Clouds, Shade and Darkness

It's hot as the dickens down here in the city where sin comes to party.

It's so hot that every little bit of shade feels like paradise, and even the sun's departure brings no relief from the heat and humidity. The unrelenting heat, and the constant battle to escape it,  makes it impossible not to think about clouds, shade and darkness.

Every life is filled with seasons. The unbridled, potential-filled spring of childhood. The hot-headed, lust-filled and pressure-laden summer of young adulthood. The brisk, but comfortable middle-age of fall and, finally, the hoary cold of the winter of old age. For those blessed with a long life, we will see all of these seasons and experience the joys and pains that accompany each one.

We will all have our clouds, our shade and our darkness.

There is a difference between the three, particularly as it relates to how they affect our lives. Take shade, for instance. There is nothing more comforting when the summer sun is beating down on your head than a tiny oasis of shade. We seek that shade, it comforts us and provides a small escape.

But, when it's cold, shade is not a positive, but a negative. When we can't find the sun's rays in the cold, it's far easier to get chilled to the bone. In the cold, shade is not an oasis, but an ice patch, providing us with discomfort and some danger.

But, the shade is almost always a temporary and small thing. We can easily find it, or easily avoid it. When one area of shade deserts us, there is always another we can seek out. When we are trapped in one area of shade, we can usually escape with a minimum of effort.

That's not the case with clouds. Whether they be fluffy and white, or dark and gloomy, clouds have a far larger impact on our lives. In the heat, a passing cloud can provide us with comfort wherever we stand. It can also blot out the sun completely in the cold so there is nowhere to find warmth. Rain clouds can bring cooling rain, or violent and destructive thunderstorms.

We don't seek out clouds and typically we can only avoid them with some serious effort, if they are avoidable at all.

In fact, the only thing more unavoidable than clouds, is darkness.

We will see darkness. But, just like shade and clouds, it can be both boon and burden.

Darkness gives our world a rest from the sun. For while the sun helps sustain life, it can also erase it. Darkness provides a time of coolness, a time to recover and prepare for what will come in the future. Without darkness, would we even appreciate the light?

But, darkness also provides cover for things that are dangerous. Without the sun, things that abhor the light become bold. There is a reason so many people are afraid of the dark.

In our lives, we often get to make small decisions that will positively or negatively impact our lives. That's the shade. We also have unexpected situations that we cannot control, and that make good or bad impacts on how we live on a larger scale. They are obviously temporary, but that doesn't diminish their reach.  Those are our clouds.

Finally, we have things that are inevitable and unavoidable. Good and bad, these things will come and we must prepare ourselves to handle them. That's darkness.

What's your weather report looking like?

Share

That Final Statement

When you die, what will your obituary say?

Will you even have an obituary worth noting?

I thought about obituaries, and their role as the final public explanation of life, as I read the lengthy obituary of Sen. Robert Byrd in the New York Times. Byrd, one of West Virginia's senators for more than 50 years, died over the weekend and the Times took time to reflect on his lengthy and distinguished career.

Byrd was a Senate stalwart, a largely self-educated man who rose from humble beginnings to control the halls of legislative power. His life was one dedicated to upholding what he saw as the purpose of the Senate, and he played a role in many of the decisions that have defined our country over the past half century. He was the epitome of a mover and shaker, and his obituary takes care to give us a detailed picture of  how much accomplished.

Byrd was also a former Klansman.

This information is introduced some time around paragraph 20 of his obituary. It is followed by a fairly brief description of how Byrd joined the Klan, and how he later disavowed the group and its teachings.

Byrd's former Klan affiliations were known by many. On several occasions, in his autobiography and other forums, Byrd lamented what he called a foolish decision to join the group. He claimed he joined because it could provide him with political and social capital in the South. Byrd apologized many times for his transgressions, and often wondered aloud how long he would be punished for his mistake.

For most folks that has been enough. They refused to allow his Klan tenure, however regrettable, to overshadow everything else he had done with his life. Yes, Byrd opposed the Civil Rights act of '64 and the Voting Rights Act of '70, but he said that was more about protecting state's rights than hating Negroes. He also stressed that his branch of the Klan didn't physically harm Negroes, and directed most of its vitriol at Communists rather than black folks.

This was a distinction made in the article.

As, I read Byrd's obituary, I thought about how the world decides who you are, and what your life meant. For most of us, myself included, there will be no hoopla when we leave this world. Our families will grieve, but few folks outside of our immediate circle will take notice. It doesn't mean our lives were immaterial, it just means that we may have toiled in obscurity.

Byrd lived his life in the public, and consequently his successes and foibles have become public fodder. But, I found it telling that his stint as a Klansman, no matter how far it resided in his past, was not seen as something that needed to be included right up top when we considered who he was as a man. The Times decided that his tenure in the Klan was just a small and fairly inconsequential part of who he was.

Obviously, I disagree.

I believe in forgiveness. I believe in moving forward and moving on. But, no matter what Byrd accomplished in his life, and make no mistake he accomplished a lot, I think the fact that for a nice chunk of his life Byrd sympathized with the Klan is incredibly important. Even more telling was that Byrd used the Klan as a means to get into politics, so either his entire bid for public office was shaped by the Klan's beliefs, or he was a self-serving opportunist willing to align himself with anyone to get ahead.

I don't think the man's entire obituary should have been dedicated to the Klan, but I do think his time in the group merited mention early in the article, if not in the lede, or first paragraph. Joining the Klan, America's most well-known and deadly terrorist organization, is not a small thing. It's not something that should be just mentioned quickly and moved past. It's a defining piece of any man's legacy.

I know that when Al Sharpton dies, Tawana Brawley will be mentioned before the 20th paragraph because his mistake in that instance has defined him in many people's eyes.

I know when Michael Vick dies, dogs will be mentioned early in the obituary. When Kobe Bryant dies, the incident in Eagle, Colorado and his longstanding enmity with Shaquille O'Neal will be mentioned quickly. Just as Michael Jackson's issues with children were mentioned high in his obituary.

Some folks are never truly allowed to escape their pasts. No matter how fast they run or how much they achieve, those mistakes will forever feature prominently in any story told about their lives. They will not be swept aside to discuss other "more important" matters when folks are considering their lives in retrospect.

I'm not sure how Byrd earned that privilege.








Share

Two Homies

I know this boy named, well let's just call him Jay.

Homie is a fool. For real. Black as sin, and just as popular. Everybody knows Jay, and can't help but hang out with him. Matter of fact, it seems like he's everywhere, the club, the bar, church, the pool hall, it doesn't matter. That boy gets around.

He hangs with this other cat we call EV. Sometimes we call him by his middle name, Nathan. Now EV is slick in his own right, he ain't just Jay's wingman. His favorite color is green, and at the risk of losing my hetero-card, I must admit that the boy wears it well. EV is the type of cat who everybody wants to have around and be like.

Truth be told, Jay and EV got a lot of pull where I live, and if you let them tell it, their swag is appreciated worldwide. I can only vouch for the fact that they seem to popular everywhere I've been. Women or men, it doesn't matter, everyone is drawn to Jay and EV like those cats got some sort of magic aura. Reminds me of Charlie Murphy talking about Rick James back in the day.

Of the two, EV is easier cat to be around. I mean, with Jay you gotta worry about him actually taking stuff that belongs to you, but with EV he's typically just a harmeless hater. Yeah, he might covet what you have, or what you've accomplished, but he's not going to actually trying come at you and take it. He just figures he can get his own.

Jay on the other hand would jack his momma. That boy is never satisfied, particularly when other people are happy. It's like he thinks there's a finite amount of happiness in the world, and the only way to insure he has an adequate supply is to make sure he's living like Deebo. I try to tell the boy that happiness is just like pain, there's more than enough to go around, but he ain't trying to hear me. He's hardheaded. Sometimes I want to take a brick upside his head like Craig.

In fact, I often wonder why I'm even cool with Jay and EV. It's not like they really bring anything positive to my life. Hell, I can't say I've seen them bring anything positive to anyone's life.

But, no matter how often I tell myself to ignore those cats, I find myself drawn to them like fat folks to ribs. (Mmmmm... ribs.) It doesn't matter that they cause me to make bad decisions, or lead me to hurt other folks, I still hang around them.

Personally, I'm confused by my inability to shake those two cats. It's not like I don't have other friends, I do. But, no matter how much fun I have with those friends, and we do have fun, I find myself back on the couch with Jay and EV.

I hope they aren't my homies for life.







Share

I Was Gonna Chill

Father's Day has come and gone, and I really didn't plan on saying anything about the day.


Not because I have a bad relationship with my pops, nope me and the old fella are fine. It's not because I think fathers are fairly unimportant, I actually think they are equally important as women, if not slightly more important.

Nope, I wasn't going to say anything because I figured there wasn't much to be said. Sunday was a day to celebrate fathers, it seems like a fairly simple issue.

Only, things are rarely simple these days, no matter what it seems like on the surface.

Imagine my surprise when I saw that many people didn't see Sunday as just a time to appreciate their fathers, but also a time to castigate those men who are failing at their fatherly duties. I don't mean the folks who wrote heartfelt blogs about how the Dad's absence hurt them, I understand those folks. I mean the scores of people who decided to promote backhanded compliments at best to the fathers "who give a damn" through Facebook and other social media sites.

It was almost as if people felt they would have been doing a disservice to the world to write "Happy Father's Day," and instead felt compelled to let the world know their pleasantries only applied to certain fathers, not everybody with working sperm.

I found that strange.

I'm not the only one. Several other folks on the Internets found it weird that well-wishes for fathers came with caveats. I don't think there were the same sort of messages sent out to the ladies on Mother's Day, but if I'm wrong, somebody please correct me in the comments. And look, I understand that the absence of fathers, particularly black fathers, is a touchy and sensitive subject for folks which often creates hard feelings. But, the bottom line is that there are 364 days to lament all the men doing a bad job at being fathers, why would folks decide to do that on Father's Day?

Is it just me, or is that a little off?

I think it speaks to the strange relationship we as Americans, particularly black Americans, have with fathers. We acknowledge their importance, we understand they fulfill a need, but honestly, we don't really appreciate them as much as we do mothers, no matter what we say. And I'll admit that I'm guilty of the same attitude when it comes to my dad.

Things have only gotten worse as it's become easier and easier to blast dads due to the rapidly rising out-of-wedlock birth rate among black women, and the subsequent absence of the men who helped cause those births.

I haven't swallowed the meme that most black men don't care for the mothers of their children or even their children, but I do realize that many people today find marriage optional when it comes to raising babies. In fact, I wrote about it here.

The thing is, while I readily admit that many men are failing at the job of being fathers, isn't it obvious that many women are doing the same? If you consider the fact that being a good mother begins with selecting the man that you allow to impregnate you, the failure is quite massive. Combine that with the women who may be present in body, but absent in love, affection and dedication, and the problem becomes even worse.

Women are being asked to raise children alone and that's a very, VERY difficult job, but as the late John Wooden was found of saying "Never mistake activity for achievement". Bottom line, women have it rough, but quite a few of them are simply failing.

Yet, those failures don't require us to link caveats to our praises on Mother's Day. Instead, we focus on the positives, and we celebrate motherhood in all of its aspects. We don't take a day set aside for appreciation and use it as a time to denigrate. If we can do that for mommies, why can't we do it for daddies?

Daddies need love too.






Share