Harold Dean Trulear
Raising Our Expectations I often play some of raw comedian Chris Rock’s material for my classes, because despite the obscene language he has an insight into our culture that frequently eclipses that of the church. One of his commentaries covers the subject of “low-lifes.” That’s not the word he uses, but it describes the “low-expectation-holding” population he wishes to identify. It includes people who brag on never having been to jail (“What do you want, a cookie? You ain’t supposed to go to jail!”) and—quite pointedly—men who boast that they take care of their kids. The comedian rants about people who think it special to do the expected, noteworthy to be responsible. Which brings me to our national programmatic investment in “fatherhood.” Yes, our federal government has a National Fatherhood Initiative, complete with a National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse, and—along with the Healthy Marriage Initiative—will invest $150 million “to help fathers meet their parenting and financial responsibilities to their children and assist married couples or those considering marriage in building strong relationships with each other and their children.” Do not get me wrong. This is not a rant against government social spending.
F aithful Citizenship The prisoner reentry initiative I direct has applied for funding under this appropriation. And why? Because it is necessary in a society where people boast about doing the ordinary precisely because so few actually do the ordinary! The Fatherhood Initiative’s website, Fatherhood.gov, urges men to “Take time to be a dad today!” The force of the statement reflects the countless numbers of fathers who do not. And before we stigmatize the absent fathers of innercity black youth and the 70 percent of African American children born out of wedlock in our poorest communities, let us not forget that father absence is an issue throughout society—whether dad is in prison or at the office, has run off without paying child support or run off to yet another meeting, has decided he has no financial responsibility because he was just in it for the sex, or decided he has no emotional responsibility because he supports his child financially. Maybe we should pass out cookies to fathers for doing what they are supposed to do. After all, we put a cap and gown on 5-year-olds for finishing kindergarten—something about self-esteem. But prophet Rock is right. We are a bunch of “low-expectation blankety-blanks” who, in the press to achieve, have forgotten the basics, forgotten accountability in an age of personal fulfillment, and have lost sight of intensive discipleship (isn’t that what fathers—Christian fathers—are supposed to do for their children?) in an age of structured mentoring. Trust me, I know the statistics on the effectiveness of mentoring. I have worked with mentoring programs since 1977 and currently mentor three young men myself. But I try always to remember that formal contemporary mentoring derives much of its necessity from the space created by the absence of fathers and adult male family members, on the one hand, and the failure of churches to provide informal support systems on the other. I know of a sainted local pastor who discovered this the hard way when he volunteered to be a mentor in a local reentry program. Told that there was a young man who “looked up to his uncle” and would be a good match, he quickly
accepted the assignment. When the door opened to the meeting room, in stepped his nephew! It took a government-sponsored mentoring program to arrange a match that could have occurred around a family meal. We absolutely need the federal government’s fatherhood initiatives. We need local and state work in the area. We need the philanthropic efforts of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s fatherhood work and the Open Society Institute’s Campaign for Black Male Achievement with its emphasis on fatherhood. But at some point, there must be a forensic audit of the time and investment of every sexually active male in America as well as a strategic process of ministry discernment of every female-heavy, maleMIA congregation that has preached individual success and prosperity at the expense of responsibility and accountability. Several years ago the book The Prayer of Jabez took the nation by storm. Christians and non-Christians bought into its seeming message of prosperity, and they jointly confessed their desire for God to “enlarge my territory.” But even author Bruce Wilkinson’s protests that the enlarged territory signified enlarged responsibility for kingdom purposes fell on deaf ears, clogged by the dross of so many messages of self-actualization, personal purpose, and divine destiny all packaged in the trappings of the American dream. A truly enlarged territory includes the children we bring into the world, and God’s people ought to raise their expectations and support for any efforts to provide them with responsible fathers, which is clearly God’s will for them. Harold Dean Trulear is associate professor of applied theology at Howard University School of Divinity in Washington, DC, and director of the Healing Communities Prisoner Reentry Initiative at the Philadelphia Leadership Foundation HealingCommunitiesUSA.org).
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