Whenever I take BART into San Francisco for a work-related event, I always feel like such a grownup. I grew up on Long Island, and riding the commuter rail from the Island into Manhattan felt to me like to the true marker of adulthood. When I was finally old enough to board the train at Freeport station, take my seat on the train car, open up my copy of the New York Times, and enjoy the ride into my office, then I would know I was a fully-fledged adult.
Alas, I have never had a job that required more than a 5-10 minute commute, and I am very grateful for that; but it also means I’ve never really had the opportunity to be among those people who ride the train into work on a regular basis. Even today, a part of me is still that kid who can’t wait ’til she’s old enough to ride the into the City all by myself. For the guy in this drawing, on the other hand, there didn’t seem to be anything fun or adventurous or novel about BARTing in to the financial district. He was wearing a really cool coat, though.
It’s rare that I see middle-aged types (like me) waiting at the bus stop outside the Mills College main gates. In this drawing, you’ll notice the subject’s slightly raised left eyebrow. You probably even recognize the look. It’s the this-bus-better-be-coming-in-the-next-five-minutes stare.
I hope it showed up, my brother. I really hope it did.
For the last several days I’ve pretty much gone from my house to my office to my classes and meetings, and back to my house. So when I finally stole a moment to go somewhere that wasn’t home or work, I couldn’t help but take notice of the people around me.
There’s a certain kind of brother who knows he’s doing something really special when he puts on a white tie. You know kind of man to about whom I’m referring. He tends to be middle-aged, with diamond stud earrings or 23 carat gold hoops, and he’s got a super clean, freshly-trimmed hairline. His style consciousness is arrested in time, and his way of accessorizing and dressing recalls the decade during which he came of age. For this man, it was the early 1990s.
Why are all the performance parent types on television always depicted as women? There are the stage mothers, the soccer moms, and the dance moms. And, whether they’re portrayed as doting or obsessive, these moms are almost always portrayed as white…which brings me to the subject of today’s drawing, the Black gymnastics dads. Yes, they do exist. I cannot say they are legion, but I see them every week, when I accompany my niece to her gymnastics school. Last week, while I was sitting in one of the waiting areas, I happened to notice that there were 5 dads standing in the lobby, and four of those dads were Black men. One was standing and watching his daughter’s class, and three were helping their daughters into or out of jacket, shoes, and socks.
I don’t need to recount all of the media coverage that addresses how or why Black fathers are absent. And I am not suggesting that absentee fathers are not a problem. But it is also a problem when the national rhetoric around Black men and parenting completely overlooks the very real presence and contributions of the men I see at my niece’s weekly class, the fathers who are loving and present caregivers–the fathers who are there.
I am not a huge fan of the neck tattoo. The name-in-script on the side of the neck is certainly preferable to the skull/sadclownhappyclown/giant eyeball/flaming heart in the center of the throat, but I generally question the wisdom of getting any sort of ink above the shoulders.
So … a few days ago, I ran into this guy who had “Juicy” tattooed on the right side of his neck (albeit in a modest and understated script). It had never occurred to me that anyone but James Mtume or Christopher “Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace would even consider such a thing.
As Christopher Wallace would say, “If you don’t know, now you know.”
