Be a Father to Your
Child: Real Talk from Black Men on Family, Love and Fatherhood
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Amazon
by April R. Silver (editor)
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Soft Skull Press (July 1, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1593761929
ISBN-13: 978-1593761929
Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 6.4 x 0.6 inches
Book Review by
Kam Williams
“I will be completely candid here and say that I have
carried around a great deal of resentment toward older Black
men since my father disowned me when I was eight years-old.
Indeed, I have had little tolerance, little respect, and
very little interest in what most of them have to say for
themselves.
It is the worst form of cowardice to bring a child into the
world and then abandon that child either because you cannot
cope or because you and the child’s mother are not able to
get along. How many Black boys and Black girls have had
their emotional beings decimated by that father void?
How does one break the vicious cycle, begun on the
plantations, of Black man as stud? [And] what of slavery…
which lingers still in the collective bosom of Black men in
America? So how could I really be mad at my father… that
no-good do-for-nothing, as my mother often referred to him?
I may never see the man again in my lifetime, don’t care to,
really, but I know… he is wounded… like older Black men and
like a lot of younger Black men in a state of arrested
development.”
—Excerpted from “What Is a Man?” by Kevin Powell (pages
34-35)
How does the Hip-Hop Generation view fatherhood? Depending on
whose statistics you believe, anywhere from 70 to 85% of black
kids are now being raised by single-moms. This suggests that
African-American males raised during the heyday of misogynistic
gangsta rap might be unwilling to shoulder their fair share of
the burden when it comes to parenting.
But before you jump to conclusions, you might want to read Be a
Father to Your Child: Real Talk from Black Men on Family, Love
and Fatherhood. Edited by April Silver, the book is a collection
of empowering essays by black men born between 1965 and 1989 who
have not abandoned their children.
Each contributor shares his unique perspective, some of which
you are bound to find a little surprising. For instance,
Bakari Kitwana, author of such seminal cultural touchstones
as The Hip-Hop Generation and Why White Kids Like Hip-Hop,
readily admits to being “old-fashioned” and that the bulk of the
music he writes about is off-limits for his own eight year-old
son.
Then there’s hip-hop artist Talib Kweli, a father of two, who
says, “Education is the key of a wonderful life.” He also
acknowledges that rap has served as a surrogate father, filling
in for absentee dads. But he warns that the music only “teaches
you how to appear like a man.” Also among the two-dozen young
sages weighing-in are professors
William Jelani Cobb, James Peterson and Alford A. Young,
Jr., filmmakers Aaron Lloyd and Byron Hunt, DJ Davey D, rapper
Rhymfest and playwright Shaun Neblett.
Be a Father to Your Child amounts to a heartening mix of poetry,
prose and pictures which combine to reassure skeptics about the
prospects for the black family, the daily dire predictions of
the mainstream media notwithstanding. For if these dedicated
brothers were able to overcome the odds and avoid the
self-destructive paths glorified in the materialistic, violent
and misanthropic music videos on which they were weaned during
their formative years, there is indeed plenty of promise for
this and future generations of African-American dads.
