Epilogue

The question on everyone's minds: have I pooped my pants again?

Nary a one. Sure, I've had some close calls, but for now the poop lesson has been learned. What I have done, however, is share these stories with my father. And the response I got? A multiplicity of negatives. And some positive.

"Loved the piece. It's great. BUT you do realize that when you talk about forgiving your father the wider societal understanding these days is you are forgiving me for being a drug using drunk who raped you right?"

Now, logically, I thought this analysis missed the point. I understand that societally, we do not have such a positive view of fathers, specifically Black ones, but my point wasn't that my father is a bad father, rather that even the best fathers/ parents/ people hurt others without even meaning to. And his point was that when the subject of children forgiving their fathers comes up, the societal reaction is never, ever mild. Which is not incorrect. But it also must be said: there are (so, so many) shades between great fathers and fathers that rape their daughters.

Emotionally, this analysis sent me into a downward spiral of shame—how could I hurt my father like this? How could I be responsible for representing Black men as a whole so negatively? Did I insinuate he was a drug using drunk that raped me?

The irony of all of these questions is that they have much more to do with our collective refusal of nuance and much less to do with me. It's easy to jump to stereotypes—heuristics are a powerful mechanism. It's much harder to separate the behavior from the identity and acknowledge that the labels of "good person" and "bad person" aren't useful and don't actually mean much. But, instead of doing that, instead of assuming the forgiveness is required because he did something as simple as hurt my feelings, we assume a Black father is a bad father and the forgiveness is required for much more sinister reasons, despite the former being true. We owe Black men more than that.

And then dancing in the nuance is the way we hold Black women (and the like—many personal crises over gender later and I have solidly landed on I don't know and any deeper thought leads me to get lost in the semantics of it all) responsible for society's perception of Black men. What's more, we silence and condemn Black women to protect Black men, forgetting that the experiences of Black women are deeply valuable and deserve space too. And are in no ways a commentary on all Black men, but rather personal experience with the men with which they're surrounded, be it Black or otherwise.

This is all to say, I deserve to be able to criticize my father. He happens to be Black, but his Blackness has nothing to do with my criticisms. And he deserves to be perceived multidimensionally. Not as a bad man or bad father, but as a human that's done some great things, some mundane, some shitty and by way of that hurt some feelings, mine included.