For Brothers Only - Brief Article

Ebony, March, 2000 by Kevin Chappell

HE SPOKE only three words, but the phrase was so powerful that it rocked me to my core. Standing in line at the bank the other day, I overheard two Brothers talking. What got my attention was not what they said, but how they ended their conversation.

Before they departed, one Brother said to the other, "God bless you."

I began to wonder why I was so taken aback by this simple statement. I mean, being a Black man, I know Brothers have always been spiritual in nature. From Marcus to Martin and Malcolm to Jesse and Sharpton, Black men have always believed in a higher being. We were raised in households soaked in spirituality, with mothers and grandmothers and sisters and aunts who were faithful churchgoers and devoted Bible students.

Even so, over the years, Brothers, perhaps hardened by the injustices of life, have sometimes, knowingly or not, suppressed these beliefs. And in the process, we camouflaged our spirituality so much that we gave others a license to stereotype us as a group incapable of thinking beyond the here and now, incapable of possessing the foresight, fortitude, discipline and mental capacity to be religious, to believe in something or someone we can't see.

But today, the tide seems to be turning as more and more Brothers now seek inner peace through religious channels.

Watched a sporting event lately? If you have, you undoubtedly have seen numerous Black athletes make spectacular plays and immediately kneel to pray, or point to the sky to thank God. And you probably have seen the interviews after the game, when the Brother ballplayer first gives credit to God for his good fortunes.

Then there's the increasing number of young Bible-toting Brothers gracing the pews of churches across the country. You've seen them leading devotion, singing in choirs, ushering, teaching Sunday school, and even getting "happy" at times.

And how about the Black men gathering by the tens of thousands in the nation's capital and in huge arenas across the country, not to see their favorite basketball team, but to worship and to call for a spiritual renewal.

For all of these Brothers, having a belief in a higher authority is not simply a fad, a passing fancy, something to partake only when the cameras are rolling and the world is watching. This transformation is much deeper than that.

For me, the simple gesture by the Brother at the bank opened my eye, s, and signified the Black man's spiritual awakening, a pivotal point in our history in which we collectively, and in our own way, have decided that we will not let others paint us with a broad stroke, label us as being too thickheaded, too angry, too uninhibited to live by religious law.

I remember my teenage years growing up in South Carolina. My mother would always say to my sister and me that "God woke us up on Sunday morning and we would go to His house [church] to thank Him." So, on Sunday morning, God would wake all of us and we would all go to church. It was there, at Tabernacle Baptist Church, that I first noticed how few other males were in attendance. There would be my father, a few deacons and trustees (all over 50 years old) and maybe a handful of other males between 20 and 40 years of age. Compare that to the more than 100 females in attendance.

One day the pastor said to the ladies in the church, "Don't give up on your men because they won't come to church with you. Men are just like a piece of tough meat before it's cooked. God has a way of putting them in a pressure cooker for a while, and eventually it tenderizes them and one day they will be sitting right here beside you in church."

Maybe the pressure cooker has finally erupted, spewing out softer Brothers who are no longer satisfied sitting icily lie while Sisters seek and find inner peace in their lives. Maybe we've finally realized what Sisters have known all along--when you're Black in a White world, ninny times the only real peace you'll ever get is the kind you get from your belief in a higher power; and its ability to provide the sell-determination and freedom that often are missing in our everyday lives.

Maybe men have come to a point in our existence where we understand that believing in the power of prayer doesn't mean not believing in yourself. For more and more Brothers, discovering (or rediscovering) religion has meant simply realizing that we are not all powerful, and that no matter how hard we try, we too sometimes need help in accomplishing our goals.

I don't know. But it really doesn't matter what's leading us to church, what's leading us to pray after scoring a touchdown, what led one Brother to tell another, "God bless you" in the bank lobby the other day. What does matter is that this spiritual awakening will undoubtedly make us better men, and our families and communities stronger.

Indeed, it seems as though the day has come when Brothers understand that we're not too tough for religion, and that real men do fear God.