents' house to go to for family gatherings,” she explained.
She said her family has been hosting reunions since the early 1980s at her grandparents’ home in Jones County, North Carolina.
Even though the number may not be real, Ingram, believes a slight drop in family reunions over the years is likely.
“Old school started it and kept it together. Our grandparents and great-grandparents. The younger generation's just not doing it,” she said. She hopes to reach out to her younger family members to keep the tradition alive.
Maya Davis, director of the Riversdale House Museum — an exhibit designed to teach about the history of slavery at the Prince George’s County plantation — said she was also skeptical of the social media post.
Davis is currently planning a family reunion for her maternal side of the family, to be held in the U.S. Virgin Islands — her mother is from Saint Thomas. Her father’s family, from Virginia, has held a reunion every year since 1977, she said. Family reunions hold special significance for her.
“It’s the passing on of history. But I also think about the messaging behind reunions, post-emancipation, which is the reconnection of families who were separated,” Davis explained, pointing to Black Americans seeking to reconnect with family members following the abolishment of slavery as the origins of the Black family reunion. “As years have gone on, we've been able to reconnect with family members and pass down that heritage. And every year that we come back, there's more history that we didn't know.
“But I think it's the culture for me, going back and just learning more about my Appalachian heritage. That's why it's important.”
These stats might be fabricated, but there is an inherent problem with opinion polls/statistics. Depending on how you phrase questions and what demographic you choose to ask and how many. You can manipulate polls/statistics like that.
Thank you for this nice piece.