As the commencement ceremony began on Father’s Day, there was an early warning sign of trouble ahead. Everyone stood for a rendition of America the Beautiful, except for the woman seated in front of me. She deliberately refused to stand. Thousands were standing but no one was singing this song of the spirit. And the woman in front of me refused to stand. Then, there was the obligatory Indigenous People Acknowledgement. I don’t see the point unless one is conditioning the audience for redistribution of wealth. And I say this as a descendant of the earliest known Native American family, according to Gedmatch.com. I DNA match the little boy from Clovis, Montana. Millions of Americans do. We millions are all Native Americans in genetic descent.
One doesn’t have to be Hippie Girl to understand our spiritual bond to Native Americans.
Then, the flash point happened before my eyes. Hundreds of students, many wearing their keffiyeh, walked out of the commencement ceremony as the University President was speaking and prepared to award degrees. Disruption executed. Point made.
To my unbelieving ears, I heard a family member scream “Free Palestine.” The family member repeated the chant and others joined in. People started to stomp their feet on the bleachers in sympathy with my family member’s chant. And for the piece de resistance, the family member led a walk out of a row or two of attendees. The entire row in front of us was emptied.
I felt conflicted on Father’s Day.
There is a time and a place for protest. Many students and their families have invested years of their life to reach this point in life. Why spoil the ceremony for others who may not share your political sentiments and, in fact, may oppose your views?
On the other hand, my wife and I raised our children to be fearless in thought and opinion. I have urged my family member in question (Blackness is Oppression. Nothing else matters.) to find one’s super power in life. What is one’s calling? One will not find one’s calling by appeasing Mom and Dad in one’s 20s. One must make one’s own way in life.
And so I was truly all of these conflicted emotions in real time at the commencement. I felt like a thousand eyes were upon my family member who sparked a chant in the stands that grew louder and emptied a row in protest.
After the ceremony was over, I did not speak of it with my family member. My own struggle to be a non-conformer in a Black American family was speech enough. The conversation turned to other matters like the cultural clash between black students who grow up in predominantly white spaces and those black students who grow up in black spaces. Family member threatened to sue me if I wrote these truths. Family member was half-joking. I was taking notes/triple smile.
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I strongly believe we as a country are off the rails for many reasons. One reason is writers do not write plain truths about the human condition. We are led astray by dogma and slogan words that have no connection to reality. Today was a typical day of nuance and complexity in a Black American family.
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There is a book which captured my yesterday after the battle of Commencement. The book is titled Success Runs in Our Race by George C. Fraser. In his book, Fraser counsels readers to take full advantage of the rich networking opportunities within Black America. He specifically refers to fraternities, sororities and business networks.
Well, that was my post-Commencement battle day for sure. Watching my son was like watching a young John F. Kennedy or John F. (Honey Fitz) Fitzgerald. He was a perpetual motion communicator and friend to all. Always beaming with a charismatic smile, he bonded with any and everyone who he had the slightest relationship with. Many parents came up to me and my wife and remarked upon the fine job we had done as parents. Unlike Dad, my son accepted the acts of conscience of our family member and that the family member had missed his receipt of his degree. My son is of our family and acknowledged family member had to be true to family member’s conscience. And my heart was warmed as a Dad on Father’s Day.
So many black students knew my son and wanted to keep in touch with my son. Wouldn’t it be neat if the next generation in my family rose through the ranks like the Kennedy family from poverty to the White House in three or four generations? America, a beautiful place for generational ascent.
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She screamed as she opened her dorm room door. She grew up with my children in Jack and Jill. Their collective memories are too rich for me to recount. When one raises black children together in a tight association from the ages of 2 to 18, the children will create bonds that never break. Travel to any major city in the country. One will never be alone. There is always a Jack and Jill person around who understands the upper class mindset. And so I reflected upon how these two young women were cementing a relationship and friendship that would carry them through their 20s, 30s and beyond in life.
Michael Bowen has written about the Black Privilege vibe. I was feeling that vibe in the dorm room. Everyone had a Dad who was a lawyer from a top school. Everyone had attended an elite private school. Everyone knew the same small circle of friends. When Dad arrived, it was like meeting an old friend or cousin. How are you doing? How’s the practice? When did your daughter graduate? Even though Jack and Jill is a mom’s organization, the main beneficiaries are the children and their networks for life, legacy or otherwise. And the Dads get to know other lawyers and doctors and high achievers in towns like San Diego.
I recently hung up at home a framed certificate from our family past. The certificate documents admission of my children’s great grandfather to Alpha Phi Alpha in the 1930s. Nearly a century of staking a claim to fraternal relationships, connections and contacts.
I am not a member of a fraternity, so I write from a distance. I am a true non-conformer in my Black American family.
I witnessed this weekend the value of a line brother. “Gerald” attended the weekend events to show support for my son. When I first met Gerald, I was impressed with his number of degrees. He has so many graduate degrees at a young age and now he has set his sights on Harvard or Stanford Law School. I love driven young people.
Consigliere — this word came to my mind as I thought about my perception of Gerald. Obviously, there is no crime or crime boss involved. What I mean is how attentive Gerald was to our family’s every whim and need. We lost my wife’s bag at one point. Gerald remembered where the bag had been misplaced. An elderly family member needed assistance in the crowds. Gerald was there. My son needed help with his out of control schedule. Gerald was on the case. A family member was lost. Gerald led the reconnaissance team. At a loss for conversation? Gerald was never at a loss for things to say to keep things going. Could it be that having a fraternity brother for life is like a law-abiding consigliere? Gerald struck me as a White House Chief of Staff type as my gregarious son expanded his circle of friends and associates.
They are a good match, the true meaning of frat brothers as far as I can tell. Once again, I write from a distance.
Conclusion: Father’s Day ended on a high. I had the pleasure of savoring sweet chicken at a Thai restaurant in Berkeley. My family gifted me with two Brooks Brothers polo shirts, one red and one green. And I was given a blank check to buy any book at a local bookstore around the corner. I chose a light-hearted book, Come On In, Young Man! by Hal Lansky and Julie Lansky. My adult children autographed the book for me on Father’s Day.
That was my piece de resistance.
Please tell your daughter she is one of the most privileged people in the world; one with a loving and involved father.