My Dungeon Shook: A letter to our sons, the next chapter
Son:
Ever since the doctor told me the month and day you were expected to arrive I made the determination to live up to the definition of my responsibility. I am your father, your dad, your pops, your daddy and I refuse for it to be said of me that I ever forget what that means.
See the truth is, I do not know my father. I don’t know his name, let alone his character. If someone held a gun to my head, and threatened to take my last breath I couldn’t identify him if I tried. It hurts, it makes no sense, it cannot be justified and yet still here I am standing in a position I never saw, expected to be what I never knew, and charged to cultivate in you what I had to dig and find in myself. Life is not meant to be fair, and excuses simply admit that there is a solution that for some is too challenging. So here I am, in all my short comings, but with a sincerity of heart just to say I am determined. I am determined to live up to the definition of my responsibility. I am determined to be your Dad.
I came into this world sick, lost and bewildered. In a country I had to make my own, I became allergic to the negative assumptions society spit at my sun touched skin tone. By the age of three, death was knocking fervently at the door to the glee of white supremacy as I had been seen as disposable anyway. But for some reason I knew I was poisoned so I defecated and excreted every ounce of that hatred from my body in the hopes that I would gain a new strength strong enough to combat the wiles of structural racism, fear and oppression. And though I learned my strength, the wiles did not disappear.
Growing up as Black man, if you so happened to be privileged enough to cross paths with an elder Black man of honor, wisdom and stature you were presented a blueprint for “survival.” This blueprint was essential if you were going to overcome the circumstances of your environment. As James Baldwin says, “you were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence: you were expected to make peace with mediocrity.” So, to experience the deposit of the exact opposite of this estranged assumption was pivotal for many of us and our survival. “Tuck in your shirt” “Pull up your pants” “Shoulders up and back” “Tie this tie” “Shine your shoes” “Get no less than A’s” “Early is on time” “A man always has money in his pocket” “Open that door for her” “Shake firmly and look them in the eye” “Use your manners” “Find a mentor” “Graduate from college” “Watch the company you keep” “Honor your elders”- these and other so called rules, became our guiding path to success or rather the easiest way to stay out of trouble. Unfortunately, by their standards this was an objective view to keep the waters calm even though it was well known that a churning was necessary for a changing of the tide.
The oxymoron in all of this is that trouble never seemed to leave our side. Like a pale leech, illegitimate trouble latched onto us feeding off of our hesitancies, discretions, and head bowing. Law enforcement became the enforcer of these feelings to the point where even those who believed themselves to be removed, still felt the shivers of their ancestors when approached with irrational inquiry. The mixture of our melanin and gender rendered us a health risk to society no matter what we did. No outfit, no degree, no name, and no bank account level shielded us from neither emotional nor physical harm, even to death.
The last couple of years have felt like a long military funeral procession as old America seems to be at war with the inevitability of itself. It appears that the possibility of this country becoming more inclusive, more equitable and more righteous is seen by some as a plague and not a cure- a scar and not a healing balm. Unfortunately, this has resulted in the loss of our most important societal treasure-ourselves.
I am convinced that many of the answers to the world’s problems died sitting in the hearts and minds of those residents in the Gilmore Homes, that sidewalk in Retreat at Twin Lakes, near that beauty supply store in the Tompkinsville neighborhood in Staten Island, in that Chicago alley near Douglas Park, on the streets of Canfield Green Apartments, at a community pool in the Craig Ranch suburb, and in the pews of the Emanuel AME Church. My mind flashes back to hearing a child’s scream as I stood upon the blood soaked concrete where Michael Brown had laid dead in the sun for four hours. I cannot shake the glowing fire in the eyes of Trayvon Martin’s mother as I touched her shoulder and tried to smile for her. The shaky voice of Rekia Boyd’s brother still rings in my ear as I stood and watch him admit to a rally of supporters that he felt powerless.
The darkest of those times were real but I do not dictate this history to you to frighten you but instead to enforce upon you the unfathomable depths from which your highest highs will have come from. The fact is that in spite of those death blows resiliency overflowed. Our grapes of wrath were black berries and no matter how hard they were crush and squeezed they still produced sweet juice. You come from a lineage of people that survived and thrived in spite of. Your bloodline runs thick with the determination of great expectations, a belief in God of the oppressed and as Howard Thurman called it, the “ability to deal with the realities of one’s own situation so as not to be overcome by them.” You are the descendant of Kings, prophets, way makers, innovators, champions conscious intellectuals, martyrs, and defenders of the least of these. Your destiny for greatness is an inevitability as long as you never allow anyone to steal your ambition towards possibility. So son, don’t be afraid of the future. Don’t be intimidated by the past. Press towards the mark of your higher calling. One of the oldest lyrist of my time once said, “If the truth is told, the youth can grow. Then learn to survive until they gain control.”
In due time son, when you enter this world, you will understand my words fully, but until that time, we will keep fighting for your life and your unborn son. I love you.
So profound.