Sen. Barack Obama totes the Cosby line of reasoning about
fatherhood: by directing
his recent message about absentee fathers towards black men, he props up
the notion that we are somehow genetically predisposed to run from our paternal
responsibility. It always strikes me funny that we don’t ask both parties to be
a more responsible, that we insist on demonizing the men involved, instead of
holding the woman accountable for not being on birth control while having sex with a man she’s pretty sure
isn’t husband material. Putting the onus on black men to be better fathers is
sexy, but it isn't fair.
Thanks to Oprah Winfrey and the bass-ackwards ranting of others,
it’s OK—maybe preferable—for women to have (multiple) children without the
benefit of marriage or even a strong “kicking’ it”—type of understanding.
Forget the good of the child: women need to learn to be “self-sufficient,” you
see. Black men and women are at war as
women embrace a notion of “independence” that seems to extol the virtue of
single motherhood and getting paid, but rejects the building of nuclear
families. Women need men for sperm and taking out the garbage, but little else.
Small wonder we can’t keep our families together. There are plenty of women who
want babies, but don’t necessarily want a man around, and this scenario is
becoming more common than you think.
There is a flaw in the wisdom that suggests that black men
run from responsibility—who are these men? Do they just surface to fill out polling questionaires and then head back on the lam? In my circle of friends, all the men
who are fathers? Have had to FIGHT to stay in their child’s lives, including
me. Every single dad I know. And my friends aren’t crackheads and hobos: I’m
talking about professional, educated men, holding down good jobs. Church-goers.
Average Moes. Good Guys™. Some have residential custody, all want it. There are alot of fathers out there trying to wrassle our kids from the clutches of women who may or may not have birthed these kids for the right reason. That sounds ugly to say out loud, but that's Square Biz. We are part of
a generation of hip-hop dads struggling against media perceptions, the court
system and accepted wisdom to be fathers to our children. You don’t read about
us much. It’s easy to presume black men to be defective fathers, but the answer
isn’t quite as simple as that. We have to stop pointing the stink finger at
black men for the demise of the black family, because last I checked, it takes
two to tango. Mommy actually has to want Daddy to hang out.
I understand Obama’s pain, because my Dad(s) opted out. But B-Rock took an “L” on this one, at least on my scorecard. His Cosby Anthropology
doesn’t work for me. What Obama and Cosby can’t know is that seeing a whole generation of Dads
agitate the gravel gave the hip-hop generation more resolve to be better men
than our father’s were.
