All Black Dads are dead beat

Yesterday while having lunch with a colleague I decided to bring up the “Parenting” conversation. With a selfish agenda, I quietly listen to her rant and rave about, why women have to stay at home with babies, remain with stretch marks while dad’s only get the bragging rights etc. The discussion was not going in the angle I needed it to! She somehow was not giving me the material for my next blog, then she said it, “most times you see d black man leaving their women to raise the children alone”. For a minute I sat speechless, not because of what she said, but because I was assessing the trend.  I pondered on the statement before I visited the net. I came across a blog on Flickr entitle “Family secrets leads photographer on unexpected journey”.

In the blog, Zun Lee, has always been attracted to capturing images of parents and children– specifically fathers and sons. Exploring this relationship is deeply personal to him, especially after learning in 2004, that he was the offspring of a black man. What peak my interest in this blog was a statement made by  Zun Lee. He said, “There was a lot of anger, resentment and confusion on my part, but it was easy for me to hang on to that hurt and not deal with it. Because for me, as long as I could project my feelings of resentment onto a negative stereotype, I could conveniently push it aside and say, ‘I guess I’m just part of the absent black father narrative myself, so what else is new?’"  His statement almost sounded like something I would have said, had I been Korean with a black history.

But why? Why is it when we talk about black fathers, the imagery associated is that they’re irresponsible, they’re absent, they’re deadbeats and not willing to pick up their share of personal responsibility. The examples to counter the negative stereotypes are Dr. Cliff Huxtable (Cosby) or even Barack Obama. It’s one or the other. This blog is meant as an acknowledgement to the everyday dad who may not be perfect, but is still a part of his child’s life. Though not a dad yet, I think the most important thing about fatherhood for the children is the knowledge that they matter.

The stereotype of black fathers are one that should stop, not all black guys want to, plant the seed and not grow the plant. While writing this blog I profiled a few “black dads” I know,  Leif Mathura, Ricky Agulia, Kegan Mc Guire, Kerry Peters and Kerwyn Kingston to name a few. These guys take their responsibilities seriously and go about their business very quietly. So though there are dead beat black dads, there are also upbeat ones, and society needs to stop comparing black dads to Cliff or Obama. One is a character with a script the other is merely a public figure that must always look good in his country’s eyes. This goes out to all my black brothers that do a good job being a dad, standing out and not sitting down, you all basically shattered the serotype in my eyes.