4 minute read
FATHERS DAY MESSAGE - MIN RALPH MUHAMMAD
Fathers DAY MESSAGE
The meaning of Father is one who takes the family and individuals in the family further especially the sons. The father is both protector, provider and maintainer of the family. Today in a society that deals with individuality the role of the father is becoming almost extinct especially in the black family. The statistics indicate that over 50 per cent of black families are headed by a female which causes many of the social ills that has affected our communities and continues to affect our communities. Even in cases that the father is present it is as if he is not there, he almost becomes the invisible man within the confines of his household and his family.
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The Willie Lynch syndrome has made the black woman more aggressive because she was put in a role on the plantation to protect the black man because the so called “slave master” was always plotting to destroy the black man. For those readers who read the Bible, Pharoahs decree a law to kill all the boy babies and spare the female and in present society he is still killing the black man through the many killings we are witnessing with the latest being George Floyd out of Minnesota. Unfortunately, there have been many George Floyds.
Along with the mass murders, now through the chemicalization of foods and drug, Pharoah is effeminizing the black man causing more separation within the nuclear family. Yet with all these conditions and there are others such as domestic violence, abandonment of children, massive incarceration, massive unemployment, and massive disenfranchisement, black men who have the will continue to take on the role of Father and raising their children, protecting and respecting his wife and his daughters. The father in the black community is unique and necessary to ensure a decent, safe, nurturing, spiritual environment to ensure that the cycle of fatherhood continues.
Min Ralph Muhammad
Spring 1978 in West Baltimore, 10 year old me started walking back home after watching the baseball game over in the Ellamont Road Alley. I didn’t play, I cheered from the sidelines, this is not my sport at all! Give me football!!
The neighborhood was up with the usual Saturday afternoon sounds, buzzing vacuum cleaners, pots and pans clinking, parents fussing at their kids to get their chores done or, “no outside” for them, and the staple, the constant, the go-to for keeping us moving while getting the chores done, Music. Music pouring through windows; funk, gospel, old standards.
There goes Chrissy singing to A Star is Born, again. She had me practicing with her most of last week.
A DJ spoke his intro to this new artist, “Prince, with Soft and Wet”. What the hell is soft and wet but bread when you’re making French toast, yuck. I heard a sigh, a faint breath exhaled?; did he say “Hi”?! This was a whole different sound coming from the instruments and that voice, high and cute, 10 year old girl cute. All of it drew me in and held me. Hold up, I slowed down to listen for the houses that were playing the new song by Prince. Man it was coming from almost every direction. The only prince I knew of was Prince Valiant.
“Hey, lover, sugar don’t you see? There’s so many things that you do to me,” Hey, Okay he kept my attention. I didn’t see but I was intrigued; I bent the corner to my block and Prince was still singing and I started dancing, see, this was tight, and round at times in just the right places and his sighs, gasp and swoon, clutching my pearls! This was right up my alley, pun intended! I am strutting up the first two flights of steps outside my building, stop and dance on the landing, which is also my stage, where my friends and I make up dances and have singing contests, all those things. I glanced up and over to my right to see if Greg was on his balcony, nope, not there; he’s cute like this song. I dance up the next flight, through the 2 doors and up the last two mini flights of stairs to our apartment. I had not heard anything like this before.
Now, know this too, I was into the bands playing funk, northern soul crooners, TSOP, disco, soft rock, so this was fun, refreshing, just like the breeze blowing outside,pollen filled and all, like the birds singing and it was funky-quirky too! Prince. Soft and Wet, huh? I liked what he’s saying, ooooooo, I shouldn’t have, should I? I got my recorder and my cassette tapes out, camped them in front of my radio and waited to hear it again. It didn’t matter if it took the rest of the day and night! I had to listen to it some more. My first eargasm...Rest In Melodies and Rhythms #PRN 16 -Lisa Brooks
