Tripod Home | New | TriTeca | Work/Money | Politics/Community | Living/Travel | Planet T | Daily ScoopPOLITICS & COMMUNITY
Andre C. Willis
interviewed by Anthony Qaiyum on June 11, 1996
We don't have a real model for family life in this country which is representative of what actually occurs in a family.
Andre C. Willis is a research associate at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African-American Research at Harvard. He is the editor of "Faith of Our Fathers," a collection of essays by eminent African-American men reflecting on fatherhood published by Dutton. Recently, he spoke with Tripod about his book and shared some of his thoughts on fatherhood.
Tripod: How did you get the inspiration for "Faith of Our Fathers"?Andre Willis: Five years ago, my son was born. At one point, I looked into his eyes and was profoundly confused. I didn't know what it actually meant to be a father. I didn't know if I was equipped to handle the role of father, so I began to think about my relationship with my father and think about my childhood. I wondered if there were helpful resources out there. Not self-help books, but books which contained people's stories that shed light on how intimate relations between parents and children can be successful. How people, black people particularly, work out the tension between being vulnerable inside of the family and struggle with being perceived as the most violent and vulgar creature outside of the family.
I wondered if there was any information that would elucidate how people have negotiated this kind of space as a father. I didn't find too much. So I decided to find people whom I respected and ask them to talk to me about it. All the gentleman I approached were ecstatic about writing about their experiences as sons and as fathers. Eleven of the twelve contributors are actually fathers. Yet, they hadn't had the opportunity to reflect in a public way on the role of the father or on their relationships with their fathers. People like Cornel West, an incredibly brilliant public intellectual and a wonderfully compassionate man, hadn't had the opportunity to talk about his father in public. He turned this into an opportunity for him to really reflect deeply on what it means to be a parent -- he is one -- and what it meant to him to be parented, and to be fathered in the way that he was. So that was the initial impetus and how I followed it up.
Tripod: Throughout the book, you and other contributors make reference to the pervasive stereotypes of black fathers -- not spending time with their children, that they aren't reliable providers -- yet there is also sense in some of essays that this is a time of crisis for African American families, and families in general. As a community, how do we go about breaking the stereotypes and still address the problems?
AW: One of the ways which we can really deal with the problems is by grappling with the stereotypes. It seems to me that we don't have a real model for family life in this country which is representative of what actually occurs in a family. We have a kind of two-sided discussion -- either the good family or the bad family. The bad family is the one where there is divorce or teen pregnancy or the death of a parent. As if a "real" or "good" family is only defined as two parents, 2.5 kids, a dog, and a house. One of the ways we can begin a dialogue about families in the truest sense is to move away from these two-sided mentalities and begin to assess families with language that is much more empowering and transformative. We should say that there are family types or structures that work for some people and for others, leave something to be desired. I think that one way is to begin to challenge that overarching American mythology.
When do we see a complicated, complex, rich-textured black man in popular image stereotypes?
The second way to begin to solve some of the problems is again attacking stereotypes, but different stereotypes. Most of the time we see black men on television or in print media as gangster images. We see a hyper-masculine, hyper-sexualized criminal, or something resembling a beast. One of the things that it does is deny black men the ability to see a full characterization of their humanity in popular media forms. When do we see a complicated, complex, rich-textured black man in popular image stereotypes? Well, quite frankly, we don't. And if we are trying to develop the type of intimacies that successful fatheringmust involve, then we want to make sure that we are able to know that black men can be more than just what we're shown in these media forms.
I think that those are two ways we can work at some of the problems, but those are at a personal or existential level. There are various sorts of political manifestations, unemployment, lack of education and other structural considerations which have to be attacked from the political realm and the realm of the academy and so forth. So I'd want to have a multi-level approach to some of these problems. One would be the personal level, the other would be the political. And finally I think we would need to develop some kind of spiritual conception which prioritizes love and harmony over material acquisitions and capital gain and so forth. Those would be some of my ideas.
To be in class as a black man with an infant encouraged people to ask me questions about my relationship with him and how it felt to be a father.
Tripod: You mention in your book that you bring your children to classes you teach at least once a semester. Can you give some background on why you do this and how you got the idea?
AW: Well it's funny, it wasn't like an actual idea. One day I had my son and the baby-sitter didn't show up.He was six-weeks old and his mother was away, so I took him to class! [laughs] To be in class as a black man with an infant that young encouraged people to ask me questions about my relationship with him and how it felt to be a father. The discussion would always evolve in intense and interesting ways when I brought him, so I continued. Now I have two children that live with their mother -- I am divorced, but I see them quite frequently. I make sure to bring them to my courses so the students have an opportunity to engage me on issues of parenting. I think there's really no discursive space in our society, institutionally or in the popular media, to really discuss substantive issues around parenting. Bringing my children to class is often a catalyst for the type of discussion that we need to have more frequently around parenting.
Tripod: What about from the viewpoint of your children? Would you say going to class is beneficial to them as well?
AW: It's good for them to see their dad in a different role. It's fun for them to mix it up with the students. My two boys are big-time hams. I think it's important for them to become familiar with the academic environment. Sometimes they talk a little bit, my youngest is two-and-a-half and my oldest is almost five. So he is able to have somewhat coherent conversations with the students. I think its affirming for him to be able to present himself in a semi-serious fashion. I think the kids enjoy it and have a good time.
Tripod: One of the things I really liked about the book is that it showed that you can't determine what makes someone successful. Some of the contributors had "great" fathers and others had "lousy" fathers. However, the contributors are all well-respected people in their fields. Sometimes they succeeded because of their families and sometimes despite their families. Did you know that this would be the case before you received their stories or did it just turn out like that?
AW: Well, it was my sense that this myth around family life in our country was profoundly misleading, in terms of not representing the vast majorities of people's experiences. I was fascinated by the essays, but I sort of did expect that even gentlemen as talented and successful as the ones in this compilation would dig up some troubling issues -- issues that would be difficult for the readers to swallow as well.
There is no way to predict success, and I think that the volume is a marvelous way of illustrating just how impossible it is to make those predictions. Some of it is about an individual's constitution. John Edgar Wideman wrote about finding out that he had a half-brother when he was fifty. He also has another brother who he wrote about in "Brothers and Keepers" who is a thief and a criminal and spent a whole lot of time in prison for murder. So you wonder, "Well if John grew up in the same house with his biological brother, why would John Wideman become a grand writer and his brother a criminal?" There are so many factors involved that you can't predict anything.
We need to talk about families in more constructive and productive language.
We need to talk about families in more of a constructive and productive language since we know we can't make these kinds of predictions based on whether you have two parents or one, or who you live with, or whether you have money or not. We need to change the language of how we put value judgments on different kinds of families. I think it's profoundly interesting that the text does illustrate how "success" can come from a myriad of different family structures.Tripod: Do you ever fear that people will read a book like this and, because these men are part of an elite group, say that these are the exceptions?
AW: I think that would certainly be the case because of the contributors. I think that there is always this notion of the "exceptional negro" which seems to float around our culture -- "Well, he's just a good one" -- whether it be Michael Jordan or Michael Jackson. But we don't want a Jerry Jordan or Joe Jackson who makes a little bit of money and lives down the block. So the question becomes how are we able to articulate concerns from the middle class or from the academic elite, if you will, that don't get ghettoized as the exceptional negro.
I think that in one sense there is really no way out of that trap. That is something that has to shift from outside of what the authors of these various pieces are saying. It has to be an external shift in the consciousness of people who are attempting to understand what we're saying. On the other hand, I hope that this text is able to invite other people to think about how they have been parented and how they parent. None of the essays speak at length about the presence a single mother, or about being raised by a homosexual couple. There is a lot of space for reflections on parenthood.
I am hoping that this book will generate more critical discussions in the form of texts and essays than we've seen thus far. That will be the only way to see that parenting is a primordial way of forming the essence of who we are. Every human has a link to parents that is structured into their existence. And when you have a link to parents, what happens in and around that link, say if one of them is missing or one of them is missing intellectually or spiritually or physically? Something has to happen in that space. There is a presence in the absence. What one has to do is interrogate the ways in which they negotiate that absence. That is where the richness in these discussions is located.
Tripod: Did you ever consider having any other figures such as athletes or hip-hop stars, or did you want to avoid those stereotypical professions?
AW: I wanted writers. I wanted intellectuals; people who reflect in the way that I do. Admittedly, it's a narrow slice that leans toward my own tendencies and my own ways of thinking as an intellectual. I did think about getting athletes and more entertainers, but I do think those voices are so overly represented that I don't mind erring on the side of just having "just" intellectuals. I also had one musician, Delfeayo Marsalis. Those other voices are so often represented and I think we need to expand. I wanted to bring these intellectuals to a popular market where they could be disseminated and understood by regular, ordinary people. These are not academic essays, these essays are quite readable, it seems to me. But they have a lot of information, so that was the attempt.
Tripod: There has been a lot of attention on the black man this year with the Million Man March. By focusing on fatherhood your book seems to have a male slant. What can the book offer to black women, or women in general?
AW: One of the fascinating things about the text is that it speaks to some "universals". When I say "universals", I mean things like the intimate bond between parents and children loving each other. What I think women can get out of it is a better understanding of men. By reading this text , women can open a window into how men are shaped and formed by patriarchy. I talk about the patriarchal father being emotionally absent when a child just needs an emotional presence. Yet patriarchy dictates that men should be distant and independent and invulnerable. Women can gain some insight into men by looking at this text and also into the whole idea of parenthood.
I think the universals and similarities between motherhood and fatherhood can go both ways.
I think the universals and similarities between motherhood and fatherhood can go both ways. That is, some of what we talk about between father and child is very easily applicable to what goes on between mother and child. Of course, I think a lot of the writing is powerful for any reader. The last essay talks about adoption and issues related to that. I think there are universal feelings around adoption that can cross gender. I think there is something for women if they take the time to check it out.
Tripod: So overall you see the book as lessening the gender gap rather than creating a wider one?
AW: I think it depends on the reader. I certainly would make the claim in public that we need to have just as much work done on interrogating things about black women and women in general. I think one could read it as another contribution as a reflection on the status of the black male. You can read it like that, but it seems to me that would be like seeing "Mission Impossible" and saying its racist because it only has one black guy in it. If we come to the project openly there is something that people can get from it. Most of the times when I speak about the text, I do suggest that this type of interrogation should be done for women and black women as well.
Tripod: Just to wrap up the interview, do you have any Father's Day message or advice that you would like to give to the readers?
AW: I think that the most important aspect of parenting is loving yourself, having the courage to be yourself and to know yourself and then to translate that self-knowledge into self-love. Once one feels a certain kind of strength in their self-conception, that can then be handed down to inspire, educate and affirm their youngster. So I would want to see black men in particular try to work on their vulnerabilities and work on showing emotions. It's very difficult in this society, which is always bombarding black men with attacks on their self-conception. What I'm suggesting is that we try to fight those attacks in public sphere, but in the private sphere try to refine and hone our own sense of being in touch with ourselves. In that way we can be more deeply in touch with our children. That would be my advice.
Tripod Home | New | TriTeca | Work/Money | Politics/Community | Living/Travel | Planet T | Daily Scoop Map | Search | Help | Send Us Comments
