“No Dad at Home:” James Harrison, Colin Cowherd and the Case Against the Black Family

“No Dad at Home:”   

 James Harrison, Colin Cowherd and the Case Against the Black Family

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

In a recently published article in Men’s Journal, James Harrison questions the fairness and the administrative philosophy adopted by commissioner Roger Goodell.  Referring to Goodell as a “crook,” “puppet,” “dictator” and a “punk” (among others things), Harrison problematizes the ways in which race operates within the NFL. “Clay Matthews, who’s all hype — he had a couple of three-sack games in the first four weeks and was never heard from again — I’m quite sure I saw him put his helmet on Michael Vick and never paid a dime,” notes Harrison. “But if I hit Peyton Manning or Tom Brady high, they’d have fucked around and kicked me out of the league.” And: “I slammed Vince Young on his head and paid five grand, but just touched Drew Brees and that was 20. You think black players don’t see this shit and lose all respect for Goodell?”

In a lengthy piece, entitled “Confessions of a Hitman,” Harrison discusses a myriad of issues.  Yet, his comments about the commissioner, and his references to racial inequality in the punishment of players, have not surprisingly prompted the most widespread media commentary and condemnation.  For example, Gregg Doyel, with “Goodell is a strict disciplinarian, but he's no racist,” scoffed at the claim the Goodell is a racist or even that he treats black players differently/unfairly (he and others may want to read the work of Herbert Simmons and Vernon Andrews – here is a second piece by Andrews). 

Goodell runs his league the way strong parents run their family: With rules, with parameters, with discipline. No shortcuts. No excuses. Tough love all the way, and if the players don't like it, well, it happens. Does a 16-year-old like it when he sneaks out for a night of drinking, gets busted, then gets grounded for three months? No, the teenager doesn't like it. Shocking

Building upon this argument during a discussion about Doyel’s piece, ESPN’s Colin Cowherd took to the air to recycle longstanding arguments about black families, single-mothers, absentee fathers, and the purported cultural shortcomings of black America.

Here is something that is interesting, if you look at basic metrics or numbers in this country.  71% of African Americans no Dad at home; no disciplinarian.  Fathers are often louder voice, the disciplinarian.  Many of those kids don’t grow up with a dad, raised by mom, sister, aunts, nieces, uncles whatever. 

They go to college where they are stars.  And basically even their college coach, as we saw with Ohio State, pretty much lets the stars run the program.  The NFL is one of the first places where many star players finally see discipline.  Finally have an authoritative male figure – buck stops here, I will make all the calls, you will not get an opinion. 

This was not the first time Cowherd talked about black families in relationship to sports, having questioned John Wall’s leadership abilities because of his limited relationship to his father (his father was incarcerated during Wall’s childhood, dying of liver disease when Wall was age 9).

Let me tell you something: I'm a big believer, when it comes to quarterbacks and point guards. Who's your dad? Who's your dad? Because I like confrontational players, I don't like passive aggressive. Strong families equal strong leaders. Talent? Overrated. Leadership? Underrated. And you can say, well, Colin, can you just go out and say anything crazy and get people to e-mail. That's not the point. You wouldn't e-mail if I was an idiot, because you wouldn't listen to the show. You listen to the show because we make good points.

I simply have a different opinion than you do on John Wall. I like the character of Derek Fisher, the rebounding and distribution ability of Rajon Rondo, that's what I like. That's what I want from my point guards. You celebrate the assists more than the buckets.....I know he's great. So don't confuse [me saying] John Wall's no good. No, John Wall's an A+ talent. I don't think he's ever gonna be an A+ win-championships point guard.

In both instances, the efforts to recycle the Moynihan report, to define father as natural disciplinarian and mother’s nurturing, to link cultural values to family structures, and to otherwise play upon longstanding racial stereotypes, is striking. However, I would like to reflect on his recent comments in a substantive way. 

First and foremost, the idea that 71% of black children grow up without fathers is at one level the result of a misunderstanding of facts and at another level the mere erasure of facts.  It would seem that Mr. Cowherd is invoking the often-cited statistics that 72% of African American children were born to unwed mothers, which is significantly higher than the national average of 40 %.  Yet, this statistic is misleading and misused as part of a historically-defined white racial project.  

First and foremost, child born into an unmarried family is not the same is growing up without a father.  In fact, only half of African American children live in single-parent homes.  Yet, this again, only tells part of the story.   The selective invoking of these statistics, while emblematic of the hegemony of heterosexist patriarchy, says very little about whether or not a child grows up with two parents involved in their lives.  According to the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a sizable portion of those children born to single mothers are born into families that can be defined as “marriage like.”  32% of unmarried parents are engaged in ‘visiting unions” (in a romantic relationship although living apart), with 50% of parents living together without being married.  In other words, the 72% says little about the presence of black fathers (or mothers for that matter). 

Likewise, this number says very little about the levels of involvement of fathers (and mothers), but rather how because of the media, popular culture and political discourses, black fatherhood is constructed “as an oxymoron” all while black motherhood is defined as “inadequate” and “insufficient.”  According to the introduction for The Myth of the Missing Black Father, edited by Roberta L. Coles and Charles Green,

It would be remiss to argue that there are not many absent black fathers, absence is only one slice of the fatherhood pie and a smaller slice than is normally thought. The problem with "absence," as is fairly well established now, is that it’s an ill defined pejorative concept usually denoting nonresidence with the child, and it is sometimes assumed in cases where there is no legal marriage to the mother. More importantly, absence connotes invisibility and noninvolvement, which further investigation has proven to be exaggerated (as will be discussed below). Furthermore, statistics on children’s living arrangements also indicate that nearly 41 percent of black children live with their fathers, either in a married or cohabiting couple household or with a single dad.

Countless studies substantiate the fallacies that guide claims about absentee black fathers.  For example, while black fathers are the least likely to be living with or married to the mother, they are much more likely to be involved and engaged with their children. 

For instance, Carlson and McLanahan’s (2002) figures indicated that only 37 percent of black nonmarital fathers were cohabiting with the child (compared to 66 percent of white fathers and 59 percent of Hispanic), but of those who weren’t cohabiting, 44 percent of unmarried black fathers were visiting the child, compared to only 17 percent of white and 26 percent of Hispanic fathers (in Coles and Green).

In total, Cowherd misrepresents reality, once again recycling a narrative about absentee black fathers and ineffective black mothers.

Second, the absurd “commentary” plays upon the idea that white power, the power to discipline and punish, reflects a level of benevolence, kindness, and a desire to save and help the otherwise helpless black child.  Of course, this embodies the longstanding idea of the White’s Man Burden.  In 1899, after U.S. victory during the Spanish-American War, the British poet Rudyard Kipling famously coined the phrase “the white man’s burden” to describe the responsibilities that reside with whiteness: a burden and obligation to teach and civilize the world’s barbarians. Albert J. Beveridge, a senator from Indiana, celebrated the “white man’s burden” as a noble mission and part of God’s master plan to bring civilization to the entire world:

Mr. President, this question is deeper than any question of party politics; deeper than any question of the isolated policy of our country even; deeper even than any question of constitutional power.. It is elemental.. It is racial.. God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Teutonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing but vain and idle self-contemplation and self-admiration.. No! He has made us the master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns.. He has given us the spirit of progress to overwhelm the forces of reaction throughout the earth.. He has made us adepts in government that we may administer government among savage and senile peoples.. Were it not for such a force as this the world would relapse into barbarism and night.. And of all our race.. He has marked the American people as His chosen nation to finally lead in the regeneration of the world.. This is the divine mission of America, and it holds for us all the profit, all the glory, all the happiness possible to man.. We are trustees of the world's progress, guardians of its righteous peace.. The judgment of the Master is upon us: "Ye have been faithful over a few things; I will make you ruler over many things.

It is clear that Cowherd sees Roger Goodell as following in these historic footsteps, bring civilization, leadership, discipline, and maturity to NFL and NBA players, who in his mind lack the requisite values because of the failures of their families.

Finally, the demonization of NFL and NBA players through the deployment of longstanding stereotypes of black families demonstrates “the significance we have placed in American society, and the black community specifically, on the relationship between fathers and their sons and on fatherhood and masculinity” (Neal, 111-112).  Reflecting on the ways in which black masculinity, black femininity, and black families (blackness) are imagined and conceived within contemporary American discourses, Neal highlights the ways in which black fathers are rendered as absent and a source of problems for the black community within political/academic circles and popular culture projects.   “Constructions of deviant sexuality emerge as a primary location for the production of these race and class subjectivities,” writes Micki Mcelya in Our Monica Ourselves: The Clinton Affair and the National Interest.  “Policy debates and public perceptions on welfare and impoverished Americans have focused relentlessly on the black urban poor – blaming nonnormative family structures, sexual promiscuity, and aid-induced laziness as the root cause of poverty and mobilizing of welfare queens, teen mothers, and sexually predatory young men to sustain the dismantling of the welfare state” (2001, p. 159). 

Whether in popular culture or in the news, during sports telecasts or talk radio, black fatherhood and motherhood are ubiquitously cited as the cause of (national) problems or as an issue that young black males have to overcome. Cowherd falls suit, blaming the bogeyman and woman – absent black fathers and ineffective black mothers – for the problems facing the NFL, all while celebrating the efforts to police and punish as necessary fathering from their white daddy. 

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David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He has written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular and academic mediums. His work explores the political economy of popular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, and popular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis. He is the author of Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema and the forthcoming After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop (SUNY Press). Leonard is a regular contributor to NewBlackMan and blogs @ No Tsuris.

Are We Lowering the Bar for Black Fathers?

Are We Lowering the Bar for Black Fathers?

by Mark Anthony Neal | @NewBlackMan

I am a better father, than I am a husband; or at least that is what has been affirmed to me, if I am to gauge such things by the number of compliments that I receive from friends and passer-bys. Indeed it’s been so easy to believe the hype, as strangers react in amazement when I show any hint of nurturing, affection or playfulness with my two daughters. I used to strut around thinking I was doing something exceptional; twelve years of parenting and decades of critical attention to the discourses that frame contemporary Black masculinity have taught me that such affirmation is borne out of a belief that Black men play little role in the lives of their children. In a society that expects so little from them, Black fathers often get celebrated for doing exactly what they are supposed to do as parents.

I thought about all of this, when the Today Show recently did a story about the positive impact of horseplay between fathers and children. It’s not new research; I cited the decade-old research of Ross Parke and Armin Brott (Throwaway Dads: The Myths and Barriers That Keep Men from Being the Fathers They Want to Be) in my book New Black Man (2005), paying particular attention to the effects play with fathers has on the self-esteem of daughters. I can’t think of a father that doesn’t find such activity one of the most pleasurable experiences of parenting, especially with young children; such play is still a vital part of my relationships with both of my daughters. I can imagine play with fathers becoming one of the pillars of a normative American fatherhood, along with providing security and discipline.

Yet, regardless of race, the expectations associated with fatherhood are far less dynamic than those that we expect of mothers, so much so that there are even institutional impediments that discouraged men from fully engaging in parenting responsibilities beyond those that are viewed as normal. 

It is only within the last decade, for example, that public restrooms include unisex changing stations or changing stations in men’s bathroom to accommodate fathers. In interactions with child-care providers, teachers, and pediatricians, fathers continue to be treated as disinterested on-lookers. Child-care providers almost never provided me information about the kinds of days my daughters had when I picked them up, without me making an effort to get such information. They would freely share such information with my wife—and always with much more detail than they shared with me. It has been no different with their schooling, as teachers and administrators seem genuinely confused—or even concerned for their safety—when Black fathers, in particular, decide to be classroom parents or occasionally decide to visit, as if we are all party to some on-going child custody case with our baby-mama.

And if institutional forces didn’t do enough to discourage more engaged parenting by fathers, popular culture has been a trusted source to further dissuade engaged fatherhood. Indeed there is an entire comedic tradition—a cottage industry really —built around fathers and parenting. Films like Daddy Day Care (2003), Parenthood (1989) and Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) and numerous television sitcoms have flourished by making the clueless, ineffective father the regular punch-line. In early television culture—and well into the 1980s—the comic image of the father trying to survive the challenges of domestic life, where countered by equally troubling comic images regarding women in the workforce; I’m thinking specifically about a the highly influential I Love Lucy, which along with early sitcoms like Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie (where the main female characters had magic powers) served as a backlash to the influx of women in the workforce during World War II.

Indeed, in our contemporary culture, the lowered expectations for Black fathers are powerfully contrasted by expectations for Black mothers that adhere to parenting standards that are almost impossible sustain, without an engaged co-parent; mothers in general are given little sympathy when they fail to live up the societal expectations of what a “true” mother—woman—is supposed to do.

While there are many criticisms directed at absentee Black fathers—and legitimately so—very rarely is that level of critique extended to Black fathers when they are present, even if they are engaged in abusive behavior towards their partners and their children. Not so ironically, there is a equally troubling discourse that blames Black women, their ambitions, and their so-called attitudes for the failure of Black fathers to remain in the home or as engaged parents. Such critiques place a premium for fathers being present, often overlooking that what many children need, is simply to have as many adults as possible involved in their lives, regardless of gender or if they live in the residence.

With so many communities being challenged by chronic unemployment, particularly among adult males, parenting and gender scripts are seemingly being re-written as we speak. The Today Show feature that I cite above, as well as sitcoms like Modern Family, is evidence of a culture trying to wrap its head around what fathers bring to the table as parents—beyond traditional expectations—at a time when many fathers have little choice but to take a hands-on approach to parenting in order for their families to survive. It should not have taken a national economic crisis for us to realize that in devaluing the role that men can play in raising children, regardless if they are parents or not, we are devaluing the lives of our children also.

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Mark Anthony Neal is the father of two adopted daughters, aged 12 and 8.  The author of several books, including the forthcoming Looking for Leroy: (Il)Legible Black Masculinities (New York University Press), Neal also teaches African-American Studies at Duke University and is the host of the weekly Webcast, Left of Black, produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University. You can follow him on Twitter @NewBlackMan