Side-Effects….
Shameful admission: I have never watched a single episode of “Queen Sugar.” Judge me. Watching TV doesn’t pay well enough, so I get bits and pieces where I can.
Apparently, there was a recent episode where a young Black boy was playing with a doll, which I read about on a Facebook post. The topic of the post is what led me to write today, so go with me on this. The post asked if television shows/mainstream media were working in conspiracy to effeminate Black men. For those unfamiliar with the term, effeminate means to possess female or ‘unmanly’ characteristics. This kind of discussion is the conduit to the layers of baggage Black men have to unpack.
When I was kid, I played house. Hell, I even jumped some rope here and there. I had female friends who played stickball, buckets (a basketball game played in the hood), practiced wrestling moves from WCW/WWF, and played a variety of video games. Why am I saying all this? I guess the question I have today is: Where, when, and from whom do Black men learn to nurture? I do not believe playing with dolls is the gateway to a boy being gay. That’s insanely asinine. As I consider some of the ways I have modeled Black masculinity (and masculinity in general) on my two sons, I’m reflecting on some harmful things I’ve imposed on them.
“I wish you would cry.”
“Let a tear roll down your face.”
“Stop being an attention-whore.”
“You’re not watching that. Turn to something else.”
It’s this kind of thinking that causes Black men to grow up emotionally confused. Nurture is defined as “care for and encourage the growth or development of.” In thinking about my experiences as a first time father, I pull bits and pieces of my life together, to figure out how I learned to nurture. I only got affection from my father on special occasions, and the streets only taught me what to NOT do as a man. So how did I know to care for, hug, kiss, and protect my daughter when she was born? My mother raised a fine gentleman, but she couldn’t raise a man. This is the aspect of Black fatherhood that is often missing from the discussion. Absenteeism is often blamed for both ends of the continuum: being gay or emotionally insensitive. Is there any wonder why Black males aren’t listing ‘babysitter’ on their resumes?
My parents never married. They were childhood friends who “kicked it” until my father passed away from cancer, shortly before he turned 51. I was 26 years old, and my life was forever changed. BTW, #FUCKCANCER, but that’s a whole other talk show. My life wasn’t changed on March 1st, 2001 though, so let me be clear. My life was changed each time I never got a chance to see my father care for or show love and affection for my mom. They loved one another. He was my mom’s first love. I just can’t describe to you exactly what that love looked like in my life, as their offspring. Now, I’m not the only one who can tell this story, but this is my shit. If my siblings want to tell their story, I’ll c0-sign. Because I never saw my mom treated well by men, I became highly skilled at what was modeled….womanizing. Was it solely their fault? Surely not. My family doesn’t have the best history with marriage overall, so maybe the women had different expectations. I didn’t learn how to properly court and date a woman, which was the other side of what I wrote about in my first submission. I didn’t want relationships because I learned it was more profitable to milk the cow and leave her where she stood, until I needed her goods again. My great-grandfather is the most revered human being in the history of my family. My great-grandmother flat out did her thing as a home-maker. However, I don’t recall seeing my grand-daddy be affectionate toward her. He worked his entire ass off as the provider and model of manhood for us all, but I didn’t learn to hug and kiss, or say “I love you.” Even today, I cheat that process with “love you” instead of “I love you.”
When Elyssa (12) was born, I gave her everything I had, because I was afraid to NOT be there to show her the love of a man. I was, currently am, and always will be her first love. I’m learning to give that same kind of affection to my beautiful older daughters (Kala — 19, Amari — 15), who I was blessed with through my second marriage to the girl of my dreams. My dreamgirl will tell you too, how I struggle to make her feel like my dreamgirl. I can tell you this, at 41, I’ve become vulnerable enough to know what I don’t know (and didn’t learn). As a therapist, I’ve learned I can’t continue NOT being affectionate because someone didn’t teach me. I’m EXTREMELY protective of all 4 of my girls, and they, along with my dreamgirl, often don’t understand why. When boys come knock at my door, I expect 3 things: eye contact, a firm hand-shake, and “hello Mr. White, my name is….” Problem is, who’s teaching boys to do these things? My family thinks I’m too rigid, but if boys can’t respect me, they sure can’t have the emotional capacity to completely respect my girls.
So when I see stories like the one I saw today, about the 4 Black teens in Florida, who recorded and laughed while another (Black) man drowned to death….without a single call to get help, I wonder if learning on the fly is good enough anymore. We can’t all wait to crash and burn before we learn love and the proper ways to nurture and show affection. It’s there. We’re capable of it. When we watched Philando Castile be murdered, our thoughts were with his daughter, and how she’d grow up without her dad (and potentially have PTSD from watching him be killed).
When do we, as Black men, make a decision to repo our boys and teach them how to love? It’s easy to pull triggers in the absence of relationships, love, and genuine affection. Unfortunately, the anger is directed at the perceived and readily marketed source, which creates a genocidal effect. I could infuse my knowledge of systemic and historic racism into this conversation, but I’m not gonna do that because anyone with any reasonable level of understanding can connect the dots. That historic and systemic racism can be credited with many of the side-effects we see in the urban core today.
So……what are we going to do about it? Make excuses or make adjustments? America had permission to systematically destroy the Black family unit. We need only give ourselves permission to love one another enough to put the unit back together again.
“My intuition is telling me there’ll be better days.” Change by J-Cole
