MY FATHER’S JOURNEY
Being a Black man is hard. Being a Black father is even harder, says Lloyd Wilks.
This Sunday is Father’s
Day. I’d like to tell you some important things about mine, and about Black fathers like him, and like me.
It cannot be denied that within the Black community, women often carry the uneven burden of raising their children, their grandchildren, children of extended families, without fathers. My own mother raised me for nine years, alone. I often think of how difficult a burden it was for her. She had my father’s financial support but that alone does not whole the circle. I salute my mother and all of these women because without them the journey for many Black children, including myself, would be fought with great despair and hopelessness.
But on Father’s Day, we’re talking about Black men and Black fathers, and specifically, my own father’s journey.
So much has been said and written about Black families: the absent fathers, mothers adopting the role of father to their children, sons becoming fathers to sisters, brothers and cousins, young men and women growing up with no male role model in the home — the epidemic of Black children learning life’s important lessons with little to no contact with their fathers. Sadly, much of this is true, but it is not the entire truth.
From the age of nine, I was raised by my father, alone.
He was born on May 24, 1933, in Valley, in the Parish of St. Catherine’s, Jamaica. The population hasn’t seen much growth since 1933, and it continues to be as rural and remote as much of the Canadian landscape. My grandparents had two children in their relationship but there were many half-siblings added to my father’s family as he grew up.
At the age of 22, he confidently informed my grandfather that he would be travelling to Britain to seek his fate. My grandfather — a farmer, shopkeeper, butcher, labourer and womanizer — sold two cows and, in 1955, my father set sail for Europe with £5 in his pocket and a train ticket to London’s Victoria station.
There are some aspects of my father’s childhood that he reflects on with love but there are too many that he reflects on with overwhelming amounts of loss, abandonment, vile and dejection. Life in Britain was a brutal awakening; it extinguished his hope and shattered his many dreams. With landlords advertising no Jews, Irish or Blacks, finding a place to live was often impossible. Menial work in London was plentiful but the pay was small and overtime a necessity.
In my family, we didn’t sing childhood songs about London Bridge falling down. Instead, I was told stories of my father riding his beloved Raleigh bicycle to work and being spat on for being Black. As buses and cars passed by a Black person, it was disgustingly common for these commuters to wind down their windows and spit on them. My father was spat on as he rode his Raleigh to work across the London Bridge almost every day. For being Black.
Eventually, the bicycle was sold and he stopped wanting to ride.
My father moved to Toronto in 1967. He told me that he always loved and wanted me; his goal was always to raise his son and look after his responsibility. He knew Canada was a young country full of hope and prosperity that needed people.
Resolute to minimize racism as a determinant of his income, my father set up his own painting and wallpapering business. He also said that he met some good white Canadians who gave him a chance and who passed his name along and helped to grow his business. Unfortunately, those people were greatly outnumbered by the ones who refused to allow him to use their washroom when he was on a job given that he was Black. The washroom in the garage was only for the white workers.
Being a Black man is harder. Being a Black father is harder.
That truth does not deny the many men like my father who rise up to be great Black men, to be loving parents and role models to young boys and girls and families. They are business leaders, teachers, pastors, professionals, labourers, working hard for their families like fathers of all stripes, faiths and communities.
However, even the most capable of Black fathers face challenges unique to Black men, and for some they are insurmountable.
There is a special focus on Black fathers and on Black men that I believe is unique to the Black community. It isn’t a rose-coloured spotlight. It is a focus that generates and cultivates and grows the spreading of suspicion and suggestion of negative innuendo about Black fathers and Black men. It is one that perpetuates anti-black racism with the objective of keeping Black men silenced, weak and cornered in a cover of darkness — a reflection of their skin colour. The energy powering this spotlight must end. Being Black should not be harder.
Happy Father’s Day, Dad. I love you for the man you held on to be and became.
Lloyd Wilks is chief executive officer of Counselquest Inc., a leader in litigation support and corporate investigations, an active member of the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers, and co-founder of Malachy’s Soiree, an annual fundraiser dedicated to transforming the neo-natal Intensive Care Unit at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto.