It’s been awhile. My notes are like my personal diary entries… it’s just that you can read it too. I wrote this one because it was on my mind. Indulge if you wish…
This holiday season, I’m taking out my #1 Dad mug. I’m toasting all the a-holes like the Kanye song. They make super-duper regular guys like me sizzle like the Chili’s fajita plates on family night. See, I know I’m hot. My stock is on Google status. I know. I’m a “good” black man. I am a hot commodity. I am the man.
I toast the fools that f up (and I don’t mean f as in forget) the black family structure, because the overflow of overcompensating female compliments elevate the ego. So thank you, you dumb dudes. You really make me look like a Renaissance Man. Excuse me as I overvalue myself!
Now that I have a certified “good” guy certificate, I can piss on brothers that purposely fail as fathers; inexplicably disappearing at the worst possible times, coming up small when it matters the most. I roast the players that pimp out vulnerable women and the rebuke the moral miscues of men who should know better. But then I have those honest moments. Why do I care? Why am I doing this? Is this really about padding my own stats?
Or… am I secretly… jealous?
Black women can’t say it any more. With all the female anthems and articles, commentary and conversations, television shows and public outcries, you would think that brothers would get the notion that maybe black women aren’t so happy with the way black men are treating them. But I do know their efforts do nothing to stop the momentum of the misplaced machismo movement. It’s only about screwing more hoes, seeing less clothes, more hittin’ and quittin’, more players playin’ women like Madden ‘11.
And I’m watching these brothers play the game. And I have to think… are players, deadbeat dads and deceiving men really the scum of the earth?
Or are these guys simply ahead of their time?
I mean, what does it feel like to be totally insensitive to what women feel and what they want? What does it feel like to wake up and not have to worry about taking care of a family? What does it feel like to not have to come in early or call back… or call at all? Is this liberating? Is this fun? Are they truly happy? Is this what all males deep down inside really want? Have I been suppressing my true feelings of raw manhood my whole life?
These can be the thoughts of any guy in a committed relationship or seeking a committed relationship after some time. Maybe the thought creeps into your mind for an iota while preparing your child’s bathwater on a Friday night. In the midst of a crying baby and a whining wife, maybe you want to push your face right into that water you’re drawing up. Maybe you just don’t wanna come home on time, or maybe you’re just not in the mood to communicate. Maybe you just want to get that girl’s number instead of letting another awkward moment go by. I mean, who’s living the life, anyway?
But the true rewards of family always dilute those foul feelings. There is no better feeling than watching your daughter run up to you with their arms up for you to pick them up. There is no greater pride, than watching your son open gifts on Christmas morning, than watching your children run around in the home you purchased, jumping on the furniture you put together, eating the food you prepared. There is no alternative to providing others with wonderful memories. I wonder why we all don’t see this.
What I do see is the past episode of Basketball Wives, Season 2. You look at guys like Kenny Anderson, an African-American alpha male, a multi-millionaire ex-NBA player. You watch him actually attempt to give reasons for hardly ever seeing his two black teenage daughters. You see their black mother, ever ghetto as her weave is, ever passionate and misplaced, ever authentic… as a woman. And yet, as the episode goes on, you watch the same black mother who was forced to be on food stamps beg for child support from Anderson’s new wife, an obnoxiously content white woman. His new wife reports that not only is Kenny Anderson a dedicated father to their children, but even a stay-at-home dad. In the words of the SNL skit…. “REALLY???!!!”
The next day my Jeep was down; my family took the bus into downtown Philly from our Jersey home. This embarrassed me, because the bourgeoisie side hates public transportation. As soon as we settle in the front seat, we are instantly tagged by the words of this talkative bus driver. He’s an older white guy who drives through my subtle conversation stop signs to tell us his life story. Bus driver for fourteen years, loves his job and really, really loves being married to his wife. He talks about how he prays with his wife, how he calls her beautiful, how he wants to understand how she feels, how lucky he is to have her in his life.
And I’m just astounded.
I’m astounded by this man, totally content with his career and happy with his life. How he goes out of his way to compliment his wife who isn’t there to hear his words, how comfortable he appears to be as he’s driving down the Jersey highways.
I wonder if I could ever feel that way.
I’m so ambitious with my career goals, if I’m driving a bus in 33 years I’m driving it off a cliff and probably killing myself. Furthermore, I wondered if, a black man could tell a black woman, “In 33 years we will be married, but I will just be a bus driver’” What would she say? Would she laugh? Would she sob of sadness? Would she run like Saw IV? Would she be okay with that? Maybe my own mind is too conditioned to come up with a plausible answer.
Just so you know I didn’t care to make this a racial issue. I’m sure plenty of black men are married and love their wives. But too often, I’m bombarded at the barbershop with f-bombs and clouds of discontentment coming from bitter black men. They are furious and frustrated over having to buy gifts, having to make visits and having to put up with significant others.
I wonder why we are so discontented with each other. I wonder why there are still some black men in 2010, open and willing to continue to call their counterparts out of their name, to bad mouth them the way Greg skewered Nene on RHOA. Is it because we are infinitely poisoned with MTV Jams material or mixtapes that are proud to be a problem? Is it because there is a never ending pool of sexy sisters begging you to dive in that clouds the good woman you already have at home?
If you only knew the bittersweet lenses of looking into the mirage of the black male paradise, you’d know. Our lives are magnetized by the neon lights that advertise ass, false power and other immense structures of ignorance. How often, do we always wind up with a mouth full of sand?
I want to find the contentment that bus driver had. Unlike the tatted up, liquor drinking, weed smoking, condom carrying culture to the left, I’m convinced there is something that fulfills you somewhere else. Where does one black woman totally fulfill one black man in his life, leaving him content and committed? Where that is, I’m trying to drive myself and tell my story. I hope more of us take the same road. We’re going to have to ask God to navigate.
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