The Celebrity Nobody Knows — The Black Father - Brief Article

Ebony, June, 1999 by Kevin Chappell

I DUCKED down one aisle and checked my zipper. It was up. I ducked down another aisle and brushed my hand across my nose. Nothing happening there either. After a complete self-inspection, I concluded that there was nothing wrong with me. So I continued grocery shopping with my 2-year-old daughter.

But why did I feel like so many people were staring at me? There was the White lady who looked at me so hard she almost ran her shopping cart into the potato chip display. Then there was the Black lady who stopped in mid-stride in the frozen-food section to stare at me, and the White guy at the checkout who had an unnerving look on his face as he scanned my wheat bread, double-chocolate fudge ice cream and red lollipop (the one I had promised my daughter I would buy her if she behaved).

I mean I'm a good-looking Brothel, but why all of the attention? It wasn't until later that night, as I watched the evening news, that the answer came to me. I was in the midst of keeping my mental scorecard, you know, the "let's see how many dangerous, devious and otherwise demented Brothers they can squeeze into this 30-minute newscast" scorecard, when it hit me--there wasn't a Black man doing anything positive on the entire news program.

Maybe that was it. Maybe the reason I felt like a spectacle in the grocery store with my daughter was the same reason I feel like a spectacle when I take her to the park or the library or the doctor for a checkup--or anywhere.

It's the same reason most Black fathers are stared at as if they are aberrations whenever they do anything with their children--not because we are doing something extraordinary, but because we are doing something ordinary.

Even though there are plenty of Brothers out there doing the light thing, it has become all-too-common to peddle the notion that the only thing a Brother is capable of doing is the wrong thing.

You see, to the people in the grocery store, I was a sight to behold. Would you look at that--a Black man with his daughter, a Black man exhibiting paternal instincts, being a responsible father.

Didn't I have some party to find? Didn't I have some trouble to go get into? Didn't I have some high to cop, some scam to run, some hustle to get on, some freak to satisfy? What did I know about spending time with my child, taking joy in seeing her grow up?

So they watched me, wondering what was I up to. "Something can't be right," they surely thought to themselves. All eyes were fixed on me, waiting for one slip up, one misstep so they could scream out in unison, "See, ain't none of them no good."

To many people, a Black man getting his high from seeing his child learn new things every day; a Black man getting his hustle on by going to work every day; a Black man completely satisfied with simply being a good family man goes against everything society has taught them.

Although Black mothers deserve all of the praise in the world, possibly the toughest job in the world is that of a Black father. Being a Black father, a responsible Black father, you submit yourself to the role of something out of the ordinary, something that's just not supposed to be.

It's sad to say, but in many ways, it's easier for a Black man to do wrong than to do right. To a great extent, we are expected--even by others within our own race--to do wrong. When we live down to those expectations, we blend in and there's no pressure. We make the evening news, and people say, "See, ain't none of them no good."

But when we do the right thing, and continue the tradition set by our fathers and their fathers, we assume a role that only a Black father has to assume--we become marvels.

I don't want to be praised and patted on the back when I do something as fundamentally right as caring for a child I helped bring into the world. I don't want Sisters to come up to me and say how nice it is to see a Black man with his daughter, as if I'm some type of overachiever. I don't want to be at the receiving end of the strange looks and stares.

Stare at me if I don't take care of my child. Stare at me if I don't live up to my responsibility as a father. Stare at me because I'm a good-looking Brother.

Otherwise, I want to be ignored, left alone, left to be who I am--nobody extraordinary, just a Black father.

I've stopped keeping my nightly scorecard as I watch the evening news. I've stopped holding out hope that society will one day quit pushing the negative Brothers onto our television screens and into our memory banks. Instead, this Father's Day I've decided to use my energy to do a little peddling of my own, promoting the idea that a father is expected to be a good father no matter what color he is.