Raised by a Single Black Female? No wonder you’re fucked!
Probable inspiration for this “commentary” on fatherhood is overhearing this all-too-common conversation on police radios:
“Police to station, have you checked out young Timothy yet?”
“Yeah, Chief. It’s what I thought. This young Negro is only being raised by his mother.”
“That’s what I thought. *sigh* Okay, I’ll bring him in…10-4.”
‘Cause that’s what happens, y’all! Really!
According to Roland Martin, the healing breathing presence of a black father in a child’s life will keep him out of jail, make the child run faster, jump higher, and his hair will grow twice as long as it does now! Twice! How you like them apples? Why is this shit on CNN, seriously.
First let’s consider where our well-rounded author was raised, and where his foundation lies for this commentary:
Now, I don’t know what it means not to have a father in your life. I’m not familiar with a mom being strung out on a crack binge. And when my parents were called to the school when there was a discipline problem, Mom and Dad didn’t go off on the teacher or principal. In fact, I can still feel the pain of my elementary school principal’s paddle being applied to my butt when I acted a fool. The principal could only pop me three times. Dad? He had no limit.
That’s right, folks. He had a daddy whoopin’ his black ass at home. Not no cracked-out mama. When the disciplinarian told them that he did something wrong, they accepted it unequivocally and wore his ass out! Now they pre-empt the parents and handcuff the kids so they have practice when they go to jail. ‘Sides, the momma might be too cracked out to show up at the school anyway.
And why are the children going to jail? The black fathers are gone, gone, gone!
According to the U.S. Justice Department, of all the black men in the U.S. between the ages of 25 and 29 in 2002, 10.4 percent were incarcerated. Hispanic and white men? Just 2.4 percent and 1.2 percent respectively. If a poll were done on how many grew up without fathers, I can guarantee you the numbers would be staggering.
So the 89.6% of all the black men in the U.S. between 25 and 29 in 2002 dodged a pretty hefty bullet… But there’s no doubt this hefty percentage had two, nay, four, nay, seven parents in their lives. The statistics don’t lie; they just stagger.
The mere presence of a father, you see, solves every childrearing problem.
But you see, when nearly 70 percent of black kids are born to unmarried parents, likely to a too-young mom, that puts tremendous pressure on grandmothers (and some grandfathers), sisters and brothers to take up the slack. But if the person who impregnated that woman were on the scene, not only helping to pay for the raising of the child but also serving as a strong influence, I just don’t believe we would see such a chronic condition.
It doesn’t matter if the child has a supportive extended family. None of that matters if that man is not standing there as a constant reminder that of all the men in the world, he is the one that knocked up your mother. He doesn’t have to be a good influence — just a strong one. So if you’re a black man with a young son, still with your baby’s mama, and you sling that rock just as heavy as you did when you were single and childless, Roland Martin says, “Good on ya!” ‘Cause you’re there! Better than these other trifling fools, y’know?
And it gets BETTER. Consider this woeful example of what happens when a man loses a father in his life:
This is not an issue that black America can continue to sweep under the rug. I’ve heard countless folks talk about it, such as Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, who noted that his dad left his family when he was a toddler and didn’t see much of him growing up. Even in the Republican CNN-YouTube debate, GOP candidate Mitt Romney said fathers are part of the answer to addressing crime in inner cities.
Yeah, we remember the story of that shameful Senator Barack Obama, the one that was found dead in a scuba suit– no. That’s not him. The one who was cybering with teenaged boys– no. Hmmm… the one who filibustered the Civil Rights Act and then knocked up the black woman cleaning his– no. He’s not that old.
Oh, wait! Now I remember.
He’s the black senator who’s running for PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, married to a wonderful lawyer and professional in her own right, with two young children. That one.
Oh God, he didn’t have a father? He turned out horribly!
We shouldn’t shame our young girls who get pregnant, but surely it shouldn’t be seen as a blue-ribbon day. Teenage black girls and black boys should be focused on picking colleges, not the names of babies. When a young girl wants a baby christened, her pastor should be asking to meet with the father as well, even if the two don’t get along. We also should be telling black women not to lie down with any fool. A moment of pleasure could lead you to a lifetime of raising that child. Alone.
That’s right, you skanky black heifer. You watch who you fuck with. You stop these black men from giving into their lustful desires. You stop ripping off the condoms when they diligently put them on, and you make sure he’s there with you and resenting you and putting your child through more hell because it’s obvious he doesn’t want to be there raising him with you. Do your crack, you little skeezer. Get knocked up. You do that, and you’ll be ALONE. No woman can do anything ALONE. Especially not a young black heterosexual woman. With a baby! (That’s going to jail later! You fail and the baby ain’t even come out yet!)
But I’m not shaming you, ah-nope-nope-nope-nope-nope. Do what you do; I’m just sayin’. 
A friend of mine suggested more black men need to mentor young black men.
I agree! In fact, I think whole communities could step forward and mentor young black men. Or even young black people. You don’t have to be genetically connected to a positive influence to learn something worthwhile from them. I think that could be a very viable solution of many. What do you think? Do you think this is a good solution, Mr. Martin?
I agree.
Thank God! Finally, we agree because I was beginning to think you were an idiot–
But that’s a bandage.
Hmmm. What do you mean? It could work; it’s obviously not the only answer but–
If we get black men to handle their business in the first place, no one else would have to stand in the gap.
Ahhh. I see. So mentoring young children is a heavy sacrifice on the part of everyone else; we gotta saddle everything on the parents who by virtue of their presences are goodness and light. Mmmhmm. I take back all half-assed compliments I was ready to give.
Unless black America owns up to this problem — and fast — we are going to see another generation of young black men who are angry with their lot in life. And the result will be more discipline problems in school, which will lead to folks dropping out, and that is nothing but a one-way ticket to jail.
HOLY SLIPPERY SLOPES, BATMAN! Black America, it’s time to call a meeting before women are cutting out the middlemen and going to the prison for lamaze! Quick, call the brown failing monolith! We gotta do better!
Black men, it’s time to man up. Enough with the sperm donors. We need real men to stand up and accept their responsibility. The state of our boys is on us. And no one else.
That’s right, Black Men. Get started. Start standing in! You see those cracked-out single mamas over there with their grandparents and sisters and brothers? They are failing at least 10.4% of black male adults in jail. (You know statistics are reliable; there are probably more sitting in there.) They can’t do it alone. And it’s YOUR fault.
Go breathe next to her.
Don’t waste time getting a job; you probably can’t anyway.
You’re being profiled by police? What the fuck are you talking about?
Black Men, it is time to Get Over Racism And Do Something Productive In Society. Raise Reclaim your damned kids so that we don’t have to.
oh god, may the good lord help us all….
cripchick
December 12, 2007 at 10:37 pm
Don’t run from the TRUTH! The truth (and yo’ daddy) will set you free from jail!
Sylvia
December 13, 2007 at 11:33 am
What the hell?
Does reclamation mean propagating racist-sexist stereotypes too?
Lisa Harney
December 13, 2007 at 3:59 pm
All single mothers are cracked out, don’t you know? They’re drug addicts, and that explains why they’re alone.
There is SO much wrong with this article. I understand the idea of men needing to take responsibility when they sire a child. I get that. But this whole article is bullshit when it comes to encouraging men to take that initiative.
Sylvia
December 13, 2007 at 5:28 pm
*blinkedy*
Sylvia, I think you just broke me.
magniloquence
December 14, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Welcome to my initial reaction when I read the article. I mean, why are people getting floor space to spew this shit? WHY? That’s what bothers me the most.
Sylvia
December 14, 2007 at 3:25 pm
This article reminds me of that whole Yobachi thing at BFP’s and Rachel’s blogs, except it’s about children instead of rape. This whole vibe about trying to get the men to do the right thing by reinforcing sexist notions. Am I making sense?
Lisa Harney
December 14, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Yep. It’s like they’ve got good intentions and then they set out to work toward that in the most ass-backwards way they could possibly manage to get there.
Somehow, this reminds me of the stuff that’s happening in Australia, with the raids and awfulness in the name of reducing child abuse. Real problem, good rhetoric, solution that’s approximately as useful as shooting yourself in the foot (or perhaps more accurately, shooting a schoolbus full of other people in a variety of locations) in order to cure your headache. It might take your mind off the pain, but it neither solves the underlying problem nor helps anything in the meantime.
Magniloquence
December 14, 2007 at 7:01 pm
Well you know women are not capable of raising children alone, of course. That’s been the mantra for years. That’s one of the major philosphies behind reforming welfare–get those children away from their shiftless single mamas and into the daycares, and get those mamas out of the house and behind the counter at McDonalds, where they can, uh, make a difference. And reward the mamas for getting married to any man, as long as he’s a man. Cuz a single mom, especially if she’s poor and brown, is the most toxic thing a child can be exposed to.
Ugh. Makes me wanna scream.
kactus
December 14, 2007 at 8:33 pm
Awww, now that’s not fair. It could be that single mother is poor and brown and queer too! And we can’t let her fix that unmarried thing by marrying another woman now, can we?
Ow. If I roll my eyes any harder, they’ll fall out of my head. And with my pervasive fear of all things ocular, that would be really, really bad.
magniloquence
December 14, 2007 at 10:12 pm
Ok, now you’re just trying to change the divine laws of the universe. Shame, magniloquence, shame.
Tsk tsk.
kactus
December 14, 2007 at 11:01 pm
Sylvia, that line about going to prison for lamaze made me laugh out loud. The actual article and ideas behind it, not so much.
It reminds me of a mass email I received yesterday morning from a coworker. Which quoted the sancimonious prick Ben Stein as saying basically 9-11 and Katrina happened because people don’t spank their kids enough or pray in schools. Really.
What I want to say to people – oh fuck don’t get me started on the spanking and prayer in school business, for now let’s stick to fathers-as-miracle-cure topic – is that anyone who thinks fathers are the answer did not grow up with my dad, or many others’ dads. Or who think that stay-at-home moms in a heterosexual marriage with a man providing the income is what kids need – they did not grow up with my mother, or many others’ mothers.
Now, I love my parents. And as an adult, I have a serious happiness about my parents still being together and what our family gets to experience *now* because of that history and how it’s played out. But growing up – goddamn I wanted a divorce. My dad terrorized me, and my mom ignored me and everything else. If I can name anyone who grew up in a family where the human beings raising them had a handle on how to do it non-destructively, it would be on one hand. But I don’t know if I could even name one.
Which is not the same thing as saying fathers suck. It’s what burns me, it’s what’s underneath this “I care so I speak the hard truths!” stance – there is a willful blindness to the fact that people struggle to not-hurt their kids, period, and sometimes two parents only means twice the failure. Sometimes it doesn’t. Just like sometimes single parents (there are also single dads in the world) are fucked up and sometimes they are the source of everything strenghtening to their kid(s). Lack of this or that parent is not what lands people in jail and society in turmoil. Lack of a lot of other shit, is. Including lack of giving a fuck about youth of color, lack of believing young black men belong anywhere but jail, lack of respecting women who raise kids whether they work other jobs or not, and a goddamn lot of other lacks.
Oh, and special note to Ben Stein anyway – this imaginary safer, less chaotic past where adults spanked kids more and people prayed in school? Wasn’t so fucking safe and less-chaotic for anyone besides precious white dudes. Hope you get hurricaned-on by a terrorist, motherfucker.
Joan Kelly
December 15, 2007 at 4:27 pm
[...] neither is teen parenthood. Neither is single parenthood. Neither is gay parenthood, neither is minority parenthood. In fact, no kind of parenthood is family-friendly unless it’s white, heterosexual, [...]
“Taking Responsibility” at Faux Real
December 19, 2007 at 9:42 pm
That’s one of the biggest loads of crap I’ve ever heard of…male role model (i.e. father or father figure) does not automatically = better life/less problems than no male role model.
I’ve seen first hand the “horror” of someone not having a father in their life…yeah, they’re doing “quite horribly” *rolls eyes*.
isolator86
December 20, 2007 at 1:45 am
The assertion that the root of Black men’s problems are attitudinal rather than institutional is nothing new, and it’s repeated in a myriad forms, whether it’s conservatives asserting that the plight of poor Black men is due to them being generally shiftless and irresponsible, or it’s progressives asserting that the plight of poor Black men is due to them being generally hypermasculine and misogynist.
However, you’re not helping matters by snarkily minimizing the role that Black men’s gender identity plays in their healthy psychological development simply because you perceive that emphasizing the importance of that identity minimizes the contributions of mothers to their sons’ healthy development. The fact that the presence of positive male role models in the family is indispensable to the healthy emotional development of both girls and boys, but especially boys, is indisputable. Now whether or not the absence of a male figure in the household is the primary cause of the economic and social distress that is decimating poor Black males is debatable, but the necessity of having strong Black men in Black boys’ lives is not. Why you think emphasizing that fact is an affront to Black mothers, I don’t know.
I also don’t know why you think (or at least so it seems to me) that singling out Black boys for special attention is some form of gender discrimination. If Black women were being incarcerated and killed, not just discriminated against, but killed, at the rate that Black men are, I should think you would want that to be seen as an emergency, not just because its women being killed, but because seeing what can only be termed genocide carried out in your own nation, among your own people, demands nothing less.
Malik
January 24, 2008 at 2:13 pm
I’m minimizing the assertion that any black man’s presence is better than no black man at all. That’s not a healthy promotion of fatherhood or parenthood in general.
The author of this article said nothing about “strong Black men” being in the home; he just minimized the strength of a single parent household while trashing many of the initiatives offering strong Black male influences that may not be the child’s black male biological parent.
Sylvia
January 24, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Malik
January 24, 2008 at 7:09 pm
What kind of strong influence? It’s vague. There’s no denying that it’s vague. His hard and fast adherence to the two parent household model of mother and father is rather dismissive of the realities of parenthood and raising healthy children. Having strong Black male role models isn’t dependent on having the Black father figure. Meaning that blaming the problems Black males face on the fact that the Black father is absent is wrongheaded.
Zeroing in on a very small subset of incarcerated Black men who went to jail (see his statistic) should not be a counterargument to a strong single parent household. Referring to mothers raising children as either too young or crack-addled is more belittling than my argument that parenting and responsibility should receive a more serious consideration.
I do belittle his intent when he tries to say that one Black male can replace the resources and family networks and parents who ARE there taking care of a child. I do. I think his sensationalizing about the Black nuclear family is ignorant and, yes, disrespectful to many Black women and non-traditional Black families who have raised responsible and capable sons. It would serve Black commentators a lot better to recognize and to encourage non-traditional family models. If anyone’s doing dismissal of working models, it’s the author of this article.
And I will belittle his intent when he belittles what people have been doing in the absence of a Black father. Two is only greater than one in mathematical terms; in life situations, the results vary. Why place the fate of Black children on a half-assed mathematical equation and on one model for childrearing and support?
Sylvia
January 24, 2008 at 7:33 pm
I’m the father of four children, two daughters and two sons. Please explain to me how emphasizing the benefits of a two parent household is “dismissive of the realities of parenthood and raising healthy children.”
Hanh? You can’t be serious.
Not really, not when you consider the reasons why many Black fathers are absent, i.e. they’re jobless, locked up, dead, or just indifferent.
Okay, yeah, that was dumb, that’s a legitimate beef.
1 in 10 is very small?!! I suggest you look up the etymology of the word “decimation”. And that’s just the percentage of Black men in that single cohort for that single year. In the aggregate, one out of every three Black men in their 20’s are incarcerated or on probation on parole. That explains in large part why in places like East Orange, New Jersey, by the time you start counting Black folks who reach their 60’s, there are 47% more Black women than Black men. Exactly how many Black men have to get locked up before you think it matters? Even if you think his argument is wrongheaded, blithely dismissing the carnage being caused by the criminal justice system as inconsequential is beyond the pale.
Where and how does he do that?
So ignoring the absence of Black fathers is your alternative?
We could go back and forth about whether or not a particular criticism of this writer is justified all day, but for me, the bottom line is this: between 1998 and 2003, I lost five members of my family in as many years, all men, three of them to murder, one to a drunk driver, and one to heart disease, all of them under age 60. None of this is an abstract or theoretical for me. I live this shit every day. I know what a struggle it is to be a good father. I know what it’s like to wonder how you’ll parent your kids from the inside if you get locked up on some bogus charges. I personally know what the absence of a father means to a son, not just in his childhood, but throughout his life. A father, contrary to what you imply, is not dispensable or replaceable. I find the thrust of your argument to be absurd, and your lack of moral seriousness with regard to the issue of absentee fathers to be appalling. I’m glad you feel free to make light of the issue, and that your readers feel free to have a good laugh about it, because from where I sit, ain’t shit funny.
Malik
January 24, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Easily: Your reality as a parent is the same as everyone else’s, Malik. Some people grow up in households that don’t have two parents, some people grow up in fatherless households, some people grow up with multiple people raising them — and they do fine. I don’t understand why different models of successful parenting can’t be valued equally and why the two parent, mother/father household somehow rises above all these others qualitatively.
Dead serious. There are other ways for Black males to be influences in young Black men’s lives that do not involve being their biological parent, such as mentoring and community involvement. If you deny that, then I can’t take you seriously and continue this conversation.
Acknowledging that truth, how does bringing in the Black father address those factors? If you look at my entry, you see that I link to articles discussing unemployment and an example of the arbitrary incarceration affecting Black men. Part of me is confused because I’m not reading where I’m saying Black fatherhood in and of itself is a problem, unless saying family structures without Black fathers aren’t necessarily torn and tattered leads to that.
Read the entire statement I wrote instead of focusing on that phrase. It’s not a counterargument to someone being raised in a strong single parent household. In the criminal justice context, yes, it’s galling. But to say all those types of parenting arrangements that are not nuclear, mother/father arrangements are somehow deficient because of that statistic is not a counterargument; it’s a straw man distraction.
Read his article.
Bashing models that are working in order to uplift Black fatherhood appalls me. And that doesn’t mean I don’t value Black fatherhood; it means I refuse to value it at the expense of Black people who are not biological fathers raising Black children and doing well with it. And this is speaking as a person who had a Black father figure raising her throughout most of her life, also saw black men in her family die for health reasons or through violence, and also went through periods where I could not default to having both parents at home through very tough times in my nuclear family life. Where that arrangement even caused its own problems.
If acknowledging those influences and impacts reads to you as considering Black fathers dispensable or replaceable, then I can’t keep talking to you because you’re obviously looking to get some special aggrandizement for Black fatherhood I can’t offer to you.
Sylvia
January 24, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Of course. It’s human nature to adapt and overcome. But that doesn’t mean that those arrangements are optimal or even desirable, and it certainly doesn’t mean that we should reconcile ourselves to the absence of Black fathers.
Uh huh. And where exactly are these mentors and volunteers supposed to come from. Eggs?
No, not necessarily torn and tattered, just tragically diminished.
No, I think a statement minimizing the significance of the plight of Black males in order to make a point about the putative equivalence of non-traditional families to traditional families deserves all the emphasis that I gave it.
Not “aggrandizement”, just common respect. Peace.
Malik
January 24, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Well . . . I played by the rules and married before getting pregnant. My husband walked out when the children were 5 and 1, and we never saw him again. I did not remarry – in fact, my belief that my kids shouldn’t see their mother with a bunch of men kept me from dating. He did not pay child support for ten years, and we managed in ways that were not good, but we survived. In fact, we did better than survive. Without any special programs (which I find condescending) my eldest is a tech administrator at a college and my youngest teaches English in Asia. So obviously, I don’t buy into the inability of black women to make a home. Although it is true that my husband did a bad thing, many people do, and marriages fail at a rate of 50% regardless of race. The best mother I have ever known is a woman my mother’s age who made a mistake at 17 and put heart and soul into being the best mother possible. She is the person I needed to be like when my husband left, not women who had spent a lifetime leaning on propriety. Although I believe one should marry to have children (they deserve the fifty percent chance, if that’s what’s available), my situation is proof that it is not magical. You cannot serve pride for dinner. The unwed mother mentor’s situation is proof that failure is not a foregone conclusion. You could say that her success gave me the boost I needed when well-heeled mentors could only pontificate.
Playfair
February 6, 2008 at 9:41 am
Thank you, Playfair, for sharing your reality and perspective here.
I think it does people a disservice to invest our success in models they want to see and to discredit the actions of everyday people in everyday situations that make their families work and do not fit that dried-out success model. That’s my main criticism here; it’s shortsighted. To me, your experiences add fuel to that idea. I’m glad you and yours survived.
Sylvia
February 6, 2008 at 11:55 am
And, of course, just because a person is a part of a ‘traditional’ two-parent household doesn’t mean that they aren’t also a part of a number of other crucial ‘alternate’ support structures.
I have a mother and a father (and three living grandparents and a step-grandparent, but no close aunts and uncles, as my parents are only children), and they’re as wonderful as can be… but I’ve got three other women I call “Mommy [so-and-so],” and one who’d merit the title but prefers I call her by her name, and at least one more man I listen to like a father. I have godparents. (Who, granted, I don’t spend all that much time with any more, but who were certainly significant material contributors to my growing up.) I have friends of the family and church members and people my parents know and older coworkers and school employees (the lady I’d be glad to call my mom was my high school counselor. She flew up to see me graduate from college, she comes over for dinner, and she taught me floristry).
And you know what? All of those people contributed to my raising. Most of them count as “family,” arguments, discipline and all. If, heaven forfend, one or both of my parents weren’t around, that would still be the case. A family doesn’t just end at the borders of blood, and shouldn’t be thought to do so. Structural flexibility in all its wonder is a feature, not a bug.
Magniloquence
February 6, 2008 at 2:05 pm