My Dad is a ferocious reader and pretty much one of the smartest men I know. He could sit and have a conversation with ANYBODY!! Doctor, lawyer, engineer, trash man, it did not matter, Pops could talk to you about anything on any level.
He put the paper down for a second and asked me how my first year of college. He asked about my coursework and of course my grades. Pops never really worried about me obtaining high marks in school, he was used to it from me so it was expected, like standard operating procedure. He then made a statement that kind of threw me off, he said "Integration was the worst thing to happen to education..."
I just sat there for a second with a puzzled face, really did not have a response but I am thinking in my head my parents went to great lengths to make sure my siblings and I had a diverse education. An education where we would interact with not just people who looked like us but people from all cultures. I was attending a majority white school in the middle of one of the most lopsided (cultural wise) cities in Virginia. Umm yea, and now you hit me with this!!!?????
He recognized the confusion on my face and further explained. He asked when was the last time you took a class about your culture? A couple of pages in your History book does not count! When have you ever taken a class just on our culture? I did not have an answer; I could not answer him because in all my years of education, up to that point, I never took a class about Black people. And at that very moment, I realized I knew very little about me, my family, my history, my CULTURE.
Pops, indirectly, pushed me to take this challenge head on and change. He made me realize that integration was an issue because it forced Black students to learn another culture, not their own. When you know about your culture, you have more pride about self; there is comfort in knowing where you came from and the realization of what you can really achieve. This is a huge part in what we call self-esteem. So that next semester in school, I made sure I enrolled myself in a Black Studies course and made it a point to explore who I was, where I came from, my family heritage and what it means to be me, to be Black.
My DAD did all of that in a 10 minute conversation. My Dad made sure, from birth, that I would become the best MAN I could be. He deplored lying, cheating and stealing and when I tried all three, he promptly beat me for it. He taught me to fight for myself when I would continuously get my a** kicked on the block. He pushed me on the basketball court and made every one of my games. He showed how to dress and conduct myself as a gentleman. Simply, he instilled in me to always try to become a better man everyday.
I cannot put a price, a theory, a statistical analysis on the importance of a Dad in a child's life, especially a young man. The effects a Dad has on a daughter is just as great if not greater.
What is the difference between a Father and a Dad? A Father donates the sperm, a Dad is all of the above and then some.
I want to personally thank all the DADS out there for being more than a Father and wish you all a Happy DADDYS Day!!!!!
Which one do you have, a Father or a Dad???
SPEAK OUT!!!
as always, GOD just working on my behalf! Since I recently just lost my dad (Jan 30th), I can definitely relate to your story!
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