I AM A FATHER
I AM A FATHER
NATE PARKER
When a black man is unlawfully murdered, the impact of his death is not in isolation. He is the son, the lover, the spouse, the father to someone, so the tragedy of his demise is magnified for those left behind. In collective response to the killings of fathers SEAN BELL, PHILANDO CASTILE, ERIC GARNER, GEORGE FLOYD, and all black men who are not provided context, the men of ICON MANN salute. This Father’s Day, with the participation of some of our dynamic dads, we honor every black dad declaring, I AM A FATHER. Here is Nate’s story.
PART I: DARING TO BE FREE
I am the proud father of five daughters. My oldest is 22 years old, and my youngest is three. Like the saying goes, "A father with daughters will never be alone.” I’ll never be kicked to the curb like I jokingly kicked my parents to the curb. As a young man, I can remember going out into the world, not really checking in much. And my eldest daughter is like that, my eldest daughter, she's just like me, where two weeks pass, I'm like, "Baby, where you at? How you doing? What's going on? Ain't heard from you." She's like, "I'm good, Dad, I'm doing this and this and that." So it's a blessing, I'm very, very, very, very happy to be in a leadership position with these young “she-roes” who have come into this world.
For me, fatherhood has been about humility, growth, and introspection. Those are probably not the traits that you would assign fatherhood if you’re not yet in the position. Most people see being a father as simple raising kids to do and achieve. However, I can say as a 40-year-old man that so much of being a father has been about learning. I will often sit my girls down and say, "Okay, look, let's talk about the things that you think I'm doing right and things that you think I'm doing wrong." Many of my generation come from a space of, “Do as I say, not as I do. Speak when spoken to. Respect your elders.”
All of that was important, but I also feel like a lot of the ways in which we, as black people specifically, raise our children were developed around protecting them. However, sometimes that protection can impede upon their growth and expression. Dr. Joy DeGruy wrote a book entitled “Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome” and I read it after I had my eldest daughter. It really taught me a lot about generational tactics that we pass down in our parenting that traumatize our children. Things that, as a father or a mother, you might've done in the plantation, and those skill sets were passed down through generations to us, and we don't know why we're doing them. Sure, we turned out okay, at least some of us. However, I think that as we continue to pursue our liberation physically, we have to continue to pursue our liberation psychologically and spiritually and emotionally, in ways that make it so our children can experience life emotionally, spiritually, physically at a higher level than we are.
Now, I approach my children with humility in the way I let them grow. When I was young, going to the grocery store was like walking into a china shop where I couldn’t touch anything, I had to keep my hands to myself and stand right with my mother. That’s the way my generation was raised. But why? Why did our parents want to keep us so close, why were they so concerned with us destroying public property, or just exercising our right to be free? It was out of fear it was a plantation mentality. If you broke something, or if you stepped out of line, like Emmett Till, one infraction could end your life.
However, one time as an adult I remember seeing a seven-year-old white kid with his mom in the grocery store. He was walking down the cereal aisle, he had his arm out knocking all the cereal boxes onto the floor. His mother was maybe 10 steps in front of him, and all of the boxes are tumbling, and I'm looking at him like my mom's going to beat him. Everything's tumbling down, his mother turns around and says, "Get over here." And they walked and didn't tell anyone, didn't pick it up. Now some might say, “You should never allow your kid to act up in public like that.” But why? I pay taxes, my ancestors fought and died since the beginning then built this country for free. What is owed? If freedom is truly owed, then why wouldn't I allow my kids to exercise a certain amount of freedom?
That’s entitlement, that’s privilege. We’re taught to stigmatize those words out of this feeling of oppression. However, I want my kids to have that freedom. I dream for the day my kids have the freedom to just be kids and not be chastised or killed for it.
PART II: DAUGHTERS OF FIRE & FLAME
The stories of BREONNA TAYLOR and SANDRA BLAND and so many more strike me as a father of girls. While I have a burning desire to raise five women who embrace their humanity and freedom, it’s so difficult when the world is telling them otherwise. Therefore, I have decided not to juxtapose the two. These elements will be at the core of their identity. When I sit down with my children altogether, we talk about 2020, we talk about white supremacy, we talk about being culturally bankrupt and having our legacy stolen. We talk about being a part of a greater legacy. My wife and I feel it’s imperative to understand the difference between being brown, of African descent, and being Black. And that all of those have different meanings, and those meetings are rooted in something that they need to understand. All of those things are important, of course, my 22-year-old gets it and is teaching me. But, in the same way, they teach each other reading or they'll teach each other about different other elements of life, those things will trickle down as well. Therefore, my three-year-old, named Justice, will understand the definition of justice, maybe even by the time she's four.
As a father, I am determined that their core values are all about culturally responsive education and understanding their place in the world, rather than assimilation. I’ve decided to teach my kids to be free and to be ready for the flame, rather than to teach my children to be oppressed and safe.
We have to understand that we all have weapons, we've all been equipped for this war. We also have to understand that in a war, every weapon has to be dispatched at the right time. Like on a battlefield, you have your archers, you have your infantry, you have your calvary, you have your generals. But if only the archers show up, it doesn't work. If only the cavalry shows up, it doesn't work. So we have to figure out new and innovative ways to lock arms, whether it be across industries, or whether it be across genders, whether it be across sexualities, whatever the case.
I take it as my charge to educate my daughters, constantly, on that ever-evolving state of our freedom, and their responsibility of keeping that flame lit.
PART III: RAISING A MAN
I adopted my nephew when he was 13. He was struggling back home, and I told him, “My father died early, but my uncles took me in and helped me.” So I'm his uncle, I'm going to bring him in. I brought him in, talked to my wife, "Here's a 13-year-old kid, who's a boy, who's having problems. It's going to take some work, but I want to bring him to the household, I think this is my burden to bear." And she said, "Okay," and we brought him in. And instantly, I had to shift from, "We're saving him" too, "Oh my goodness, I just brought a 13-year-old, 5'11", dark skin, Black, young man into my house." I live in a predominantly white area, my children go to predominantly white schools, in a predominantly, white-supremacist country. What am I going to do to protect him? Do I teach him to be free? Or do I teach him to survive? And again, I have to teach them to be free and understand the flame.
I came to realize that I'd rather teach him to be free and deal with the repercussions of his freedom than teach him to be a slave and have to deal with the repercussions of being a slave. My thinking this way started with the murder of MICHAEL BROWN. We were watching the news and saw the body on the ground, bloating under the sun. My nephew turned and said to me, "Uncle Nate, what do I do if I'm riding my bike to school?" He goes to a school that's predominantly European-American and Asian. I told him, "Well if you're on your bike and cops pull you over, the first thing you do is call me because I can get..." And then it hit me…I was like, "Wait, don't call me, because they will see you reaching into your pocket for your ID or for your phone.” Then I told him that if he’s stopped by police, "Well, slow down, very, very slowly. Before even the thing's stopped, put your feet down, put your hands up, make eye contact so they know who you are.” As I was talking, I realized, I’m traumatizing him. I said, "Do you know what, nephew? This is part of the big conversation. You know I'm going to go and get that answer."
Honestly, I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t know what to tell my 13-year-old nephew to save his life at that time.
Shortly after MICHAEL BROWN’S murder in 2014, I went to Ferguson to protest and learn as much as I could. Through the tear gas and the police firebombing houses and the all-out war on the streets, I gained a much deeper understanding. Returning to Los Angeles, I took all of that education, and not only did I share with my nephew but I also shot a film, “American Skin.” To sum it up perfectly, I said, "I'm going to do my very best to teach you to be free, but I'm giving you all the tools."
This fall, my nephew will be entering USC for his Masters in Fine Arts (MFA). While I was hesitant to have him go into the arts, he persuaded me by saying, "Look at my uncle using this tool for good, I think I can do this." Again, that's what I'm juxtaposing, freedom versus the flame. We talk about what just happened with GEORGE FLOYD and understanding the importance of fire as a form of leverage.
There has never been an oppressed people who only marched silently and got what they wanted. So I say that to say, as long as there is a potential for flame, there'll be a potential for progress, in my opinion. And I have to raise children that understand that. So they know that at every moment of their existence, they're under attack. But if they're under attack, there is a response, whether that be in the classroom with an ignorant teacher, whether it be with a real estate agent, whether it be with a police officer. I do not want to lose my children, I do not want to lose my son/nephew, I do not want to. However, I understand that there are sacrifices that so many of us have to have to make.
PART IV: LEARNING & LOVING
One thing I didn't have a lot of, from people other than my mother, was presence and response. Again, my generation grew up with parents that thought parenting was just paying bills, making sure your clothes were clean. There wasn’t a lot of presence or response. A parent can be present, sort of, like, “What were you saying baby? Okay, thanks.” It was a bit dismissive. But if you were to ask my daughters about how I show them love — and it would be to varying degrees — but they would tell you that I am present and I respond. I've learned presence and response, from the three to the 22-year old, are the things that keep our relationship strong. So if I'm working, and my daughter comes in and she's crying, for whatever reason — the chances are it's my three-year-old, my seven-year-old, my 10-year-old — I literally have a protocol. I stop what I'm doing and I look. And I say to myself, I'm like, "My daughter needs me present." It's in the response that makes someone feel seen and heard, and a lot of times when children feel seen and heard, they move onto the next point.
As parents, we often forget the power of just making a child feel seen and heard. And I'm not perfect at it, because sometimes there's the stress of the day. Like on these Zoom calls, it's hard to talk to your children when they’re interrupting or you’re in the middle of work. However, if I am present and respond in the trivial times, she will always come to me in the important times. The greatest thing that doesn't require you to have a lot, is presence and response. It has really changed my relationship with my older girls because I didn't start out that way. My 22-year-olds would have a lot of gripes about the early days. I didn't know what I was doing, I was experimenting. But then you evolve, but you can still teach those lessons and the love is always there.
We Honor You
ABOUT NATE - Film actor, writer, director. Credits include; American Skin, Birth of A Nation, Arbitrage, Beyond The Lights, Red Hook Summer, The Secret Lives of Bees, and The Great Debaters.
As told to Amy Elisa Jackson for ICON MANN
Photography and Video Direction by Dallas J. Logan + Dae Howerton
FATHER’S DAY 2020
