With Father’s Day approaching, I’ve thought a lot about what my father meant and the father I want to be, especially in the context of ongoing conversations.
My dad, Carlton Derrett, was raised in rural Tyler, Texas. He combined the blessings of athleticism, drive, and determination to earn a football and track scholarship to Rice University.
He was way better at track – a 5th place finish in the Division I 100-meter dash national final, only outrun by several Olympians. The football team sucked, and one of the few articles I could find with Dad’s name in it said something like “The Houston receiver scored a touchdown when defender Carlton Derrett fell down.”
Anyway, he graduated and later went to work for the Miller Brewing Company, where he started driving a truck for the company and worked his way up into the offices. For the family, it was the Miller Beer Tour of America, which included stops in Jonesboro (AR), and suburbs of Las Vegas, Atlanta, and Birmingham.
I mention the suburbs, because my dad knew the system and realized if he wanted his children – my brother and me – to have the best shot at success, then the best education would be out in the burbs. His job allowed us to have comfortable housing in comfortable areas.
And because he was loving and a wonderful provider for my mom and brother and me, he was an incredible dad. It’s made me wonder if I can ever have such a generational impact on a family of my own and be as good a dad as him. I doubt it.
Yet, I did see things that I would do differently. A big thing is being raised to see emotion as weakness. I saw my dad cry I think only once, during a speech he gave at my grandparents’ 50th anniversary. I wouldn’t have forced me to sign up to play a sport because “my sons are GOING to play sports.” I probably wouldn’t have gone as far as giving me the silent treatment in the parking lot after I struck out four times in a little league game.
BUT – and here’s where these recent thoughts come into play – I wonder if some of it he knew he had to do. Because maybe he knew how hard it was for him and how hard it would be for me.
It would be hard in my 5th grade suburban Birmingham classroom to squirm through the history chapters on the Civil Rights Movement, where I was the only kid in the class whose people were victimized by police dogs and fire hoses and bombs just a few decades earlier and a 20-minute drive away. It would be hard being successful and always looking different. It would be hard having a skin color that says I should do this thing or be good at that thing, while the culture around me identified very little with those things.
It would be hard being “so white” because of the articulate nature of my speech, which he and my mom instilled in me from an early age, or “so white” for naturally assuming the same interests as the predominately white friends and culture around me.
He passed away when I was 12, so I never got to ask him things of that nature. We never had “the talk” about dealing with the presumption of guilt, or law enforcement, or being black in America.
However, I hope whatever that talk might have looked like, that talks with my children will look different.
As I look to the future, part of my hope is that we’re getting to a place where we can shift the narrative for our kids. We can shift from “people discriminate; suck it up and buckle up” to a place where we can build them up in their areas of disprivilege, and challenge them and ourselves to identify the areas where we ARE privileged.
I want to tell a daughter to stay strong in a world battling misogyny, and that I will keep calling it out among other men, as I am member of that privileged group.
I want to tell a child of color every day that they are beautiful and powerful and strong, like this father: facebook.com/watch/?v=1458232957528109
If I have a child who “passes” as white, I want to tell my “white” child that they may be looked upon in higher regard or feared less than some of their friends and colleagues of color. Acknowledge that privilege, and call it out when other people fail to do so. At the same time, they can look the way they do and be proud to be black, and nobody can take that from them.
As a Christian, I would pray that a child of mine comes to know Jesus, and I want to tell them how easy it is for us to feel at home with our religion in this country, and to love and respect our brothers and sisters of other religions who may feel more alienated.
I want to tell my children, especially if they are young men, that it’s good to cry and embrace how they or others feel.
We don’t have to accept injustice, and we don’t have to apologize for our privilege. Hopefully we’re at a point where we can raise our children, and ourselves, to do something about both.