In an NPR interview, author Mark Anthony Neal talks about his book, his personal journey to becoming a Black Feminist Man, and how being a father of two little girls further galvanized him on this journey. He also comments on the impact of some pop culture phenomena. Audio clip here.
The link for his blog, NewBlackMan, is in the "resources" links of this blog... as well as some other great new links... this section is growing more and more almost daily! Another link relevant to this post (which is also listed under the "resources") would be the Dads And Daughters link, which i think every dad who has a daughter really should peep. Think i might actually forward it to couple people right now...
While we are on the subject of links, holla and let me know if you link me to your site! and thanks to those of you who already have, much appreciated! :)
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5 comments:
Great job on this blog!!
Def gonna link you...
Check out YardEdge.net too!
hey Karin, feelin your blog too! definitely wanna check the dub poetry next time i'm in yard... yer linked up too!
I haven't actually looked at the Dads and Daughters piece that you mentioned, but it got me thinking that I wd like to see thoughts on feminist fatherhood. Many of my friends have some of their most intimate dealings with sexism, patriarchy, rigid masculinity, emotional suppression, etc. through their experiences with their fathers. It’s deep. One of the reasons I'm excited about the idea of feminist men is the possibility that a generation can be raised with feminist, social justice values. Anyway, I’ll check out the site, but wd be interested in folks thoughts on feminist fatherhood (and need not be just from fathers).
i'm with you on all of that michelle! i think many of us grew up with an old school patriarchy in the household, and i believe that its crucial that todays men unlearn a lot of that so that new generations of feminist, socially and self aware families can move forward and model for others.
i gotta say, that Dads And Daughters link covers almost anything i would say and more. from raising newborn daughters, to links for adult daughters with absent dads, to how to intercept media images that tell girls they are not worthy, etc.. its pretty on point.
my dad (Lloyd I. Wright, Rest In Peace and Love) was indeed an old school patriarch, whose life started in rural Manchester, Jamaica and took him to all over the world as an advocate for cooperative/developmental ecomomics for poor people. His worldliness probably contributed to his consciousness around gender, though he definitely still had old school sexism ingrained in him (he used to feel behooved to tell women that they are fat and with concern ask what measures they are taking to lose weight..! no matter how many times we souted about how unappropriate this was, he kept on doing it. He would admit that perhaps "my generation" might have more insight as to how to really relate to women). But he was also the same father who laughed when i pierced my own ice-numbed ear in the bathroom with a flame sterilized needle at age 15. He just folded down his newspaper, looked, chuckled, and went back to reading. my mom lost her mind tho. also, it was reported to me that when i was 3 and my younger sister was born, i was insanely jealous of the attention she got, and at some point when i was bawling about how they put clips and berets in her hair but never mine... both of my parents put some clips and berets in my hair. i don't think we left the house, but i understand that somewhere there are pics of toddler me with tearstained cheeks and clips in my hair. hahaha!
my point is, this was indeed remarkable behavior for someone of my dad's generation (he was 75). He understood that these little things wouldn't "make me gay" and that i was just expressing myself, learning about myself. and even if i was gay, i think that would have been ok, and that he would have still loved me. He had queer friends that he was close to as well.
those are some thoughts on fatherhood :)
my younger sister has since concurred that she strongly believes dad would have been fine if i was gay. She also shared a story that i missed, that when he was in his early 20s in the 60's, he had intercepted a gaybashing in downtown Kingston. He asked them why they were beating the man, and they said because he was gay (in less kind words) and my dad thought this was unacceptable, and somehow made them stop. I didn't even know this story, but i guess i somehow internalized his somewhat counter-cultural stance for human rights. ie, he understood that beating someone up for loving another consenting adult is fundamentally wrong, oppressive, and obviously, not at all helpful for building community. And dad was a very community minded man.
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