The story begins like this....
a drumbeat of remembrance
Love greets you, precious life. An ill wind seeks to erase, eradicate, bury, expel, and vanquish those peoples and their cultures and histories who are not accepted or valued by the caste system of racial and cultural supremacy. Today I am moved to share with you this epic poem, Father to Son, from my book, Father to Son: Ode to Our Black Young. May you open your soul all the way back to when you were an unconditioned, unpolluted newborn, so that you may find yourself and your Loved ones in these words, and thus behold the miracle that all history is in truth your history, your present, and your future. Therefore shall we sing it. Halleljuah to our conjoining.
FATHER TO SON
For man who by an ill-borne hand
was ground to dust
shall rise as man again…
The story begins like this:
the father is dying.
his 17-year-old son sits bedside,
near to the fragile form at low tide.
son is reckoning with the greatest terror of his young life.
they are not alone.
the air is thick and crowded
with the presence of spirits.
harriet is there,
tending to the blisters
on her feet
from all those journeys
on up the road.
sojourner is there,
she carries blisters, too.
hers decorate her skin
and come from the sting of social censorship as she spoke her truth.
medgar, martin,
malcolm, madiba
—all those who served:
farmer, lewis, parks, abernathy,
nat turner, frederick, booker t,
george washington…
the carver,
biko, bantu steven biko, marcus,
even fannie lou, satchmo too.
all of them are there
splittin’ time between private
side conversations
and attending to the matter
at hand:
the dying.
•
evening light sneaking
through the window
is tired but relentless,
like it’s ready for bed
but still fixin’
to make a point.
dust dances in that light,
moves its party on over
to the two hands,
the one on the bottom,
frail and covered with
parchment-like
brown skin.
the other, on top,
surging and of skin
supple with nervous sweat.
father and son.
fleeting life,
and young life uncertain.
stillness, recognition, fear.
and then, the father speaks.
these are the words
that will last
for all of time.
he says:
son, for 17 years I’ve been
trying to find the right words,
the right words to...
what I’m trying to say is—
God, give me strength...
and in that moment, God does.
and the words…
the words are:
Son, I don’t know
if you can understand
at such a tender age
what it is that is
truly killing me,
but I have to believe
that one day
light will come from yonder
and grace you with vision.
you have a sister and a mother,
and they desperately need
a brother and a son.
and so you have to understand
that there is a reason
that you and I, Black men,
are the most feared
human beings
on this planet.
the human race
is in a long season
of ignorance.
the ancient lessons
have become a dim vibration
unnoticed by a people tuned
into the wrong frequency.
life has handed down
a circumstance to you
so that you may respond to it
in a way that fulfills
a Divine plan.
never has so much pain
been accumulated
in the heart of a people.
you are an
African American man,
flake of stone hewn
from the mountain
of masterpiece.
•
you have to follow me now, son,
follow me on this.
all the times I told you
that you were lazy,
I meant that I had never seen
so much talent
and it scared me
at what might be lost.
all the times I told you
I Loved you,
what I meant was that I was
in awe of how beautiful
you are to me.
all the times I told you
to grow a thicker skin,
what I meant was
that my heart was breaking
at how this world could treat
something so magnificent
as you like a bacteria
that it simply tolerated
but would be happy
to be rid of.
when I told you to treat
your sister right,
I meant that she needed
your strength to lean on.
when I told you that you don’t know
how much your mother needs you,
I meant that Life gave her
a son so that she could look
through you
and see her own beauty as a woman
in ways that other men
could not offer her,
not even myself.
they don’t fear you because
you are Black,
they fear you because you represent
men who have always managed to carry
the whole universe on our backs
and still stand up straight.
they fear that kind of strength.
they don’t fear you because
you’re a stereotype of violence,
they fear you because
in the way you interact
with other men,
you exhibit a tender,
Loving way that makes their mouths
grow dry in thirst for
the same.
you didn’t survive
the slave ship
auction block
plantation pain
family separation
name changes
lynchings
humiliation
whippings
treatment as less than a mule
—God give me strength
you didn’t survive
the false accusations of rape
when you were just trying to get home without having anybody act out their fantasies of destruction out on you…
the burning glances,
the invisibility (ralph ellison),
the physical shackles (alex haley),
the psychological chains (na’im akbar)…
you didn’t survive all of that
to become a generation that
fades away at 17
and becomes a grieving over
what might have been.
•
I didn’t raise you like
I needed to,
but no matter how I raised you,
you have the ability to raise yourself
up from whatever circumstance,
because the universe made you deep.
the scent on your skin
is a soulful scent,
like burning sandalwood
curling up to the sky that
takes its breath full of you
and then can’t help but cry…
because your universe is so very deep.
you can’t help that.
you were made
to bring the rain.
they fear your ripeness
because you all are so close
to being a distinctive role model
for all men.
if you can just cross over that Jordan,
if you can just swim through the madness planted in your mind,
peel back the blindfold
of lies throughout time,
if you can just see the majesty within…
•
life handed you pain
because the plan is for you to
become something
with that fertilizer.
you are supposed to become
what centuries from now
will be looked back upon
as a spiritual ascendance
of humanity.
the revolution will not be televised,
cause they can’t get no cameras
inside Black boys far enough,
no matter how many ways
they violate them
no cameras that can capture
the sweet soul
of their splendid essence.
this is where the drama
will play itself out,
in the unseen places
where people whose faith lies in the material tremble with trepidation and cannot follow
because spirit Loves the place
where men are blind.
•
son,
you aren’t the trouble,
you’re the Light that trouble chases.
you aren’t the inferiority,
you are the superiority
that inferior faces.
you aren’t the violence,
you’re the place violence trespasses.
you aren’t the unintelligent,
they only try to miseducate,
uneducate, re-educate you
because they deeply intuit your capacity to educate the world as to how to truly be a man.
true soldier,
that’s what you need to be, son,
true soldier.
defend your community,
enlighten yourself as to your
constructive and destructive potential.
acquire the skills that will allow you
to be a glue
in the community.
true soldier.
resort to violence last,
hold yourself to high standard,
discipline, common cause.
be a shelter
for the younger ones,
be for them what you wish
you had for yourself.
you have withstood the lash
for 400 years,
still they can’t get surrender to
flow out with your silent tears.
you have passed enough tests
in this way…
you are qualified to be
a true soldier.
SAT and ACT can’t ever qualify you
like enduring
a good old-fashioned
R-A-C I-S-T.
you, through your people,
have withstood the lash
for 400 years,
the time is now,
let the scar-trees on your back
become maps to a land called
Triumph…
lead us there.
•
father caught his breath,
for he was weak.
he continued:
son,
you have to look around you
and let down your walls
so you can behold
what life has created
as harvest for this earth:
African American men,
which means to say,
men constructed in such a way
as to become the ones endowed
with the responsibility
of carrying the legacy
and integrity
of Africa over to a place
called America
and even through the acid rain
remain the same
soulful, drum beating, dancing,
creating, celebrating, woman honoring, mother Loving, sister protecting, daughter cradling, wisdom drinking, peacemaking, world shaking, Love making, libation pouring, self-educating, community lubricating, herbally medicating, physically intimidating, spiritually mediating, Creator Loving, making the whole world aching to be like you
but can’t admit to wanting
such a thing
so they have to go with fear
and disdain
and create reasons
and programs
and pens and policies
to hold you down
and hold you in
and hold you up
but hold up,
you ain’t giving up,
slowing up,
throwing up the African wisdom in you,
the stuff your mama’s mama’s mama broiled, baked, boiled, kneaded, basted, fried, ground down,
snapped, skinned, cleaned, soaked, seasoned, marinated, created with recipes from memory and intuition
that called for two teaspoons
of tears and two cups
of passion and pain
and a handful of forgiveness
and just a pinch of desire
and season to taste with:
boy, I’m gon’ beat your tail…
all prepared for you to eat from so you could be full from a meal of our own doing, our own values, lessons, preachings, proddings,
and other manner of discipline.
no, you were fed
to be belly full,
so you wouldn’t have to
go begging
to another culture,
another people’s plate
for a meal composed of such ingredients that your own bowels would disagree violently and upheave that precious African self-Love
we concocted over eons,
so long before there was an America.
you were the ones,
Black boys,
chosen to bring this particular brand
of spirituality
over here to the middle of this
material madness
and yet still emerge after
hundreds of seasons
of degradation
to teach the world a lesson
about how to be men.
you,
Black boys,
Black men,
life chose you to be teachers.
you were given such gifts
in that regard
that all you have to do is
reach into your medicine bags,
pull out the tools of your trade,
and proper class will be in session.
you will teach that violence
is not the endpoint,
nor is it the whole point,
that true men live in harmony with the world instead of trying to conquer it.
you,
Black teachers,
will teach that science
is not to be the basis
of our spirituality,
but a thread
in our web of knowing
that we choose to believe in things not proven experimentally,
that we believe in the unseen things:
soul, spirit, vibe, pulse,
funk, rhythm, romance,
ancestors, descendants,
the future, the past,
the dearly departed,
the lives barely started…
the spirits waiting at the door
to be born into seed
between man and woman, waiting for
the flicker of flame to grow into Loving commitment and dedication
to building a family together
so that the African lesson
can go on being taught
so that we won’t have to worry about ever again being bought,
not with money, material, status,
false power, control…
the sweet seductions of this
candy store place
no, we’d rather believe in
the Spirit,
and Love our Lovers
with a faith in the Spirit
and raise our children
in the company of Spirit
and conduct our communities
to the rhythm of Spirit
not this unnatural cadence,
this out-of-balance drumbeat
given birth by those who never understood the drum—
our way of talking not only
with each other
but also with our universe.
our whole being was packaged
into each beat and sent out
as ripples through the air,
drifting into space,
landing on planets and
bouncing back as sound waves,
to be picked up by the scientific
“creation”
of “modern” technology known as satellites, and they…
a hollering and a fussing about how they discovered evidence of alien intelligence,
all the while denying our African intelligence,
when we were the ones who sent the signals by drum in the first place.
and they race toward space
as though there is some distant and ancient civilization out there somewhere
but we were that civilization,
not somewhere, but this where.
folks more willing to credit martians
than Africans with being intelligent…
see, son, history can be a lie
that conquerors tell.
You want freedom?
Tell your Truth.
•
and why do you think so many authorities are so afraid of you young Black men?
I believe it is because they are representatives of institutions
whose existence you threaten,
for the equation reads like this:
give a Black man a book
and a reason to read it,
and he turns one key,
cause the reason is all he needed.
give a Black man
a healthy body,
mind, and spirit,
and he turns another key
sure enough,
cause he can’t can
if he’s depleted.
give a Black man
the opportunity
to walk down his intended
road in life
without being hounded
like a dog
and he turns another key.
give a Black man
the space
in which to Love
his Black soul mate,
sister, brother,
daughter, son,
family, friend,
and not be punished for it,
embarrassed by it,
made to feel ashamed for it,
and he will have turned the next key.
give a Black man
a moment to breathe,
so that he may find the universe
inside of him,
and he will have turned
the final key
to unlock the jail house
and set all his people
finally free.
•
on the basketball court
they feared michael jordan because
he had fierce excellence within him.
same for jackie robinson,
jack johnson,
and jim brown.
but look, son,
what you have to know
is they fear you
in the school house
that way too.
they fear you excelling
at reading and writing
and science and history,
and most of all,
they fear you excelling
at knowing yourself,
growing yourself,
gaining confidence
in your innate abilities,
because you all were given so much more than the capacity to play a mean saxophone,
tap dance like a whirlwind, throw
a fierce freestyle rhyme.
you were given things
so much deeper,
such as a natural inclination
to bow down before your elders
and submit to the vastness
of the life they have lived.
you
are supposed to show the world
what it means to be there
for your son
when the world tells him
he’s a monster.
you give him the tonic
and vision
so he sees his true self:
Everlasting Majesty.
you
are supposed to show the world
what it means to be there
for your daughter…
matter of fact, son,
I want you to do this one day
when you have a daughter:
every month
on the day of her birth,
buy her a rose,
you pick the color
and don’t be buying
one of those tired out
supermarket roses either.
go to a flower shop
and buy her
a 10-dollar rose.
you give her that rose
every month
on the day of her birth,
12 days a year
for every year
while she’s growing up
and you tell her that
beauty belongs beside beauty
and that’s what the rose is for.
that way she will never
ever
be overly impressed
by any wack mack,
slick rick,
smooth groove,
fly daddy
trying to soften her up
with flowers.
she will know
that she deserves
to have beauty
by her side
and that it was
a Black man
who taught her that.
cause a 10-dollar rose
given in the right way
is worth a million
and a rose
given by another game
doesn’t truly smell
quite the same.
•
and I want you to do this:
when your mama cries,
you comfort her,
and tell her
it will be all right.
she’ll believe in you,
because she’ll believe
you have the strength
to take care of her
when she needs it.
make her feel like
she doesn’t have to
hold up the sky
all the time
that she can put it down
now and then,
cause you’ll be there,
being a man.
•
know something about responsibility.
the community isn’t here
to serve you…
you’ve been given life
so that you can serve
the community.
take the younger brothers
by the hand
look them straight in the eye.
see them.
see them.
teach them about how
you can’t be all
you need to be
unless they are all
of what they need to be.
this is called interdependence,
and though our U.S. American
declaration
is of independence,
we African Americans
are not a people
of absolute individualism.
we come from
communal ground.
tell them
you need them to succeed.
tell them
that when they hurt,
you hurt.
use compassion
to color them in,
so they don’t walk around
invisible to everyone,
most of all to themselves.
find the courage
to call them out
when they step
in the wrong way.
it might be hard,
but I know
you have
the universe
inside you.
•
and do this:
every time
you get into a relationship
with a Lover,
be a better man
than
you were in the last relationship
with a Lover.
I won’t accept you
treading water,
not when you might become
the role model
for the next brother
who steps to
my precious daughter.
make progress.
learn to listen.
tame your ego.
treat them like something special
when you’re around people
who are special to you.
understand that half their pain
is about the way this world injures you.
let them feel that pain
with you
and…
•
do this with your son,
because I’m afraid
I haven’t done the same
with you:
every time someone
teaches him
that a woman is a
lesser thing,
you hold up life
for a minute
and teach him
the right lesson.
you teach him that
a woman is life
that a woman is the passageway
for life
that a woman may
one day
be the light of his life.
•
cry with your son,
laugh with your son,
never ever fear your son.
no matter what ugliness
he passes through,
stay there with him,
don’t back off.
he needs you
to be the one
to make him hurt a little
so he won’t wind up
hurting a lot.
teach him
that a man demands
respect
by demanding of himself
that he give respect
to all who cross his path.
that if a man
challenges him
to be a man,
and fight,
that he can only
be a man
if he does not
depend on violence
to gain his sense
of manliness.
teach him
that the poison substances
that carry him
away from his pain
do not truthfully
carry him away
from his pain
but further into it.
teach him
to shout his anger
to the sky
to express
ugly feelings
in beautiful ways
teach him
that this is what
gordon parks
did with his camera,
and robert johnson
did with his strings.
•
teach him
greatness
through humility,
strength
through tenderness,
voice
through silence
and that being hard
is about surrendering
to the softness
of vulnerability.
teach him
to excuse himself
from every table
every time
to nod downward
to people
in respect
and not upward
in dominance
for we were made
to live among
the beauty of Creation
and not above it.
teach him
that the black and white
that people teach us
are always gray
and Grace-filled
when you get down
to the truth of things.
teach him to say please
when he orders his food,
instead of talkin’ ‘bout:
give me this,
and give me that.
teach him
to keep his eyes off
other people
when he’s with
his Lover
and even
when he’s not
with his Lover.
teach him
that the words
that escape
from his lips
drip with potency
that can either
create or destroy
so he should be careful
and considerate
when he chooses
those words.
•
teach him
to stay on top of
the health of his body,
so he won’t end up
underneath the ground
‘cause he was too busy
gettin’ blazed
or money crazed
or havin’ his sacred song rephrased
into a blues track
for shootin’ smack,
runnin’ game,
sniffin’ fame,
livin’ lame,
eatin’ the same
garbage from the same
self-pollutin’ train.
teach him
that the racism
directed at him
is a compliment
to his potential
because nobody
ever took the time
to hold down something
they thought
could never rise up.
teach him
that the madness
he sees around him
in his community
is not there for him
to emulate
but to eradicate.
encourage him
to tell his story
in as many ways
as possible:
in his clothing
in his walk
in his speech
in the people
he keeps in his life
and through his laughter
and his relationships.
•
teach him
to write poetry
and read books
written by Black geniuses
long before
he ever came along
acting like
he knows everything.
teach him
that before he calls himself
being a man
he better know enough
to recognize that so far
he has only been a boy.
teach him
that when you were a child
you spoke as a child
and understood as a child
and thought as a child
but that when you
became a man,
you put away
childish things.
teach him
that his people need him
to become a teacher in life,
and that to do that he needs
to become a student of life.
teach him
that the reason
it feels so good
to have sex
with a woman
is because you are
rubbing up against
the possibility
of Divine
reproduction
and that if
you are not ready
for the baby
then you’re probably
not ready
to sex the lady.
teach him
to speak words of
Love and lessons
to his children
in the midst of days
as they pass
not when the days
have run low
and the crossing over
has begun.
people always talking about
how they Love summer
soon as they see
the falling snow.
teach him
to appreciate
the blue in the sky,
the green in the grass,
and the Black in his…. past.
•
ask him
why he thinks he
deserves to be your son.
make him think
about the ways in which
he is special to you.
help him to understand
that relationships
are not to be
taken for granted
that they die from neglect,
just like the yard
he never cuts
or pulls the weeds from
or waters,
no matter how many times
you tell him.
tell him
that if he clutters
his relationships with mess
like he does his bedroom,
that a relationship won’t
wait around forever
for him to pick up
his dirty drawers.
•
And, son,
remember this
as you continue
to become a man:
Black men must be special,
because why else
would we be given
the tear-inducing glory
of a Black woman
to behold.
why else would we be given
the neck-breaking beauty
in that full ripeness of womanhood…
that nurses us,
comforts us,
stands up for us,
and demands of us
to become all of what we are.
because they see
the universe in us
before we do
I promise it’s true.
•
son, the simple truth is:
even in a society
that done gone mad
and calls itself colorblind,
you are undeniably
an African American male.
if you disrespect that fact,
you disrespect the Artist
that painted the portrait
that is you
in the first place.
it was Creation Itself
that paused,
took a breath,
looked to the canvas,
and went to the broad strokes
that made you:
bald headed,
dred locked,
fro-ed,
cornrowed,
faded,
slicked,
waved,
redboned,
high yella,
white as night,
coal black,
skillet blonde,
broad nosed,
thick lipped,
honey dipped,
brown eyed,
thick in the backside,
wide from the muscle
made of tussle
with every cotton thorn, scornful glance,
god awful circumstance, indignation,
oil slick,
tar and feather
spit down
from discrimination
and pathological dehumanization.
yeah,
Creator painted you:
chest thumpin’,
foot stompin’,
voice like barry,
extraordinary visionary.
that’s why you’re always
makin’ up rhymes,
pickin’ up sticks,
makin’ castles
out of toothpicks.
you soul food Lovin’,
hot sauce smackin’,
finger lickin’,
high steppin’,
sensitive brother
masquerading as invincible
but you just a little
greens grubbin’,
Lovin’ in the bathtubbin’,
story tellin’,
always tryin’ to get over,
comin’ crawlin’ back like rover,
never learnin’,
but still tryin’ to get it right
big Black beautiful
kite in flight,
need the wind just right
so you can take off
to your dreams,
get up on a cloud somewhere
and catch a break,
look down on Creation
and realize that
what the Man got
don’t look so hot
from up here
that maybe you don’t need to
try so hard
to fit in with the mainstream
and accommodate the mainstream
and act like the mainstream
and think like the mainstream
that maybe you already
had your own stream
all along
you just thought the water was
too deep
or too shallow
or too… black.
•
yeah, you got painted
bold and solid
by a Creator gettin’ wild
with the brush
thick thighs stretchin’ out slacks
made for bony boys
matter of fact,
spendin’ life tryin’ to fit into other people’s clothes,
other people’s schools,
other people’s expectations.
you are the circle
stuffed over and over
into the square
but we’re all about the circle
and we flow into,
and into
each other
and everything around us.
we are the sweet sunrise
in the breast of bitter morning
the flicker beyond the horizon
the wink of coming light
while still in the clutch
of bitter night.
•
son, ask yourself this
every day:
what makes you
the most feared
human being
on the planet?
you have to be
something powerful
to engender that much fear.
you’ll find your own answers
to that question,
but I’m trying to leave you
with mine.
I say
the pain of a woman’s childbirth
is beyond men,
because only woman
was meant to be a mother.
I say
the pain of Black boys
and Black men
is beyond other men,
because only we
were meant to show this earth
what it means to rise
from two thousand seasons
of degradation
and shake it off like an
afternoon slumber.
you, my son,
are a Black man,
and you need to know:
you’re made from
sturdy lumber.
FINAL LIGHT:
Something in that moment
allowed the words
from the father
to sink into the son.
tears came forth
like maple running in syrup
down bark
not used to bleeding like that.
the spirit of bundini brown
in the corner,
round after round,
exhorting young champion
muhammad ali
to rumble, young man, rumble!
slowly built up its presence
within the room.
rumble, young man, rumble!
not a call to violence,
but a demand
that ali let his Black brilliance
shine through the haze
of invisibility and disbelief
that he allow his
Creator-given gifts
to dance and float
and swing and sting
up in that spotlight ring,
and present themselves
to a wounded world,
so all could see
that a man who
releases his blossom
is a beautiful thing.
bundini’s voice
started as a whisper so faint,
the son wasn’t sure
he had heard it.
it gained volume:
rumble, young man, rumble!
son heard
ali’s proclamation
after beating liston:
I shook up the world!
son heard
waves crashing within him,
and he could smell the blatant
scent of salt within the sea.
birds flew over the water
in his mind,
but they were not seagulls,
they were black birds,
Sankofa in flight.
then the drums,
louder, louder…
bundini:
rumble, young man, rumble!
ali:
I shook up the world!
drumbeats
rumble, young man!
I must be the greatest!
drumbeats
rumble!
tears branched out
across high cheekbone
they were their own stream,
they fell from warm face
to cold sheets
young hand grasped
weak hand
strong voice took over:
dad, there’s something
I’ve never told you.
what’s that, son?
I’ve always Loved you.
and I’ve always Loved myself.
you wanna know why?
why, son?
cause I’ll never forget
what you used to tell me
when I was little
and I would come home mad
cause people were calling me
names at school…
telling me to go back to Africa
what was that, son?
you said:
son, tell ‘em, I AM Africa.
and Africa ain’t going
nowhere in me.
and you told me:
don’t let that mess
ever get you down,
because you were born
of a Black woman,
of Black ancestral grandmothers,
whose fruit,
like every woman’s,
is born Divine phenomenon.
•
lifetime of worry
released itself
as subtle smile
on father’s face.
weak hand,
father’s,
clenched young hand,
son’s.
dust finally put down its dance.
light pulled back
to the windowsill.
spirit-folk shook themselves
in awesome wonder,
then got on down the road.
final whisper
from father to son
was both proud approval
and Loving command:
rumble, young man... rumble.
*April 14, 2000
This excerpt is from the book,
Father to Son: Ode to Our Black Young,
by Jaiya John
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