Black Men and Boys Week Continues: Can a woman raise a man?

Today is day one of Black Men and Boys week, and the question we will be exploring today is whether or not women can effectively raise men.

I wrote a piece a while back entitled “Spoiling Our Daughters and Raising Our Sons” in which I discussed my propensity to come down hard on my sons while acquiescing to my daughters’ every whim in an effort to raise strong, productive men and without realizing the effect this might be having on my daughters.

I knew when I composed the piece that my experience might be unique to me. In working with young people from the inner-city, most often the case is reversed. I find myself working with young men in need of guidance who are being raised by single mothers. And most often these mothers are simply spoiling these young men rotten much to their detriment.

So, I did anticipate the possibility that a number of readers would speak out of an experience very dissimilar to my own; however, I did not anticipate the sheer number of readers who would do so. As I watched a conversation around the post develop on twitter, some suggested that my experience was not representative of the African American experience at all. Someone even suggested that I had created an alternate reality with me at the center.

But the reality is that the majority of households in the African American community are headed by African American women. In fact, the last reliable statistic I could find approximated that about fifty-four percent of African American households are headed solely by African American women. And implicit in that statement is that within those households there are surely to be young African American men, and there is perhaps no way to determine how many of these young men being raised in woman headed households have little or no contact with their fathers.

I mentioned this fact to a friend, someone who has been my professional mentor for many years, who then launched into a diatribe citing this fact as the major factor in the number of young African American men caught up in the legal system and/or who are poorly equipped to contribute to the community or the culture in a positive way.

Of course I disagreed with him. And in doing so I cited the scores of African American men I knew or had encountered who had been raised solely by women but had managed to become successful, who had managed to break the cycle of poverty. Additionally, I reminded him that in many of these homes, though there was no father present, no man present, surely there were “other fathers.” There were grandfathers and uncles, teachers and coaches, even mentors like myself who could serve as role models for these young men.

I still remember his retort:

“But the home is where the rubber meets the road. What happens within the home is what counts. Max, you could teach these children to walk on water, you could teach them the knowledge of alchemy required to turn water into wine, but keep in mind that you are with them only a few hours a day a couple of days a week. If what you teach them, model for them, try to instill in them is not reinforced in the home, then it goes for naught.”

Then he finished his speech, “You are too naïve, Max. You are too idealistic, Max. Only a woman can raise a woman; only a man can raise a man.”

I respect his point of view, and I value his life experience and wisdom, but I cannot wholly agree with him. Certainly, while I agree that a number of young African American have been spoiled and cuddled to their detriment, I believe this is the exception and not the rule. Furthermore, I believe that perhaps socio-economic factors have a greater impact that anything single mothers may or may not be doing.

When a mother must devote a significant portion of her time to keeping food on the table and a roof over her family’s head, when a mother must devote a significant portion of her time meeting the basic necessities of life, then that is time taken away from time that could be spent going over homework or teaching life lessons or providing the attention and oversight requisite to the rearing of children.

And to my friend and mentor, thank you for everything you have done for me. You have been an invaluable force in my life. You have been wonderful as a mentor, an “other father.” But with me your job was easy. I was already raised when our paths crossed; you just needed to answer the questions to which I had no answer or could not be found in books. Perhaps if you will come with me only a few hours a day, a couple of days a week, then we could really affect change.

Help me with this one. Can a woman effectively raise a man?

And come back later today for other exhibits and artifacts I have in store.

I AM A MAN: An Attempt to [Re]Define African American Manhood

photo credit: Christopher Sims, I Am a Man, 2008

African American Men and Boys Week begins today; allow this post to be my introduction to all that follows.

Allow me to please apologize before hand because this post will certainly run long; any time an issue inspires me, infuriates me, puzzles me, I tend to be unable to control myself, and I go on much longer than I should.

But a few weeks ago I resumed my work with young African American men and women in the community, and though I see a number of reasons to be encouraged, abject foolishness is still for the most part the order of the day. And from what I read and what I see in the various media, my personal observation reflects the situation of our young men and women throughout the country.

And I do not mean to slight African American girls and women by concentrating on the issues faced by boys and men; many of the issues are one in the same. But I feel that I am better able to discuss issues of manhood and masculinity because this is my academic area of concentration, and even further, the condition of most social groups are measured by the status of the men representing those social groups.

I will not revisit and rehearse the baleful statistics here; we have all heard and read them over and over again. African American males lead in almost every conceivable negative indicator. But my first question is “Does this constitute an actual crisis?”.

I think it was Henry Louis Gates who wrote that crisis is sometimes desirable because crisis signals a turning point. Crisis signals a crossroads of sorts at which a decision must be made, an action must be taken.

But allow me to take the time to outline my position.

Though I know many people cringe when they hear someone bring up Africa to explain current African American problems and issues, but that is where we must go. With any potential pathology, you must go back to the original trauma to begin to find an effective, suitable remedy.

The institution of slavery is the single most traumatic event in our history. I think because of our distance in time and space from that event, we often underestimate its effects.

But within pre-slavery Africa, regardless of the societal structure, regardless if that structure was patriarchal or matriarchal, the African man had a place; he had a specific, clearly defined role in that community. And, perhaps most importantly, that manhood role was passed down inter-generationally by fathers, by male elders. In other words, there were always role models there to explain and define that role and model manhood and guide the African male child from childhood to manhood.

However, within the pernicious cauldron of that peculiar institution that memory was all but forgotten, all but lost. The African slaves, men and women, found themselves without a clearly defined role other than as menial servants, and in post slavery America they attempted to claim a role for themselves within American society, and in claiming that role, they drew upon the models most available to them—white men and white women. Keep in mind Frantz Fanon’s postulate, “For the black man there is only white destiny. And it is white.”

The European manhood model has almost always been expressed in terms of a rugged individualism, pulling oneself up by the bootstrap, in stark contrast to the interdependence of manhood models of most African cultures. Part and parcel of the European model, among others I will explore later this week, is the notion of economic independence; in other words, manhood is measured by the amount of wealth one might amass, the level of comfort he might be able to afford his family.

However, due to a documented history of racism and discrimination, African American men, for the most part, have never been able to realize this ideal. And neither have most white men for that matter. And it logically follows that in our inability to realize this ideal, African American men have been repeated and continually maligned as not being men, as somehow falling down in our duties to our communities and our society.

To sum up my argument, many of the problems facing African American men, many of the pathologies exhibited by African American men, arise as a result of an inability to realize the manhood model and ideal as posited by American society and have turned toward alternate avenues, most of which can be judged as inappropriate.

If that argument is true, then the most readily available remedy would be to redefine manhood in our own terms. Maybe I don’t make a lot of money and cannot afford my wife and family the luxuries that advertisers insist that we must have to be happy, but we are comfortable and my children are not hungry, therefore I AM A MAN. Certainly, I am soft spoken, and sometimes I would just prefer to just listen and not be heard, but nevertheless I AM A MAN. I don’t need to exhibit a proclivity toward violence, toward bellicosity, but I AM A MAN. I feel emotion and I am willing to express those emotions and not keep them bottled up within, but this makes me no less a man; I AM A MAN.

Whatever you say about me, whatever charges you level against me, I am self-assured of my being, of my place in the world. I AM A MAN.

Do you agree with my argument? Are African American males really in a state of crisis? What possible solutions can you offer to the problems and issues facing African American men and boys?

And do come back during the upcoming week. Tomorrow the question will be, "Can women effectively raise men?".