Loving Black Men

The Black Men I love arrive like a trinity.

My father was the first man I ever loved. His stubbled skin balanced his smooth swagger as he walked into every room like the ancestors had sent him.

But his parenting skills were questionable. He arrived hours late during our visits after my parents’ divorce. I always forgave his tardiness as I ran down the steps and jumped in his arms, inhaling the scent of cologne on his neck.

Riding in the front seat of his freshly cleaned Cadillac, I bobbed my head to the latest R & B songs on the radio. Over an early dinner of cheesesteak hoagies (my then favorite), he made a series of unkept future promises I waited for the rest of his life to fulfill.

Ultimately, we’d end up at his favorite bar, “The Cubicle.” He sipped beer. My gangly legs dangled over the barstool while drinking some version of ginger ale with mountains of maraschino cherries.

My father planted the seeds of my future passions as a memoirist and international traveler. Despite our ups and downs, he knew dust would always be underneath my feet as I ran toward the next, uncertain adventure.

Preston, my stepfather, was my rock and safe place. He loved listening to what I learned at school that day as if he were learning it for the first time.

Every Sunday afternoon with Preston was a feast, as he cooked and barbecued everything in the refrigerator. Cooking was how “Dad,” as I came to call him, demonstrated his love and protection of the shattered places in the souls of mom and me.

Grandpop Eddie rounded out the first trio of Black men I loved.

He taught me about God – not the sadistic sheriff in the sky preachers shout about on Sunday mornings.

Instead, Grandpop Eddie taught me about the God that trills through a Miles Davis solo, whispers through the trees, and sits silently while the world roars around us. I love my grandfather’s version of God and that God is the one whose relationship I seek most.

The second trio of Black men I love is those I grew up with in school.

I will only mention them here by their first initial because we remain friends on FB. They can out themselves in the comments if they wish.

G. was the first Black (then) boy to get me. On a school bus trip for “gifted” Black kids to visit a state university, G saw me for the first time.

He respected my intelligence, understood my desire to escape from our suburban hell, and appreciated my ambition and insatiable free spirit. While our friendship has taken many forms in the past nearly 40 years, the connecting thread is love.

Nearly every page of my teenage diary from 1986 to 1989 mentioned S. I admired his seeming effortlessness in navigating the disparate teenage cliques of jocks, musicians, and nerds. In my eyes, his fatal flaw was that he only dated white girls.

In this case of unrequited puppy love, I ignored what I couldn't have or treated him horribly every chance I could get.

Now, S is one of my favorite people. I will pick up the phone whenever he calls – whether to tell me a funny story or how much I have inspired him in recent years. I appreciate his unique gift of cussing me out, making me belly laugh, and imparting wisdom within the same sentence.

Then there’s M. He’s the cool older brother everyone wanted. I feared and respected him when we were teenagers. Now, I realize he’s a big teddy bear. I admire his courage and care for his family. He does the right thing, especially when it’s hard and no one is watching.

He somehow knew I needed to know that the “fellas” created a community of care around one of their own after he faced a tragic event last year. To me, he personifies “Black Male Magic.”

The final trio were my work colleagues and mentors I met in journalism and politics.

I won’t discuss these three specifically because this post is already too long. But these men treated me like a sister. They provided opportunities, fought for me when I was too tired to fight for myself, and protected me whenever we went to sketchy dance clubs to release the chokehold of white supremacy.

This post is a love letter to Black men because I awoke thinking about Tyre Nichols this morning. I have never stopped thinking about him since the news of his inexplicable death.

However, I’m tired of writing about Black death, and the first way I thought to respond to his death was with love.

Every Black woman – including those of us without a womb and children – heard Tyre’s anguished cry when he called out to his mother moments before five Black police officers beat and killed him.

We hear you, Tyre, even if we couldn’t save you.

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About Freedom Road

The Narrative Gap, as coined by Lisa Sharon Harper, is the distance between the stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves, including how we got here and what it will take to make things right. In our world today, competing narratives vie for our loyalty, dividing society and the church, therefore making justice impossible. Our mission is help communities shrink the narrative gap, by identifying core issues and building community capacity so they might work toward common solutions for a just world. Here on the Freedom Road Substack, we can converse together on ways to shrink that narrative gap and help ensure everyones’ stories are told.

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