On Cheating But Not Leaving

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to watch people make mistakes (and make my own mistakes, of course) and see how we learn from our past experiences.  For plenty of us, after we make a mistake in our lives, be it big or small, we try to take steps to correct that mistake.  Whether it’s by keeping a safe distance from the mistake, eliminating the behavior/person/situation that created the mistake, or even rationalizing the mistake into something that could produce a great outcome, we try to do something about it.  Even if our attempts are unsuccessful, if a real effort was put into avoiding that mistake, you know going forward that more drastic measures will be needed.

Then there are those unique people that make the same mistakes, knowing they’re mistakes, and chooses to continue to make those mistakes.  There’s a difference between someone who’s rationalized their actions so that they don’t view them as mistakes, and someone who still knows they’re doing something that they shouldn’t and continues to do it anyway.  Think of the difference between Aladdin, who knows that stealing is wrong and continued to do it because he had to survive, and a bank robber who thinks he deserves to be rich and it didn’t matter if robbing a bank was wrong to get the job done.

Well, one thing Aladdin didn’t do was cheat on the Princess, and this specific group of people are those that I’d call “loyal cheaters.”  They know they shouldn’t cheat, but it’s as though they cannot resist the temptation of new people and they dive in every now and then.  Sometimes they keep a side person, a go-to when in need like a tight end in the NFL (by the way, as a native St. Louisan I cannot cheer for any Boston sports teams and enjoy when they lose.  And yes, this is a common mentality in St. Louis.  Giants win a thriller, 24-21).  It’s becoming a more common trend publicly, which does worry me.  As a faithful sort of fellow, it’d be pretty hurtful to find out my girlfriend (or worse, my wife) is cheating on me.  Before jumping on these cheaters’ heads, one question to be asked is, “What made you cheat in the first place?  What weren’t you getting in the relationship that this person was able to give you?”  The cliche is that for men, the answer would generally be something physical and for women, it’s something more emotional.  In my experience, you can’t separate the two that easily to begin with, so I would say that there’s likely a combination of both going on (unless of course, you’re drunk, high, and horny in the strip club with $100 bucks in your pocket and you know she tricks off in VIP – anything that happens then is unavoidable).  Another question to ask is, “If you’re actively cheating, or just open to cheating, why don’t you leave the relationship?  Clearly, you’re not providing the same monogamy you’re asking of your partner, the relationship must be lacking something for you to want to stray to begin with, so why not leave and be single?”  But why would any person who can have their cake and eat it too not do so?  They get the creature comforts of the relationship and the bachelor/bachelorette experience of being free to do what they want.  It’s the best of both worlds (provided their partner doesn’t find out).

On a more serious note, many of these people don’t leave the relationship because they truly do care for their partner.  I know men and women who have cheated on their significant others and who, I believe, are truly in love with them.  This is where it’s become difficult to explain, but I think I can understand the impulse to cheat and yet truly love your partner.  Even as I wrote that (and this is something I’ve been thinking about for weeks), it’s still slightly jarring that this stance could have some, dare I say, merit, to it.  In some cases, they’ve invested in that other person, and they truly love that person but when temptation crossed their path, they bit the poisonous fruit.

We know they shouldn’t commit such infidelities.  They know it, too.  We would charge them with not loving their partner. There’s truth to that statement – they aren’t giving their partner the kind of undivided love and affection that a relationship merits and they are certainly raising the amount of potential harm the relationship will endure if their partner finds out.  But how can we so quickly dismiss the overall amount of “love actions” that the cheater provided throughout the relationship and say that this person, without a shadow of a doubt, doesn’t love his or her partner?  That’s the contentious issue with cheaters who don’t leave the relationship – the claim is that they don’t love their partner, but can one mistake really undermine the overall amount of love that the cheater possesses for his or her partner?  Our inclination is that cheaters don’t love their significant others, but I just can’t buy it (completely).

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not condoning stepping out on your significant other.  What I am saying is that, while I can’t clearly explain it, my belief is that plenty of cheaters value their relationship much higher than the value the cheat (if they had to choose, they’d stay with their significant other in a heartbeat), and they value their spouse much higher than they value who they cheat with…they simply make poor value judgments.

Here’s an example.  I know one man and one woman who regularly cheat on their spouses, and I’ve known about it for a little bit (another obvious question is what’s the responsibility of a third party, like myself, with knowledge of cheating with respect to the person being cheated on).  They both put in a little bit of work with the people they choose to cheat with, getting to know them a little bit and saying what the other person wants to hear, but not investing themselves emotionally into the other person.  When, in the past, the person they’ve been cheating with wants more, the cheating ends with that person – the emotional tie was too great for them.

Still, I struggle to reconcile how cheating displays a lack of love (or at the very least, respect) and yet I firmly believe that there are cheaters who love their spouses – the man and woman from the example, who I know personally, would give their lives for their spouses.  One metric of love that I developed in college was that when you’re willing to truly sacrifice yourself for someone else, be it physically, emotionally, or otherwise, that person has love in their heart for their partner.  This might all explain why the old line, “Love isn’t enough,” perhaps does ring true.  One question that I have is for people who have been cheated on and stayed with their partner.  What kept you?

Authenticity and Black Manhood

I won’t lie, the idea for this post came from Donovan Ramsey’s piece on manhood. His post addressed the larger troubling points surrounding Black masculinity and I’m going to drill down a little bit into a specific aspect of Black manhood – it’s perceived authenticity as how a man ought to be developed.

Our masculinity is formed and carved for us from the day our sex is discovered. The boy gets the blue room; the girl gets the pink room. The boy plays cops and robbers (formerly known as cowboys and Indians, which was what we called it when I was a youngster); the girls play with dolls and play dress up, whatever that is. The point is that gender roles are imprinted in most children’s heads before they have a chance to notice it. This isn’t new, just a recap.

Black masculinity comes in the same way, only in varied forms. What it means to be a Black male in this society (and others, often in jest) is a commodity being bought and sold on the open market. What do I mean by that? Somebody bought the idea that all Black men are thugs and sold it to the public in such a way that we began to believe it. Even worse, we began to consider that image of violence and credibility as what it meant to be a man.

Then there’s the image of the wealthy Black man, who does what he wants, when he wants, and damn the consequences. He may have acquired a trophy white wife as a piece of social jewelry or not, though the average image is that he did get his “white gold.” I have nothing against interracial dating…as long as the parties are entering the relationship for legitimate reasons, not like “a white woman on my arm makes me legitimate.” But again, we were bombarded with this image that we believed that most wealthy Black men behaved like this. Many of us aspired to, and still do as a result.

If you think I’m joking, you should think about the Black thug and Black rich man images and stories you often see and hear and read and see how closely they fit the picture.  Unfortunately, Black masculinity can be shaped without the Black community’s input.  However it happens, a clear picture of what it means to authentically be a Black man is one that has yet to be put on public display and accepted.  Though the initial question, “what is it to be a man?” is one of major importance, Black masculinity has inextricable links to how Black men are perceived both within and outside of the Black community.  Right now, we all know plenty of stand-up Black men who have demonstrated what they believe it is to be a man, and yet the public perception of the average Black man is that he is supposed to do something illegal, offensive, or wrong.  Just how he looks is enough to menace, depending on who’s being looked at (or in the area of, for that matter).

This is all besides the initial point, which is that the notion of an authentic Black masculinity, one that encapsulates all of what Black men endure and how they should respectfully and proudly interact with the world and his brothers and sisters, hasn’t been conceived of to my knowledge.  Admittedly, since I left graduate school I could be slipping, but even the topic of Black masculinity is one that isn’t often covered in academic circles, especially not philosophical ones.  With that said, what would an authentic Black masculinity look like?  Should there be an authentic Black masculinity?

Honestly, I’m torn.  When I think about the diversity amongst Black people, placing an absolute term like “authentic” makes me nervous.  As far as I’m concerned, there are too many Black people out here that deny their blackness so I’d rather not exclude those who do want to claim theirs.  But the question of how caricatures can be viewed as an authentic view of Black masculinity is one that does carry weight.  Just how powerful have these vehicles been such that manhood is something that’s constantly emphasized and lacked simultaneously?  Seriously, it boggles the mind.  Then again, masculinity isn’t something to be handled lightly.  Think of the impact that one’s idea of manhood can have on growing minds.  It behooves us to craft such a strong sense of what it means to be a Black man, in a global sense, just to let our future generations have a chance.

Pissed Off Pontification: If You Can’t Handle Me At My Worst Then Get The Hell Out Of Here

I remember seeing this quote on a lot of women’s Facebook pages as I went through college and not thinking much of it.  I figured, “They want to be appreciated as they are.  How nice.”  But over the years, I’ve kept quiet about this famous quote and now want to unleash the beast onto this calamity that’s out of control.  What quote could have me this up in arms?

“I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.”
— Marilyn Monroe

I’d be willing to bet that this quote is on roughly 500,000 different Facebook pages at the very least and likely used in a truncated version on another 250,000 Twitter accounts.  Monroe, who by all accounts is one of history’s great thinkers, has some serious staying power with this blurb.  What’s the big problem,  you ask?  This sentiment is way too dangerous when folks think they can get loose and if their man can’t handle it, he doesn’t deserve her at her best.

I get what the great Monroe was thinking.  She will make errors and would appreciate it if her significant other wouldn’t hold those mistakes against her or lord them over her head.  But she was also Marilyn Monroe.  Y’all ain’t Marilyn Monroe.  If you get out of control and loose as some sort of test to see if your man CAN handle you and use this quote as your rationale, you are messing up.  Moreover, if you think that a true partner can act wild and that his/her significant other should stick by, then perhaps your idea of a healthy relationship needs to change.

But I’m missing the main point right now, which is that if Monroe the Great gets to put this idea out, let’s see what happens in this scenario:

A young man has a great relationship with his girlfriend normally.  He’s loving, caring, attentive, and responsive.  He anticipates her needs because he knows her so well.  They share in each others activities, she is caring and responsive to his needs and they generally have fun together.  The problem is sometimes he gets a little mad and has punched walls and doors and couches.  She gets scared during these moments and tries to get out of his path, in case he’s seeing red and “accidentally” treats her like one of the walls.

We’d tell the woman to either try to get him help for his anger management issues or to get out of there before he starts beating on her.  I’d suggest that’s the right way to go, given a situation such as this.  The problem?  When the guy gets mad and violent, it’s him at his worse.  He’s making mistakes, he’s out of control, and he’s certainly hard to handle. The girlfriend is struggling to deal with him at his worst, and the argument from Monroe is if you can’t handle the person at their worst then you don’t deserve the person at their best.  When he’s at his best, he’s one of the best boyfriends in the world.  Given what Monroe has argued, what do we make of the situation?

How about this one: he does begin hitting the woman, getting to a new low and a worst of the worst.  He’s still exhibiting all of the trademark signs that Monroe said – out of control, hard to handle, certainly insecure and selfish.  He’s still amazing at his best, however.  The poor woman can’t handle him at his worst, so she doesn’t deserve him at his best, right?  What does she deserve from him – more beatings?  This is where the quotation gets dangerous – if you can’t handle me at my worst (and my worst can be potentially vicious), then apparently you don’t deserve the full power of love I can give.  What exactly do you deserve then?  More than that, what does this mean for the person who has to go through my vicious worst so that I know that person deserves my best?

When misinterpreted, this quotation gives people unnecessary leeway to test their partners to see if they can stand up to the heat.  “If they can’t stand my heat,” the proud misinterpreter says, “then they can get the hell out of my kitchen because they don’t deserve the dinner.”  Already the relationship is starting from an unhealthy spot, wherein there’s an exam being proctored that the partner likely doesn’t know about.  Sure, one might say that partners are always testing each other’s limits to see how far they can push each other.  I did that with my parents to see how much I could do without getting into trouble (because parents are near omnipresent and omniscient when you’re a kid), but it makes no sense to test one’s partner to see if they can handle your bullshit.  Monroe the Great wasn’t advocating for testing one’s partner, just for acceptance of one’s humanity.  If you can’t handle that I will not be perfect, then no, you don’t deserve my best.  But if you think this means you get to test somebody’s patience as a means of gauging how “strong” they are and if they deserve your goodness because they endured your badness, then you need to get out of your own damn kitchen.

Know Your Role Revisited

Last week I wrote about how people need to know their roles in life.  How you can’t think you’re entitled to somebody grand when you’re doing nothing grand yourself.  And I focused this on the women.  I stand by what I’ve said.  But thanks to a friend of mine, I’m making sure to put the men on blast too.  Remember the first example from last week?

An unkempt, unshaven, poorly spoken, unemployed man goes out and thinks he deserves the finest chick in the place.

I said that we’d all tell him he’s reaching too high, he needs to know his current spot and step up to meet her halfway, etc.  Then I launched into the woman version of this example.  Let me return to this original one, because it makes me think this might just be an epidemic.

My friend told me that she experienced the same kinds of thirsty guys who aren’t up to snuff that are just like the women I’d mentioned.  She espoused that perhaps this is what happens when people in general leave certain cities and then come back.  I think she’s onto something here, because there are plenty of guys with unimpressive life resumes who think they deserve women who are moving forward and doing things with their lives.  Instead of it being that you can put on a dress and hold a mild conversation, for these guys it’s if you can show a little cash and act like a bigshot, then you’ve done enough.  Or maybe you promote parties and have a website about those parties.  For these grown women who have done some work in this world and are going forward, neither set is appealing.

I used Atlanta as an example before, and it’s only now dawning on me that this kind of problem happens nationwide in many urban locales.  For Atlanta, it’s Black Mecca so the sheer quantity of men and women getting opportunities and seizing them there is greater than other cities.  Many cities would fit the other bill, however – Memphis would be a place where this phenomenon happens.  Up and down the Midwest this has been reported.  Why would this be so prevalent?

Another compounding issue my friend brought up is that because of these thirsty guys, it reinforces the idea that Black men are getting harder to find.  We came up with a concept that the people who come back tend to hang out with the same friends they had before – some of whom did not end up with a better life resume, but are still good friends in their own right.  What happens because of this is some good men and women end up in circles that aren’t necessarily conducive to them finding that equal partner they’re looking for.  I thought about it – the back half of the summer of 2010 was amazing because I kicked it with some cousins who weren’t doing a whole lot other than kick it.  Did I meet a bunch of quality women who are pursuing careers and are about their futures?  Not really, no.  Then again, I wasn’t really looking.  But my friend was “guilty” of the same – when she’s at home, some of her friends have kids or drama and the like and it’s not conducive to running across men who are being productive and moving forward in their lives.

What did we conclude from our conversation?  Obviously, a lot rides on the company you keep, but we both knew that already.  She did want me to show that this isn’t gender-specific, and while I didn’t think it was, I’m happy I got reminded to put the raggedy dudes on blast.  But I sense this is an epidemic.  This is a nationwide problem.  Small timers thinking they’re big time.  Feeling entitled without putting in the required work.  All of these people need to recognize their place at the moment, then ask themselves if they were the person they wanted, would they be with themselves?

Obamamania Revisited

A friend of mine tweeted the other day a few pleas to other African-Americans that it is our duty to back President Obama as he gets publicly defiled towards the end of his first term.  She said that he is our first Black president, so it behooves us to support him.  This was the argument given as to why African-Americans should vote for him back in 2008, and it swayed me a little bit.  Fact is, there had never been a Black candidate that had a legitimate chance and I felt that he deserved the shot to run the country as much as anyone, so why not vote for him?  3 years later, President Obama has had to defend his actions all the time to a vociferous public that nitpicks and searches for issues.  He hasn’t been a perfect President, but by and large he’s tried to do what he said he would and has stuck to his guns on his most important issue – easing the financial burdens for the middle class and below (though the below part is where people like Cornel West have taken issue with his policies).  But the other side of Obamamania, the BLACKLASH, is what I want to talk about today.

My friend (@DpJeter and check out her business @AffairsofIsis – event planning extraordinaire) really struck me with her pleas.  She implored African-Americans to support President Obama because he’s Black, but I would like to think that she backs a lot of his policies and proposals and his presidency in general on top of his Blackness.  The difficulty lies in that when I see a lot of political programming and the talking-heads and pundits, the public vitriol towards President Obama seems unchecked.  One guy called Obama a dick because he had no other word to express himself with.  Even as a proponent of foul language, there’s still a time and a place for everything and he wasn’t trying to establish new norms of language – he was trying to say something rude because he had the space to.  George Bush was about as close to war mongering as we’ve seen in a while, not to mention the multiple wars the United States jumped into aided by inept government oversight on business led to the unfortunate economic meltdown that plagued the country for the back end of the decade.  Amidst all of this, Bush was talked poorly about but the volume seemed quieter compared to now.  For anything potentially positive that President Obama has done, the volume gets raised to a 10 to drown out whatever good works have been done.

A recent example of this – Obama got Osama.  Osama bin Laden has been the face of terrorism in the United States (and in many senses, globally as well) since at least September 11, 2001.  Bush made it a point to send troops to smoke him out of his hole and yet 10 years later, it’s Obama who helped set up the mission and gave the go-ahead to eliminate, I repeat, THE FACE OF TERRORISM IN THE UNITED STATES.  The response?  “I can’t believe we ran up into his house and murked him; we’ll never know what really happened.”  Thank you, Rashard Mendenhall.  “I can’t believe we’re celebrating somebody’s death – that’s terrible.”  “What about gas prices and improving our schools?”  Fox News spelling it “Usama.”  Everybody seemed to try to find a problem with this event when the truth is that this was a momentous event that took a decade to do.  I can’t shake the feeling that if Bush got him in mid 2008, nobody would have been nitpicking or downplaying it – this would have been some “heroic call that President Bush made to end the terrorist threat of Osama bin Laden.”  Instead, Osama’s death is marred with comments about how his body was set out to sea.

This isn’t a new topic – but watching it play out like it has might be why my homegirl was imploring Black people to back Obama.  She was mad at the way even Black people tear down the President.  Listen, if he’s messing up, call him on it.  But it seems like it’s “the thing” for some folks to claim they’re being political by assassinating the President’s character or, in other words, talk shit about him.  You can hear the frustration in his voice when he’s doing the press conferences and he keeps on getting second and third guessed by pundits and outsiders and he has to deal with insinuations that he’s STILL not capable of being the President and he’s getting sick of it.  He should be.  This job has taken years off of his life, no doubt, and he just doesn’t seem to get the public favor that he should.  I’m not saying worship Obama, but respect what he’s accomplished and also the bullshit he’s had to deal with without losing his cool.  I wish he came to the podium and said:

“I’m getting tired, uh, of you motherfuckers second guessing me.  Now goddamnit, I did the shit I said I would and then some, and, uh, all you people can talk about is birth certificates and my wife and uh, I’m not having that shit anymore.”

I completely forgot about the birth certificate business until just now.  Donald Trump, of all people, charged up President Obama on his birth location, because if your name is Barack Hussein Obama then clearly you must not be from the United States.  Or if you’re born in Hawaii, you must not be from the United States.  I once said that even if he produced his birth certificate, somebody could say, “Well, you’re the President – you could have a new one forged,” as they overlook the fact that a requirement for one to be the President is that you’re born in the United States (hence why the former Governator, Ahnold, can’t be the President).  The fact that he’s had to deal with such questions and he’s the President speaks volumes of the respect that the Black President gets.  This country doesn’t normally deal with politics, by and large – why do you think we’re a representative government and not every vote counts?  Now, all of a sudden, everybody is a political analyst and thinks they can do better than Obama because he played up his role as John Q. Public, identifying with the common man and woman.  Just because he played that role as he ran doesn’t mean we can play his role right now.  I got mad and told people to know their role and shut their mouth with regards to their own place in life and knowing their self-worth, and this needs to be remembered for us wannabe political “pundits.”

Pissed Off Pontification – Know Your Role And Shut Your Mouth

Somebody has to say it.  A common rumbling amongst many of the guys I know in the Midwest (and I have a couple of specific cities in mind) have noticed that there are women in their cities with “inflated senses of self.”  What do I mean by this?  Well, everybody appreciates confidence.  But to be confident is to know what you are bringing to the table and knowing that it’s competitive.  The problem lies in that there are some women who think that what they bring to the table is more than what they are bringing.  It’s not even arrogance; I don’t have a word to describe this.  Here’s a scenario that might explain what I mean:

An unkempt, unshaven, poorly spoken, unemployed man goes out and thinks he deserves the finest chick in the place.

We would all tell that man that he’s reaching too high – that he needs to recognize his place in the pantheon at the moment.  It’s not impossible that he could end up with the finest looking woman in the place – but I wouldn’t call it very probable either.  Moreover, if you’re the finest woman in the club and some dusty, stinking guy comes up to you expecting you to fawn over him and his “impressive” resume, you wouldn’t really jump at the chance to talk to him, would you?

Well, that is exactly what happens here.  As one of my boys put it, “4′s think they’re 6′s.  6′s think they’re 8′s.  8′s think they’re 10′s.”  Folks must be blind to some simple things – you are what you are, nothing more and nothing less.  Know your place, not just what you think you are.  It’s about knowing one’s self-worth – if you inflate it, it’s still artificial just like if you don’t think highly enough of yourself.  Certainly, this is a tricky battle (and one that crosses men and women), but I have to say there are some cities where it feels like this is part of the culture – if you can put on a dress and have a half decent conversation you are the shit.  The truth according to me?  There are a lot of people high on their own supply and telling others to do the same, or culturally exposing others to the same behaviors such that this disturbing trend perpetuates without anybody saying anything.  I’m through being quiet on this one.

When I was in Atlanta, this problem didn’t exist.  I surmise it’s because ALL of the women were fine and doing big things, so there’s a lot more competition and as such, you get a better sense of your self-worth relative to the market.  Take a city like my hometown, the sense of competition has dwindled and as a result self-worthiness has gotten inflated.  I’m sick of it.  I’ve seen some of these same women with inflated senses of self get buckwild for literally no reason.  They turn their noses up at solid guys who are doing well for themselves because they think they should get better when they’re not bringing the same level to these guys – every bone in my body wants to yell, “Who the hell do you think you are?  You ain’t Beyonce, you ain’t no celebrity, you’re a regular ol’ bottom bitch who needs to get that through your thick skull.”

Why does this piss me off?  Because if these women would recognize how much (or little, in this case) they bring to the table, they would see how ordinary they are.  And this isn’t an indictment on them; there are many successful, happy, ordinary men and women out here.  They probably know more about their self-worth and how to build it like a credit score and not inflate it like an economy gone awry.  I know this could look all bad and misogynistic and the like, but this is something I’ve noticed.  I could have it wrong, but when I keep hearing this from guys who are doing well for themselves, not dusty, funky no-good guys, I can’t quite shake that this stuff is happening.  Quite frankly, these women should:

(Note Jim Ross saying, “I second that.”)

My Birthday Isn’t Just About Me

June 22nd rolls around once a year.  The Third Macedonian War ended on this day.  Galileo was forced to recant by the Church on this day.  King George V and Queen Mary were crowned on this day.  Germany invaded Russia in World War II on this day.  FDR signed the G.I. Bill; “Pistol” Pete Maravich, Clyde “the Glide” Drexler, Kurt Warner, Donald Faison, Champ Bailey, Carson Daly, Randy Couture and one half of the tag team “Natural Disasters,” John “Earthquake” Tenta, were all born on June 22.  Sadly, George Carlin, Judy Garland, Darryl Kile, and Fred Astaire passed away on this day.  As the title of the post says, June 22 isn’t just about me.

But I’m not here to compare myself with some of the best in their fields.  Champ Bailey was the premier shutdown cornerback in the NFL following Deion Sanders and before Nnamdi Asomugha.  Warner has 2 NFL MVPs and a Super Bowl title (with my hometown St. Louis Rams).  George Carlin and Fred Astaire were household names.  Right now, I can’t compare to that – nor should I try.  What I can try to do is express my sincere gratitude and appreciation for how fortunate I’ve been not only to get another year, but how I managed to get through all of these years.

Quite frankly, I have the best family and friends I could have wanted.  When I was a big bundle of nerves before a job interview, my good friends helped keep me calm and relaxed and prepared.  Before I knew what friends were, I knew what family was.  I was fortunate to grow up in a tight-knit extended family – my family were my friends and I learned a lot of what I knew about friendship as a kid came from my fantastic family members.  I knew what it was to be loved and how to not just receive love, but to show others when you care about them and give them love.  As a kid, I thought that was how most people were raised.  As the old man I am now, I’m well aware of how rare my family is and how fortunate I am to be a part of it.  My birthday is about them, because I’m not who I am without my colorful, great family.

I can’t forget about my friends, new and old.  I can say that I have been friends with a guy for 20 years now, which blows my mind when I think about it but speaks volumes to how important my friendships are to me.  Again, I’ve been fortunate to have met the men and women I consider friends.  Good friends help you find yourself, and I know I wouldn’t be the person I am now without the great people who gave me the pleasure of their friendship.  I have planned to write a book about my family’s funny stories, but my short story, “The Chronicles of the Black Pack,” is based on my friends.  Anybody who has seen me and my friends sit around and kick it can read any part of the Chronicles (all 6 parts are on this blog) and picture my buddies and I doing and saying the same type of stuff.  Without my friends to bounce ideas off of and ask questions to, I’d likely be a lot more ignorant than intellectual, both literally and figuratively.

Fortunate.  Blessed.  Lucky.  However you say it, those words describe me as I look back.  In the past 7 years alone, I’ve done a lot of walking around solo in rough areas, traveling, exploring, and encountered so many colorful characters in the world…and haven’t had anything too bad happen to me.  It could have been bad – I know people who’ve been robbed walking the streets I walked, or there are plenty of memorials and shootings in a spot that I’m around, for example.  I’m just happy I could see another year and that my year went well.  This was the year of the drive, because I certainly lived on the road (mostly I-55).  And for all of my interstate driving I’ve never had a problem on the road, and I know people who have had serious accidents on the highway.  Again, I don’t care how you say it, things could be much worse for me and I’m happy with how things have turned out.

Hopefully I have made my loved ones proud.  To me, it all begins and ends with family and friends, which is why my birthday isn’t just about me.  It’s about the people who have helped shape and mold me into the man I’m growing up to be.  Those of you who are reading this, know that you have my gratitude for being in my life, even if it was for just a season.

About That Father’s Day Hate…

Yesterday was Father’s Day, which I consider to be the “as long as you’re helping a kid grow up you get saluted” holiday.  Single mothers get the shout out on Father’s Day (which I’m not against but I don’t really do it – I understand that single mothers play a dual role, but they are mothers.  They have a holiday already.), uncles, cousins, mentors and “father figures” get the shout out on Father’s Day, and finally the dads get their shout out.  You know what apparently comes with all of the shout outs?  A lot of dad issues come out on Father’s Day, with people angrily tweeting, Facebooking, talking, writing, blogging, and the like about how they don’t like Father’s Day because of the bad dads out there (theirs included, I imagine).  There are a ton of terrible fathers out here.  Some aren’t bad people, just immature to the situation.  Some are legitimately bad people.  Some are bad baby daddies, where they don’t take their responsibility to their child.  Just as important to acknowledge are two things – there are plenty of good dads out here; and there are also plenty of bad moms too.

You know what I don’t see on Mother’s Day?  People talking bad about their mothers who abandoned them, people saluting single fathers for their dual roles they have to play, or shout outs to general “mother figures.”  I’m sure it happens, but it’s not nearly as prominent as the bad dad talk.  It’s an easy card to play – the numbers are out there on absentee parents and it doesn’t look good for the guys.  It’s an easy bandwagon to jump on.  For many of the angry people, it’s also right in step with how they feel because of their personal experiences.  If your dad left you, Father’s Day very well could be a bittersweet (or just plain bitter) day.  But there was (and have been) plenty of negative comments about Father’s Day, even directed towards those who were celebrating their Father’s Day.  I imagine it could get downright annoying to check your social networking sites and see all of these people saluting their dads and all and you think to yourself, “I never had a dad.  This is just another day for me.”  Maybe it leads to lashing out at others.  But that’s not what Father’s Day is about.

Mother’s Day gets all of the love and we know there are some terrible, horrible, no good mothers out here.  We all likely know some bad mothers and bad fathers.  So why use Father’s Day as the lashing out holiday?  It’s about saluting dads, not talking shit about them.  And I want to salute three new dads I know, because they remind me that we’ve got plenty of good, caring, positive fathers to hold up as examples.

The newest dad is a cousin of mine, and seeing his life change as he went from bachelor to married with child was nothing short of spectacular.  Not only did he step up and make the life changes he needed to in order to be a good husband, he really got excited about getting himself ready to be a dad.  When I first saw his son I was whispering because he was asleep, and my cousin told me that it’s louder inside the womb than in the house.  My first thought was, “He read the baby books!”  That was when I knew he took the process seriously and seeing him with his new family brings a smile to my face.

A friend of mine in Memphis had a kid in the fall and he still sends me texts about how being a father dramatically alters your worldview.  His son is “little him,” and he’s mesmerized watching a smaller version of himself learn how to move around, communicate, and interact with the world around him.  He’s been married for a few years, but being a dad really seemed to change him for the better.  He made sure to keep on doing his regular routine but he made some major adjustments to it so that he can be there for his son, not just provide for him.

My last dad to salute is another Memphis buddy of mine.  He’d been married for a few months when they had their little girl, and I noticed the change from fiancee to husband but I really took notice when he went from not-daddy to Daddy.  The word is responsibility, and there’s no doubt in my mind that he’s not just taken responsibility to be a good husband and father but he wants to.  It’s not done begrudgingly, but with a smile.  All of these guys were happy to become dads, not sad, and they certainly show it.  So kudos to you three and to all of the other dads out there doing the best they can with what they have.  Being a parent isn’t easy and it’s easy to forget that, especially as we are still maturing (or aren’t parents ourselves).  I propose for next Father’s Day, we hold a campaign to reduce the Father’s Day hate.  It might not successfully reduce the hatred, but by highlighting some of the good dads we know, it might broaden people’s horizons about what kind of men are being good fathers.  The truth?  All kinds of men are being good fathers, and we should spend time saluting them rather than throwing shade on the dads that never were dads.

You Asked For It – One Big Head, One Little Head

I asked yesterday on Twitter for something to write about, and this was the first response -

@SYM1DidIt small penis, big ego.

I’ll be honest, I’m not entirely sure what to say about this.  My first thought is that it doesn’t quite make sense; it’s normally the guys who are packing who have a bit more of an ego.  The thought comes – why would a guy with a little fella have a big ego?

There are a number of possible reasons – he might not be aware that he’s got a small one and so he’d have no reason to entertain not being a bit more egotistical, for example.  This does lead to a couple of other questions – what’s “small,” and what did she mean by “big ego?”  I should have asked her, but I think I have the right idea for the latter.  The former I also think I have an idea on, but it’s not entirely clear.  For example, are we talking about length, width, girth, a combination?

Sidenote: Yeah, I know.  Some of you will read this and think, “Pause.  From the beginning, pause.”  You should have tweeted me sooner.

Now that I think about it, I wonder just how many guys are aware of their size in relation to what a woman thinks.  Like the example above, if the guy is of average size but to the woman, average is small to her, then it could be an issue of perspective, in which case the guy would probably have no reason to think he’s small.

He also could very well be small, have accepted that fact and lived by the adage, “It’s not the size of the ship, but the motion of the ocean,” and been successful in his past.  If he knows how to handle himself, then why not have a big ego?

Size of the ship notwithstanding, I would say it’s close to common knowledge that confidence in the bedroom is preferred by both sides.  Some people like passive or submissive partners (I don’t get all that), but I surmise that in this day and age, having an ego in the bedroom regardless of what you pack isn’t necessarily a bad thing unless you’re all bark and no bite.  Isn’t that what the Beyonce song was about?

Sadly, the example I think the woman who suggested this topic had in mind was the bite-less dog.  The man who thinks he’s knocking it out the park when the poor woman feels like it’s a hot dog in a hallway.  He leaves thinking he tore it up, she leaves with a checklist of things she’s going to do tomorrow that she made while he was trying to beat it up.  He definitely would walk around saying, “I tore it up,” “I beat it out the frame,” and the like with many unsatisfied partners.  Much like the suckery we can’t have, men like this should be stopped.  Those are the only people who should be humbled by telling them to their face that they’ve got a little dick.

I do hope that those guys are in the minority and that in this case, we do not want diversity.  I really think issues like this are more about perception than anything else, but I once went to a bar on Beale Street to hear some music and went into the restroom and heard a guy come in loudly after me, “One time for the short guys!”  As a shorter guy, I said something like, “Yeah, that’s right!” and finished up my business.  The guy hollered out, “I’m talking about the short dick guys like me!”  I quickly yelled back, “You gotta make that clearer the first time, man!  Not one of y’all…”  I trailed off because he started telling a story.

“Man, I tell you it is hell to have a small dick.  One time, I was with this bigger gal and I’m going and she looks at me and says, ‘Is it in yet?’  I tell her, ‘In yet, I’ve been in for 10 minutes!’  She said, ‘Look you cracker, stick it in!”

You know what, I think that about sums this up.

Insight into the “Intellectual” Mind

Yesterday morning a piece from Brian Leiter’s blog came across my virtual desk, about the racial diversity in the discipline of philosophy.  I won’t yell and scream, but I do think if you’re interested in diversity in the workplace, look at the comments section of the post.  The main point of the brief post was a commentary by a philosopher who says he cannot recommend to his undergraduate Black philosophy students to continue pursuing philosophy.  With that as the background, the comments section ends up becoming, “What question do we ask?”  Is the pipeline problem (there aren’t many departments with a good minority student pipeline to get more minorities into graduate programs) really a problem or is it one of interest?

While some are asking about how to get after the “problem” (and like philosophers, a few asked if the dearth of Blacks in philosophy is actually a problem – which in itself is part of the problem), I read the comments with a leery eye.  As though this was another philosophical thought experiment, where the questions matter and the approach matters but the answers, while important, are treated like byproducts (not the intended products) of the thought experiment.  Nevertheless, one person described their experience during graduate school, which was laced with “questionable” moments from faculty, and while nobody wanted to discredit his experiences, there were plenty of people searching for data and they needed to understand that data collection includes his story, not just hard numbers.  Numbers do not tell the whole story (not all of the respondents will be openly honest if asked if their department treats them well for an official survey for many reasons – for example, they won’t bad talk their department publicly), and yet until the numbers reflect the structural bias that leads to the lack of representation that yields the current shit state of Black philosophers, this won’t get treated as a real problem.  It’s not either representation or institutional/structural bias, it is both.

Anyway, the point of this is that if you want to see how some philosophers approach concrete problems in our own damn field, check out the comments section of Leiter’s post.  Laugh when appropriate too – it’s…interesting insight into the intellectual mind.