According to a U.S. Census Bureau, 1 out of every 3 children grow up without their fathers in the home. And for African-American children that number is even higher. 65% of African-American children don’t have their father’s in the home… I WAS ONE OF THEM.
Growing up, I don’t really remember many of my friends having their dads in the house, so I knew the number was high…but this even shocked me. Statistically speaking, most children (male or female) who grow up without their fathers wind up getting into all kinds of trouble. Because they are searching for a male role model, they end up getting “fathered” by someone who themselves had no father. They have children to early. Don’t complete college. Wind up in jail. And in many ways end up just like the man they resent. Now of course, I’m not suggesting that is everyone. I grew up without my dad and I turned out OK…(but not without my share of stupid mistakes…LOL.) A lot of that had to do with having a mom who stayed on me (love you MAMA), and actually having positive males to look up to. Now not all of them were positive. I had some fools around..but they to were misguided.
When I sat out to make this film, I really didn’t know what I was looking for…if anything. I just wanted to hear the stories of the people like me, that didn’t have that male presence in the home. And the stories I heard were startling, scary and tragic. But at the same time hopeful, revelatory, moving and all too familiar.
Every month I am going to feature clips from the film and I want to know what you think. Not only do I want to hear your thoughts about the film…but your own personal experiences. Tell me how great your dad was if he was there. Or how not having your dad around affected the person who you are today….good or bad. Don’t hold back…because what you say will help the next person.
And to the five people that sat down and spoke to me. Paris, Sonny, Lawrence, Ahmad and Andre. Thank you all for letting me dig into your life for a few hours. I promise it was not in vain. Your stories are going to inspire someone.
Well, now to the film. Enjoy. FATHER
Powerfull movie revealing what challenges facing our society today. Very thought provoking.
Looks amazing!
Hey Ya’Ke!
I just visited your website, all looks fantastic.
I just LOVED the material for the Father doc. Please keep up with it, it will be a very strong film that might help and inspire people. If you ever need help with it, please let me know.
I had a great dad, and it’s hard to imagine my life without him. He passed away a bit more than a year ago, but he prepared me just fine to live my life the best I can. Sometimes when facing some hard decisions I think about calling him to see what he would do, because he was always my safe harbor. He is not there to answer the phone, but he will be forever in my mind guiding me through life.
I would love for those following your work to read and respond to my latest article, “R.E.S.P.E.C.T.: A Referendum on Sorry Brothers.”
It can be found at http://www.dallassouthnews.org/2010/05/4269/
yes Daddy was there and still is. I love and respect him even though we are not always in contact. My home was different because for the most part Mom wasn’t there. I love and respect her also. Thanks Dad for being there, Love you.
I am one of the lucky ones to have my father in my life and to still be very close to him. I was and still am daddys girl. Im the only girl so I have grown up very very very close to my dad.
My dad is an amazing guy. He has been there for me and many of my friends. My family and house has always been open to anyone that needs it. Which means there has been times my dad has to go with me to pick a friend up who ran out of gas in austin because they have no one else.
He has lived a life on the edge. My grandpa was part of hells angles so my dad got a harley when he was 16. Before that he was part of a “wolfgang” of cyclist here in arlington. Then he use to skydive and be a teacher and then got into the world of martial arts. He was taught by one of bruce lee’s students and trained with many famous people. He was even in a gang with martial arts, but i can’t say which one. He opened a school met my mom and almost became paralyzed. That is when he stopped and married my mom.
Now hes a cook and a graphic designer. He loves to help other people and me. He always helps any project i am doing. Cooking breakfast for film crews or just to have someone to talk to.
Today my dad now is battling a disease called alzheimer’s. I love him very much.
My dad was there in my life but we hardly spoke. He understood that being there and being an example was important even though sometimes he wasn’t always a good example. I learned what not to do from my father but I also learned what to do. I learned that being a man is being there for your family and to have the courage to stay with your family no matter what. Dad would feed out family with only 300 dollars sometimes. I’m glad he was there for me. I love my father.
Before I set out to write my feedback for “Fathers” I thought it only fair to look at all the work you have on line. So, let me start by saying I am a fan.
It is true that far, far too many of the children in our community are raised without their fathers. The impact that this is having is, to say the very least, devastating. So, I was impressed with the interviews the you have posted and glad to see Paris’s narrative included.
I grew up with my father. He was a strong, stern, warm, nurturing man. He taught me to recite Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, Margret Walker and Jean Toomer. He read Langston Hughes’s “Simple Stories” to me at bed time, insuring that I would have a deeply “melaninated” sense of humor. He was manly enough to spend afternoons eating tiny bits of sandwiches off of toy “tea sets” while in the company of stuffed animals. He nurtured my emotional, esthetic, intellectual and political development with immeasurable attentiveness. I am my father’s daughter and I am grateful for his extraordinary gifts .
I wanted that same “brand” of father for my daughter. My partner, while immensely talented is not that brand of father. For all of his accomplishments and acclaim his fear of failing fulfilled his own prophecy. I have two fabulous young people in my life, my daughter and her brother. They are my children. I share my son with my “wife-in-law,” his birth mother.
We have witnessed both children struggle to understand the incomprehensible pain of erratic paternal participation.
While both of these young people have struggled, They did so with support, the support of two mothers, women unrelated and of different races. They had comforts that Sonny, Lawrence, Andre, Ahmad and Paris did not experience. It in no way ease the depth of their pain. Both fought the cruel and constant daemon of disappointment.
My daughter found a faux strength. She was her baby brother’s protector. She was the emotional armor for both. Her brother could safely cry in his big sister’s arms. But who comforted her when their father introduced them saying, “This is my son John and this is Jane.” She questioned, “Was it complexion or because I’ m a girl? Was it because he and Dad share similar interests? Why would he do that !?” An off handed remark that I am certain he does not even remember created a “soul wound” in both.
I do not share this with you simply to commiserate the alleged “pathology” of African American fatherhood. I do it to entreat upon you to dig deeper. Young people who are having this experience are not just working class. They are every class. The men of our community suffer from having been fatherless boys. But so to do the women of our community suffer enormously from having been fatherless girls and their stories are almost always eclipse by men recounting the unfulfilled adolescent, athletic, victories that went unwitnessed by absentee fathers. True you will struggle at being a father if you never had one. So to will you struggle to believe in the men of your community if you feel they do not value you.
Yes 65% is a staggering statistic. Dig deeper. This is not a “Black Thing” as Daniel Patrick Moynihan would have had us all believe with his theory of “Black Matriarchy” (see “The Negro Family: The Case For National Action”, also known as the “Moynihan Report” 1965). The American family is disintegrating. African Americans are simply the “canaries in the coal mine.” Don’ t fall for half truths. They are just that, ONLY half truthful.
I see Black men all over this country struggling heroically against enormous odds, seemingly unsurmountable odds ( in the face of this misguided belief in an “Afro-specific paternal pathology” ) to maintain strong healthy and productive roles in their children’s lives. Dig deeper, this is a complex story. I implore you to resist telling our story based on a socio-economic hypothesis, the genesis of which, aside from being deeply flawed, is not from our community.
We are blessed to have your tremendous talents focused on our stories. The African American family has been (still is) under attack since we got here. Dehumanizing any people makes it easier to dismiss their experiences. Please resist internalizing someone else’s definition of who we are. By all means offer us sobering, Socratic introspection about our lack of humanity and compassion toward one another. Constructive criticism is essential because it is nurturing. Just make sure the “healing children’s” chorus contains a full compliment of divers voices. I look forward to more clips from the “Fathers” project.
Respectfully
digitaldevah
Thanks for the comments. And thanks for visiting Exodus Filmworks. Please continue to support us!!
Although I couldn’t agree more with some of your comments, some I have to respectfully disagree with. I know that the “family” as a whole is disintegrating, but if it’s disintegrating across the board then it has spontaneously combusted in the African-American community.
Growing up without a father myself I was surrounded by a majority African and Mexican-American community and I can count on my one hand (ok maybe both) how many of my peers had their father in the home. I witnessed first hand how young men (and women) who were searching for that missing link got involved in drugs, sex, gangs and all kinds of destructive habits. And I’m one of them. Not to say that one can’t make it out (because I surely did) or can’t crawl out of the abyss of fatherlessness, but at some point those that do were exposed to “father figures.” (ie: a preacher, teacher, mentor of some sort)” Again, I’m not saying that fatherlessness is solely a poor man’s problem, but the “financially challenged” have taken the brunt of the blow.
I was blessed, I had a mother who stayed on me. A mother who refused to lose me to the streets. But what of those who don’t have that? What of those young mothers who are forced to raise their children alone and they themselves are still children? What of the young man who thinks that being a man is how many women he can impregnate? Or the young girl who searches for her father’s love in the bedroom of some random “man” who told her he was in love with her? These are the people that I’ve targeted in my documentary, and I’d argue that a lot of their issues are stemmed from a lack of love, confidence and strength that their father should have given them. Again, I’m not saying that they can’t get these things from other sources, but most people are not going out of their way to help children that aren’t their own. And even when they do have mothers (like I had) at some point that isn’t enough to stop them from asking the question “why,” And even wanting to connect with a person that they never knew, but whose blood runs through their veins.
Not only that, the people I’ve interviewed did get out. Some are still struggling to find their way, but they are on the right path.
Keep on the look out for more clips and hopefully I can get funding to tell an array of stories. The rich. The poor. The motherless. The privileged. The multifaceted individuals who make up the rainbow of this “fatherless” nation that we live in!