NBJC Salutes Black Gay Fathers

 

Black Gay Fatherhood

 

Fatherhood; what is it and how do men grasp hold to its valued place in society? In an era where hyper masculinity, street credentials and anti-intellectualism is the expected norm of many Black men, the value and worth of fatherhood remains an elusive construct. 

Meet Terrance Heath, a Black loving father.  Terrance is also gay and proud of it. Despite the words of many who would speak otherwise, Terrance proves that love makes a family, not heterosexuality. Terrance, a well known blogger and NBJC supporter was recently spotlighted in an article focusing upon gay fatherhood.  To read the article click here.

 

In addition Terrance also penned an essay in response to Ebony Magazine’s recent “The New Black Father” feature story.  His essay is below:

 

Terrance Heath Speaks Out 

on Black Gay Fatherhood

 

A few weeks ago, I was standing in line at the grocery store with my family when I saw the cover of Ebony magazine, which had been a constant presence in our home when I was growing up. (I'm pretty sure that my mom still subscribes today.) It was the cover story, "The New Black Father" that caught my attention. I wondered, perhaps even hoped, that maybe the article would include or at least mention black gay men who are fathers. Since I couldn't read the article and keep our four-year-old son reasonably quiet while we waited in line, I grabbed a copy and tossed it on the belt, with the intention of reading it when I got home.

I hoped I wouldn't be disappointed. But, as I pretty much expected, I was. I wrote an open letter to Ebony, emailed it to them, and posted it on my blog. To date, I've heard nothing from Ebony except the all-to-familiar silence that seems to accompany any discussion of gay issues in African American communities and institutions. I wasn't surprised. I didn't expect a response, and many of the people to whom I mentioned my open letter counseled me not to expect much. But what was most disappointing in Ebony's non-response was the confirmation that most of the time that familiar silence is still the best black LGBTs can expect in our communities.

I guess this father's day was especially significant to me. Probably because it was the second I've faced without my father, who passed away in April of last year. Dad and I never quite saw eye-to-eye on my being gay or building a family with another man. In fact we struggled over it right up until our last moments together. But on Father's Day, I'm reminded of the myriad ways my father's presence benefited me and helped make me the kind of husband and father I am today. I wrote about that in my letter to Ebony.

I know that including our families might upset some of your readers, who will undoubtedly ask what kind father someone like me could possibly be.

I can only answer that I am the kind of father I learned how to be from my father, whom I was blessed to have in my life for 38 years, and in our home during the entire time I was growing up. He was a loving and faithful husband to my mother for 50 years, and a good father to me and my siblings. I learned from him that being a father means being a man. I learned that being a man means taking responsibility and being there for my family. It means showing up.

Every day, in every way. I learned that being a man has as much to do with gentleness as it does with strength, and that sometimes it means being unashamed to cry openly. I learned that being a man has as much to do with kindness as it does with courage; as much to do with compassion as it does with discipline and resolve. That's the kind of father my dad taught me to be, and the kind of father I am trying to be to my son.

I am a black gay father raising a black son whom my partner and I adopted at four days old. We chose to adopt an African American infant for several reasons, and among them was the knowledge that African American infants and children are less often adopted than their white counterparts. We were chosen by his birth mother, who felt that we would raise him with unconditional love and —being an interracial couple as well as a same-sex couple — could empower him to face the prejudices he will almost certainly encounter, both as a black man and a son with same-sex parents. We are raising a black son whose birth father ran away from the responsibility to care for him and raise him. Where he said "no," we said "yes."

The gift of fatherhood, for me, is that every day I see more and more evidence that maybe I'm at least as positive an influence in my son's life as my father was in mine. I see it in his willingness to come to me and talk about his feelings. I see it in his gentleness and his generosity when he plays with children younger than him. And seeing that I know that my daily task as a parent will continue to be modeling for him how to be the best person he can be, and how to "be in the world" with integrity, empathy and compassion as his strengths. Fortunately, I had a good model from which to learn the same.

There are thousands more like me. Black gay men who have taken the best of what was passed on to us by our fathers and by the men in our families and communities, and are putting it to use in raising another generation of African American boys and girls. This, even as the most recent black presidential candidate calls on fathers to be responsible.

"It's about to be Father's Day," he said. "Let's admit to ourselves that there are a lot of men out there that need to stop acting like boys; who need to realize that responsibility does not end at conception; who need to know that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise a child."

…The Illinois senator said he would invest $50 million in programs to help people find transitional jobs and get training for permanent employment. That is needed, he said, to help men - especially black men - find work to replace hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs they've lost in the last six years.

We say "yes" to the responsibility and the gift of fatherhood every single day; we say "yes," because we can do no other, to the task of raising our children to thrive in a world that will (still) judge them negatively because of the color of their skin; we say "yes," again because we can do no other, to empowering our children to hold their heads up even in their own communities where they will likely face negative judgments because of who their parents are.

Our children are not served by silence. Neither are our families or our communities.