T.I. AND PATRIARCHAL FATHERHOOD

This picture is being passed around the internet as proof of T.I. being a good father. I have to disagree though. Honestly, T.I. was a horny young boy at one point, too, and I am pretty sure that he has done and said worse to other people’s daughters. One need only listen to his music to see that he has said far worse. T.I. comes off as the typical patriarchal father who is less interested in his daughter’s disrespect, and more interested in his male ego and beating his chest. It has always struck me as odd that certain men don’t want their daughters and sisters to be treated the SAME way that they treat other people’s daughters and sisters. I’m sorry, but T.I. isn’t impressing me in this instance. He can keep all that patriarchal male bravado.

 

LOOKING BACK

I got written up in school all the time. I was routinely sent to ISS (in school suspension). I was even sent to OSS (out of school suspension). I served lunch detentions and after school detentions. I even served some saturday schools. Conventional wisdom would have you to believe that I was a horrible student academically, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. I almost always maintained at least a 3.5/4.0 GPA. I regularly made the honor roll. I was on the academics team. I graduated in the top 20% of my high school class. Want to know what I was always getting written up for? “Talking back to teachers”. I always took issue with the notion that because I was a student, an adult or authority figure could talk to me anyway they chose and dispense discipline to me discriminately. I graduated from high school. I graduated from college. I have never been arrested. Not all kids who are unruly in school turn out to be lawless troublemakers. Some of us go on to become innovators, critical thinkers, and the ones who inspire social change.

BEING FEMININE. BEING MALE. BEING BLACK. BEING ME.

Being feminine, male, and Black meant being told that little boys did not help their grandmothers take out her micros.

Being feminine, male, and Black meant hiding my sister’s dolls whenever an adult came in the room.

Being feminine, male, and Black meant using my bathing rag as a makeshift skirt, and a my shirt as a makeshift wig.

Being feminine, male, and Black meant being called a “sissy.”

Being feminine, male, and Black meant being told that I “walk like a girl.”

Being feminine, male, and Black meant having my grandmother tell me I don’t hold my hands the right way.

Being feminine, male, and Black meant not minding the company of girls, and preferring their company in many cases.

Being feminine, male, and Black meant having my sister threaten to tell our mom that I played in her high heels.

Being feminine, male, and Black meant having my aunt tell me that only “funny” mean wore tank tops under an unbuttoned shirt.

Being feminine, male, and Black meant having to play football when I really wanted to do gymnastics.

Being feminine, male, and Black meant being told that I “act like a girl.”

Being feminine, male, and Black meant being told that I didn’t carry my books the right way.

Being feminine, male, and Black meant enjoying Toni Braxton’s “Unbreak My Heart” because I loved her gown and her wig.

Being feminine, male, and Black meant staying inside reading while the “tougher” boys went to play basketball.

Being feminine, male, and Black meant being told that boys who laugh too much are “suspect.”

Being feminine, male, and Black meant patriarchal adult males thinking they had to “toughen me up.”

Being feminine, male, and Black meant female friends calling me “girl” in conversation, and then quickly apologizing for it because in this society we are taught to see femininity as degrading to boys and men.

Being feminine, male, and Black meant seeing the world differently.

Being feminine, male, and Black meant nights hopelessly praying that I was like other boys, “normal.”

Being feminine, male, and Black meant being me. It meant being what this society does not like, and does not care for, and does not encourage. It meant tears of shame. It meant being emotionally and psychologically battered, refusing to be broken.

Being feminine, male, and Black meant a lot of things when I was growing up, and most of those things were negative. I have learned to love the feminine, Black, male that I am, and my self-acceptance remains a work in progress. In a patriarchal society that exalts hyper-masculinity, I will always be sent the message that I am inadequate and inferior. The difference between then and now is that I have the courage and the language to shelter me in a cocoon of self-acceptance. I am feminine, I am male, I am Black, and most importantly, I am me.