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Monday, September 03, 2007

Guiding Light


Peace,
We are not muslims. In their religion Allah is the Greatest. In this way of life Allah is great yet the babies are the greatest. Today's Supreme Mathematics is Understanding. Understanding is grasp something to the degree that you can instruct someone else in it. Understanding grows overtime. The babies are the greatest because we impart upon them our life experiences and then they add on with their own.

I remember when I dropped off my son to his first day of daycare. I was hesitant of leaving him there amongst strangers. I saw him go over to the rest of the children and start playing. I snuck out so that he wouldn't become emotional at me leaving. When his mother came to pick him up later he was calm yet he said to her ,"We have to find God, I think that he is lost." I remember taking him to his first day of school in kindergarten also, explaining to him that the milk they served there was not the same soy milk that we drank at home.

Coming from a household where my parents were at every school event and having an Old Earth who was a teacher I bear witness to the importance of the parents in the education process. If one reviews 120 Degrees (part of the curriculum of the Gods and Earths) and the 28th degree you will notice that the father is always removed from the family equation. As a father you have to be invovled intensely in the life of your child. Even you fathers who are classified as 'baby daddys'. Society doesn't want you to be the guiding light as the Sun of Man. It isn't easy in this society that isn't conducive to keeping together the Black family. It isn't easy in this society that survives on emasculating Black males. It still doesn't change the fact that this is something that needs to be done if anything is going to change. Read the article below originally posted at http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/684639.html



Fathers, don't be no-shows
Barry Saunders, Staff Writer

There was another Million Man March on Monday; but unlike the one 12 years ago, this one didn't capture the media's attention or tie up traffic.
Instead of a million dudes gathering in Washington, D.C., to hold hands and make solemn pledges, organizers of this year's event wanted them to march on schools.

In a scene scheduled to be repeated in 200 American cities on the first day of school, hundreds of black men in Wake County took their children to school and met their teachers.

At Powell Elementary School, Emmanuel Joyner of the W.E.B. Dubois Community Development Corporation said 178 black dads took their children to school on the first day. Wakefield Elementary had 102 and Wake Forest Elementary School had 60.

Craig Jones of Wake Forest was one of those, but he didn't know it until he got to school. "I was just coming to enroll my daughter in the second grade when I saw them welcoming fathers" in front of the school, Jones said.

Jones was 19 in 1995 and thought he was too young to participate in the march when Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan challenged the nation's black men to be better fathers, husbands, brothers, friends.

Now 31, Jones thinks he is the perfect age to participate in the latest movement. He said he has been involved in his daughter Skysha's life, taking her to school and to the library "since she's been in school."

Wake Forest Elementary School Principal Denise Tillery called the group's efforts to involve fathers in children's education wonderful. "Fathers are usually involved in big school events," she said, "but I would like to see dads more involved in day-to-day activities."

Tillery said she wants her staff to recognize "that some parents may not have had exceptional school experiences ... and may be intimidated" talking to school administrators.

"That's why I make sure my staff is warm and welcoming, not intimidating," she said.

She and Bettie Murchison, director of the DuBois group -- promoters of the local march -- noted that the template for all modern families is no longer the Cleavers or the Huxtables.

They said that even when the father is not the custodial parent, he still needs to be involved.

Rat on. Listen up, dudes. We know that nothing on Earth is as destructive to your emotional equilibrium as Baby Mama Drama, and often we'd prefer running through hell in a gasoline-soaked dashiki than having to talk to your child's mama.

But talk you must. Even if you have to keep muttering under your breath "I'm doing it for the kid," you need to talk to that woman and find out how the child is doing in school and what you can do to help.

I asked Phillip Smith, youth services coordinator at Dubois, if he'd think the "march" failed if a million dads took their kids to school Monday but were AWOL the rest of the year.

Nope, he said. "The true measure of success will be if we see improvements in test scores, educational performance and behavior. ... Rome wasn't built in a day. When we knocked over this rock, we knew what we might find and what we were facing."

I'm glad they're taking a long-range approach. We should all be aware of what we face if fathers are no-shows not just at school, but in their kids' lives.


You can tell Barry what you think at 836-2811 or e-mail him at barrys@nando.com.

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