Black men must rein in the young
Something politically incorrect from the Cleveland Plain Dealer
Mitchell shared an elephant tale that I had heard before. It’s instructive.
Pilanesberg National Park in South Africa had a problem with juvenile elephants attacking endangered white rhinos several years ago. The attacks were unprovoked. A number of rhinos were sexually assaulted; some were killed.
Managers of the reserve initially could not fathom a reason for the attacks. Elephants and rhinos are not natural enemies. But on closer inspection, a problem was identified.
The practice of culling herds by killing off senior elephants, and moving juvenile males onto smaller reserves, proved disruptive to social structures. It caused many young males to mature without parental guidance, and to go into the sexually active and often aggressive musth [sic] period prematurely.
The young males became disruptive and dangerously aggressive. There were no older males to tame them, to challenge them, to show them the way.
The reinstitution of older, bull elephants into the herds solved the problem. The older males put the juveniles in their place. The natural order of things was restored. [More...]
It is not politically correct to say that children (regardless of race) need fathers in their lives these days, but it is true…
Filed under: Black American Muslims, Children's Issues
In her book “Tar Baby,” Nobel laureate Toni Morrison says, “The black woman is both a ship and safe harbor.” True. But the mother ship is sinking. The harbor is crumbling.
Black captains must step forward now and re-establish order.
-Phillip Morris, Black men must rein in the young Cleveland.com
Wow! All I can say is wow!
Perfectly written. : )
I especially have a personal issue with it being “politically incorrect” to stand up and declare that black children not only need but DESERVE their fathers too.
I’m adopted, however, prior to my adoption my siblings and I spent over 12 years in the foster care system. It was a horrific experience for all of us. We were abused in foster care, lived in a good 12 to 17 homes each individually, our education was constantly interrupted becuase we were relocating so often, and worst of all of we were all separated from each other. That experience “severed” the ties of kinship and we did not grow up with each other. My siblings and I did not have the same farther, and till this day we don’t know who he is or where he is. Our mother is deceased and she was estranged from her own family so they don’t know who the hell he is either. ( pardon my french it’s an emotional thing for this sista okay.)
I remember being very angry not just at mother but at my farther. I spent many, many,many, nights dreaming that my farther would roll up in a white limo and rescue me and my sisters from the sexual, and physical abuse that we had to live with everyday.
But what I remember most of all, was being punished for being angry that I didn’t have a farther and being angry with my mother about the interruption of our childhood and our experience in foster care. The main culprits were black women who told my siblings and I ” to get over it and move on.” I had to grow up listening to ” I’m a strong woman, I don’t need a man to help me raise my child.” ” Men are worthless who needs them.” I remembering being “shamed” about my own feelings and ideas.
Till this very day, especially as a Muslim, I can not at all understand the logic that tolerates, encourages, or perpetuates this mentality. Marriage or no marriage, fatherhood is fatherhood. Till this day, I just don’t get it. I will never ever be able to bend my mind around that type of mentality.
When I hear women, especially black women tout the “I’m a strong woman I don’t need a man” diatribe I just shut down and let it go in one ear and out the other.
It is a serious injustice to decide that their fathers don’t have a right to be in their life becuase you’re angry. The media always portrays many black fathers as abandoning their children from the get go and that is in true in some cases but no article ever discusses the abuse that some black men go through dealing with the mother.
I’m sorry but it takes two people to tangle and you can’t fight with your self either!
Okay, nuff my rambling, Good luck on this one Brother Tariq Nelson.
[...] Tariq Nelson has linked to an article on Black Men and the importance of fatherhood. [...]