Love This

Do you remember last year around this time when a picture of two black dads getting their daughters ready for school went viral (plus the predictable backlash yawn)? Well, Shaker Erin M sent me the heads-up that the couple, Kordale and Kaleb, who are now engaged to be married, are featured in a commercial as part of Nikon's "I Am Generation Image" campaign, and it is amazing.

Over video of the family—both dads and their three kids—standing in front of their home together posing for pictures, Kordale says in voiceover: "We just want people to know that, hey, we're normal. And you can't judge people on their normal. You really can't."

Cut to Kordale, a young, thin, tattooed, dark-skinned black man with locced hair, standing on his own: "Hi, my name is Kordale." Cut to Kaleb, a young, thin, tattooed, light-skinned black man with a bald head, standing on his own: "And my name is Kaleb, and we live in Atlanta, Georgia."

A picture of their three children is laid on a table: "These are our three babies: Desmiree, Malia, and Kordale—eight, seven, and six."

Over images of the family making food, eating, getting ready for school, and generally living life together, Kordale says in voiceover: "You know, the routine basically is: We get up at 5:30, and they eat breakfast, and then we do our daughters' hair. Parents that can get up at 5:30 and do their daughters' hair, no matter who they are, that's a family. We pick out their clothes for them, and then we kiss them goodbye, and that's typically what we do in the morning."

Cut to Kordale and Kaleb sitting on a couch together. Kordale says (as video cuts to the image that went viral, of the two dads, shirtless, doing their daughters' hair in the bathroom mirror): "What happened was, we were in the bathroom; we were doing the girls' hair, and I said, 'Oh, let me take a picture.'"

Kaleb continues: "In the picture, we captioned, you know, this is us every day, getting up at 5:30 in the morning, and getting our daughters ready for school. And it was a simple innocent picture, and Kordale was just like, 'I'm just letting y'all know what I have to deal with.' And next thing you know, it went viral, and I'm still amazed today, like, okay, why'd this picture go viral?"

Kordale continues, in voiceover, over video of the kids arriving home from school and Kaleb opening a package from Nikon, which contains a nice camera: "The comments were a trip. It didn't make me feel any way, because I know they don't know what we go through. I know that they don't know our children. I know they don't know our lifestyles; they don't know how we live."

Kaleb continues, over video of the kids playing at the playground: "A picture is so much more than a thousand words. I think that this camera, as we grow and as the kids grow—we'll be able to better explain to anybody the type of family we are, with the pictures and the things that we've done and how we raise them."

Kordale continues, over video of the family visiting grandma's house: "We, as parents, bring kids into the world, and we have to guide them to be better people than we are." Kaleb: "And we want them to be better people than we are. And we want them to succeed and do things that we weren't able to do."

Kaleb continues, over video of the dads and kids back at home, wrestling around on the floor together, laughing, and then the dads kissing each kids' cheeks: "And those kids have our heart. And I can't sit here and explain to you in words why we feel the way that we feel for our children, but those are our kids, and no one else can tell us anything different."

And no one should even try to tell them different in the first place. What a great video. So much love for all of them. ♥