Milwaukee's Black Fathers

In his column "Paging black fathers: Your kids need you," Eugene Kane makes some good points; unfortunately, not enough.

He strays from his message about how important it is for children to have responsible fathers in their lives.

Rather than putting blame squarely on the shoulders of the absentee, irresponsible dads for failing their children, he places most of the blame on "institutional obstructions" for their absence.

Kane writes:

Black fathers get a bad rap these days. Deservedly so, in many cases.

Sometimes the buzz on African-American fathers gets so negative it's hard to imagine any black men in town trying to do well by their children.

Turns out, Terence Ray doesn't believe that.

As head of the non-profit group Milwaukee Fatherhood Initiative, Ray is reaching out to black fathers with a variety of programs and services designed to improve their relationships with their children.

As a black father himself, Ray understands the difficulty of being a strong role model for his kids at a time when many place blame for much of the dysfunction in the African-American community squarely on the backs of black fathers missing in action from their children's lives.

That's why Ray was excited by the success of a gathering for black fathers a few weeks ago. The turnout for the Milwaukee Fatherhood Summit was more than 2,600 people, twice the number at the original event last year.

It's wonderful that the Milwaukee Fatherhood Summit was a success. With thousands attending, that's a hopeful sign.

The full-day event featured speakers, workshops, a job fair with more than 60 employers and even sessions on parenting. But in Ray's mind, the biggest success was the amount of information given to men who wanted to remove institutional obstructions to becoming better fathers.

Things like advice on invalid driver's licenses and getting a reduction on interest for back child support payments were a paramount concern to many of the men. Ray said it is impossible to overestimate the impact of such issues on family life.

"There are guys who literally walked away with more than thousands of dollars wiped off their debt," said Ray, in reference to agreements his organization had with the state to waive some money if men voluntarily participated in the parenting sessions.

"That's a real relief for some guys who had it hanging over their heads before they could be better fathers," he said.

So, in effect, all that these deadbeat fathers had to do was show up for a day of some workshops at the Milwaukee Fatherhood Summit and they were freed from thousands of dollars of debt.

That's a sweet deal, isn't it?

Certainly in some cases, taxpayers have been picking up the slack for years because these irresponsible men wouldn't be fathers to their children.

Once more, the state (meaning taxpayers) lets them off the hook, forgiving them, their debt wiped away because they went to some workshops and a job fair.

Yippee! Now that these "institutional obstructions" have been removed, they can be "better fathers."

GIVE ME A BREAK!

Have these men really changed? Is there any reason to believe that they've been reborn and will make child support payments?

These fathers walked out on their children. Now, they're supposedly walking back into their children's lives and ready to be good fathers.

That would be nice if that were true. I doubt that it is.

I wonder. How many of the fathers were married to the mothers of the children, at least at some point?

Were these ever intact families?

Ray also noted counseling paid off for some men who had never checked into repairing their "bad" driver's licenses.

"One guy thought he owed thousands, but it ended up all he had to do was pay $75 and he could get his license back," Ray said.

It's hard for some to comprehend how difficult it is for some fathers who are dealing with back child support and driver's license issues daily. These problems complicate the lives of the men regularly accused of being bad fathers, often to the point they just give up.

Huh? Repair "bad" driver's licenses?

A man couldn't be a father to his kids because he thought he owed thousands when all he needed to do was pay $75 to get his license back.

I don't get it.

Why would a man ABANDON HIS CHILDREN just because he lost his license?

I'm sorry. I don't buy this.

"Institutional obstructions" aren't keeping men from being fathers to their children.

Bad choices, irresponsibility, and simply not caring keep them from their kids.

All people have struggles of some sort. They have debt. They lose their licenses. Whatever.

That's no excuse to run out.

Perhaps these fathers didn't leave. Perhaps they were never there, never playing a role in their kids' lives.

Ray, 46, said his own father was "not the nurturing type. He was a provider."

That lack of interaction with his father created problems for Ray as a young man. His involvement in a robbery landed Ray behind bars for four years. He was released in 1990. Since then, Ray has tried to give back to the community with his involvement with black youth.

He also continues to be the best father he can to his own children by creating stability in their lives.

Although he wasn't a nurturer, Ray was lucky that his father was a provider. Too many kids in Milwaukee's black community aren't so lucky.

It's true that I'm being critical of the notion that "institutional obstructions" -- big, bad society's big, bad rules -- caused men to stay away from their children.

I have a real problem with that excuse.

However, I think Ray deserves a great deal of credit for working to better the community. More men need to be like him. He cares.

That's possibly the most important thing of all. First, you have to care.

Today's missing black men underestimate the impact they could have simply by showing up for their children. Many stay away because of problems with the legal system, which is why it's important for society to eliminate as many of those barriers as possible.

But the men need to show up, too. Instead of being missing in action, we need to get black fathers back on the front lines where they are so desperately needed.

Kane rightly stresses the importance of fathers being involved with their children.

But it's wrong for him to whine about problems with the legal system standing in the way of a man being a father.

That's BS.

A man chooses not to be a father to his children. How he behaves is his choice. Problems with the legal system are avoidable by not breaking the law.

Society hasn't created barriers that prevent black men from fulfilling their responsibilities as parents.

The fathers choose not to be parents.

It's possible that has something to do with the fact that some of these fathers were still children themselves when their offspring needed them to assume the responsibilities of adulthood. The impact of a child having a child for a parent cannot be underestimated.

Hopefully, Ray's work will help these fathers realize that their children need them to be parents.

They also must realize that blaming society for their own shortcomings is a mistake.

We need black men to be involved and teach their children to work hard, be responsible, and aspire to achieve their dreams rather than to claim victim status.

The culture of victimhood may be the greatest barrier they face.