On Jan. 15, 2018, Community Renewal Society’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Faith in Action Assembly featured an Illinois gubernatorial candidate forum. We were fortunate to have seven candidates, Democratic and Republican, answering questions about their potential futures in office. While the event featured several key moments, one of the most alarming statements came from former state Rep. Jeanne Ives in her response to the source of violence in Chicago.
“The problem is the gun violence in this city of Chicago, predominantly. And you know how you’re going to solve it? Fathers in the home,” she stated. “Fathers in the home,” she repeated, as the majority of the crowd erupted into audible disagreement.
Ives, however, was not alone. A small, but noticeable, number of attendees agreed with her comments. In fact, a significant number of people beyond the walls of the assembly also agreed with her words. As later remarked by her spokesperson, similar statements were shared by former president Barack Obama during his famous 2008 Father’s Day sermon at Apostolic Church of God. Too many sermons on Father’s Day seem to focus on the black father’s need to engage his children because he’s shirked responsibility.
This viewpoint about black fatherhood is a well-established structure of thought, with a host of supporting beliefs that reinforce it like rebar in a concrete slab: society is devastated because the majority of African American fathers are not at home nor involved in the lives of their children. The solution, therefore, is for black men to return to their responsibilities. These statements are stereotypes, fabrications and completely wrong. And the impact of these thoughts is girded in the foundations of American society, from systems of education, to access to employment, to incarceration.
Fatherlessness is not defined by living arrangement. Josh Levs’s article, “No, Most Black Kids are not Fatherless” deconstructs the “70% of black children are fatherless” myth. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, “Fathers’ Involvement with Their Children” (yes, the CDC tracks data & researches topics like this), verify that the majority of black fathers actually live with their children (2.5 million versus 1.7 million who don’t). Furthermore, whether living in the same home or not, black fathers are the most involved of all primary recorded race and ethnic groups.
Many fatherlessness statistics utilize marital and housing statuses as cornerstone metrics, resulting in highly inflated figures. These stats do not account for the fact that men have died or passed away, couples may live together while unmarried, couples may be divorced, and, let’s not forget, that, due to the system of incarceration, men are not only separated from their families but often even prevented from staying in the homes with their families if the housing is federally provided. The New York Times’ 2015 analysis, “1.5 Million Missing Black Men,” gave credence to this shocking reality, presenting loud and clear how our country’s mass incarceration industrial complex has claimed more men than were enslaved in 1850. Statistics about white males with a nearly 40% divorce rate, and significant numbers choosing to have and/or adopt children independently, are entirely immune to the views levied upon African Americans.
Research by scholars like Waldo E. Johnson Jr., Ph.D., professor at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration, leads in efforts to re-educate about black fatherhood, and also brings notice to the men who stand in as genuine, authentic father figures for children who have lost fathers for whatever reasons. When it comes to conceptualizing African American fatherhood, stereotypes and anecdotal experience pair with inflated data to produce a dish that is as superficial as the fraudulent images of fast food we see in marketing ads. The dish is served, and sadly consumed, so often that even gubernatorial and presidential candidates eat it up and perpetually re-serve it to audiences. This must stop.
The impact of this superficiality makes its way into policy and law formation, curriculum access and discipline in our education systems, law enforcement profiling and use of force, biases in court-based custody decisions; and many more unknown and unseen implicit ways in which society perceives black males. And, rather than focusing on the root cause of structural, institutional and implicit racialization, violence, poverty and general lack is scapegoated onto the backs of black fathers.
As we approach Father’s Day, when the horrific 70% statistic is utilized so often, I urge our religious and congregational leaders to re-speak the narrative. Speak to the power of how millions of African American men and dozens of programs, like The Chicago Fathers and Sons Project and Real Men Cook (which I participated in for five years), are shedding light on the actual truth: most black children are not fatherless and Black American fatherhood is very much alive!
A version of this post originally appeared at www.communityrenewalsociety.org.
Black Fatherhood is very real and alive in America. Black Men are very proud fathers and hard workers and great providers for their families and communities. Black Men who own businesses, pay it forward in the black community every single day and that’s a fact. But all we ever hear about are these little knuckleheads who are tearing up the neighborhood and creating mayhem. And I praise and honor these unsung heroes in the black community, black men who are making positive change in our neighborhoods every day. Men like Trez Pugh, Rico Nance, Cliff Rome, Leon Goodrum, Reggie Webb, Karim Webb, Killer Mike, T.I., Jay-Z, Jon Rogers, George C Fraser, Michael Russell, and countless others all over America who are doing it every day and in every way. Many black women are doing amazing things too, but you’ll never hear about them. All these negative stereotypes got to go.
Tina Love. I’m sure Chatham still has a decent amount of nice beautiful homes in the neighborhood. I’ve never been to the South Side of Chicago so I wouldn’t Chatham from South Loop. But from what I’ve heard and read over the years, Chatham is a nice place. But like a lot of black neighborhoods in America, Chatham is also in close proximity to poverty. The reason for that is this: There’s a lot of very poor and destitute people in the African American Community and that’s simply a reality, but most African Americans are not poor at all.
Millions of African American Men are Good Husbands to their Wives and good Fathers to their Children in this country every single day and that’s a FACT. 50% of black males ain’t dropping out of High School, 40% of black families don’t receive welfare, black men don’t commit 55% of violent crime in America, The number of blacks in prison doesn’t exceed the number of slaves in 1850, and there are not more black men in prison than in college. These are all myths that have been debunked.