“Baby Mama” Drama to “Nanny State” Trauma

Once, while I was meeting with a brilliant young man, the conversation turned to marriage and fatherhood.  To my surprise, the young man admitted that from his formative years through his young adulthood, the concept of marriage was nowhere on his radar screen.  The shocker was that just a few years ago, though he had committed his life to Christ and had become and active member of his church, marriage was still a completely alien concept to him.  He admitted to me that he assumed the only way he could ever be a father was to become a “baby daddy,” replete with the concomitant “baby mama” drama.

“Daddy Did My Hair” – Weaving the Nature of Fatherhood

My father always seemed larger than life.  A booming baritone who made the first Great Migration north with his family after the Stock Market Crash of '29, he worked throughout his schooling to help support his mother and numerous siblings.  My father finished Hampton University, and served his country during World War II as one of the first African American army captains leading an all-White company in the Pacific theater.  This was a man who integrated the public school system along with a group of brave high school teachers, who with my mother at his side was instrumental in exposing unfair housing practices and the need for the Housing Discrimination Act of 1968.  As an Industrial Arts teacher, he was so proficient at carpentry that he could design and build just about anything with his seemingly unlimited imagination and skill.

One morning, my father faced a daunting, never-before-performed task ... doing his daughters’ hair.

‘How We Be’ – An Offbeat Look at Ebonics

There are many rich things about being African American that give me a warm smile.  Among these are our innovative, ‘good for the soul’ foods (taken in moderation, of course), our pioneering spirit that has created an entire series of history-making ‘firsts,’ and our multitude of globally imitated genres of music and dance.  These and many other things are reflective of our unique style that continues to grow out of our incredible resilience and adaptability as a people. 

Our ever-evolving linguistics is no exception.

Illogical Ontology - How We Misunderstand Ourselves

In the 1970’s, I visited a picturesque Philadelphia neighborhood of well-kept row-homes owned by middle-class Black folk.  Noticing a forest of “for sale” signs littering the front lawns, had I not known better, I would have assumed the proliferation of signs was due to “White flight” – but these were Black homeowners.  When I inquired about the reasons for this “Black flight,” the residents pointed to the rumor that underclass people were moving in – those displaced by the gentrification of downtown’s South Street.  I had heard the exact same arguments articulated by their White counterparts in other neighborhoods: “Our property values will decline,” “Our schools will go downhill,” etc.  This observation shook me to my foundation; I never dreamed that “Black flight” was possible.  It was then that I realized that I had imbibed the intoxicant of ontological Blackness – believing that we were immune to certain behaviors I had always associated with Whites.

What Drives Poverty – Fire in the 'Whole'?

As a seven year old boy, I sat at the kitchen table anticipating the taste of my grandmother’s fried chicken.  Suddenly, I was traumatized by the eruption of a grease fire.  As my grandfather tried to douse the flames with water the fire flared up, nearly igniting the cabinets above before it could be smothered.  If this had been a wood fire, water would have killed the flames instantly; however, a grease fire poses a danger of a completely different nature.

Poverty can be compared to this – sometimes a fire of wood, at other times, one of grease.  The traditional means of dousing a wood fire will only exacerbate a grease fire.  This might be helpful in explaining the perplexing explosion of poverty despite government’s massive attempts to quell it.

Freedom From a One-Dimensional Identity

I see myself as a walking paradox.  There are many manifestations of the human condition that I find repugnant, yet that I also find present in me.  Some would say that this makes me conflicted at best, hypocritical and self-loathing at worst.  Yet and still, I know I’m not alone, as many similarly struggle with this paradox.  While society is uncomfortable with the tension, the Bible tells us it is common.

As a follower of Jesus, knowing that I am being conformed to the image of Someone greater than myself empowers me to have peace with this tension.  This external conformation is what differentiates my struggle from other attempts, such as Confucianism’s ‘yin yang,’ to reconcile this dichotomy.

Who You Callin' Oreo? The Devouring of Black Folk

In my last post, I spoke out against America's trend toward political polarization. Today, I want to refocus onto matters cultural.  It appears that African American culture itself is also being swept up into a socio/political vortex - a great tragedy in light of the current African American cultural crisis.

It seems the cultural ground has shifted under our feet.  Memories of the Civil Rights and Black Consciousness Movements remain, but they have morphed into something alien to these movements’ pioneers.  The Civil Rights Movement has degenerated into a civil rights industry, and Black consciousness has degenerated into non-achiever consciousness.  Our sense of momentum has eroded, our moral clarity has evaporated, and moral confusion is the order of the day.