The reaction the drawing got from my mother was far different than my dad’s. But it’s illustrative of what I believe the roles of a father and mother play in a child’s life.

When my mom saw it, her praise of it and me was effusive. You’d think I was a professional artist. Then my dad looked at it.

I stood there expectantly watching dad examine my effort. After a few moments’ consideration, he began with, “That’s not what a suit looks like.” Dad began to incisively criticize the problems with different leg and arm sizes, crooked lines, and missing features. After his critique, dad gave it back to me and said I needed to try again.

I can imagine someone reading this account forming the impression that my dad was mean or even abusive.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

My dad, as my mom did, was expressing his love for me.

Truth As Life: The Love of a Father

In the 60s and 70s when I was growing up, popular black culture hadn’t embraced marxism as it does today. In the traditional black family, our foundation was God. 

The mother and father’s relationship with their children is an allegory to God’s relationship with humankind. That relationship is this: Unconditional love, and Judgement. God loves us perfectly and unconditionally, but He is all perfect Justice.

That’s what happened when I showed my parents my drawing.

My mom was letting me know that no matter what I did, I would always be loved. There was nothing that could change that. Unconditional love. That’s mom’s job.

Dad, on the other hand, was letting me know this; Yes, we love you here, son, but out there in the world, you will be judged. That’s a father’s job. To prepare young men and women for the fact that out in the world, there is a standard to be met, and to not meet that standard invites harsh judgment.

Fatherly Advice

It’s a fact that everything we do, say, or think is constantly being judged, and critiqued at every moment. At home, at work, amongst friends, associates, and strangers. To pretend otherwise is not only foolish, but it invites harsh judgment.

My father made it clear to me in my early teen years. He told me if the police ever arrested me, he wasn’t coming to get me. He said if I was doing right, I wouldn’t have to worry about the police. But if I did something that drew the attention of the police, I would have to deal with it myself. 

Dad was preparing me to be judged.

When my own son was about 15 he came running home breathless. We lived a couple of blocks from Willow Glen High School in San Jose at the time, where he was a student. He told me some college kids approached them on campus and started beating up his friend. Apparently, these college kids alleged that his friend was talking bad about a girl they knew. My son came to get me to go confront these kids if they were still there.

Instead, I said, “Hold on, son. Is this friend of yours the same kid that, after you introduced me to him, I mentioned you shouldn’t be hanging around because I thought he was a thug?”

He said, “Yeah.”

I said, “If you and your friend went to the library to study after school every day or went to music practice, or the chess club, or just came home to study, do you think college kids would be looking to fight with you?”

My son said, “No.”

I said, “Remember that.” And I turned around and went back to what I was doing.

You see, I love my son. But I also know, my responsibility is to prepare him to be judged.

He Went Thataway

This isn’t a complicated concept. If I’m walking down a street and turned left at the intersection, all of the streets and buildings that are down the street on the right are no longer available to me. And if I turned right, the same is true for the streets on the left. 

So, if I know I don’t like what happens on the street that turns left, and I do want what is available on the street that turns right, does it make any sense to continue walking down the street on the left and be upset that I don’t like the things that happen to be there?

That’s the value of judgment. It’s a signal telling you what to expect. It says this is what will happen if you continue in this direction. It gives you the opportunity to change directions before you get too far down the street.

You’ll find that those who are judged favorably are all walking down the same streets. Those who receive harsh judgment are also walking down the same streets. 

You get to choose your path. The benefits are yours, but so are the harsh consequences. That’s what fathers are responsible to teach their children.

Urban Trojan Horses

Unfortunately, over the past 8 decades, black radical elites have conspired with white leftists to strip the father from the home of the Negro family.

This has been accomplished with two government programs. Minimum Wage, and Welfare.

Minimum wage laws were concocted by white workers who kept losing work to blacks who would do the same work for a lower wage. It also gave employers the ability to give young black men with low education and no job skill their first chance at acquiring those skills.

Minimum wage laws made it economically feasible to discriminate against the Negro.

Couple this with Welfare which paid the mothers of their children to keep these fathers from their homes. Now you have young Negro men, many of whom have low education and no job skills locked out of the job market and out of their homes.

What could possibly go wrong?

High crime rates, high incarceration rates, and high drug use, high drop-out rates, low education scores. That’s what could go wrong.

Just Desserts

I think what you’re seeing today in BLM is the result of 8 decades of blacks raised predominately by women who taught them that they should only receive unconditional affirmation, and never criticism or judgment. They think nothing they say or do should under any circumstances be criticized or judged.

Being high all the time should never be criticized. 

Resisting lawful arrest should never be criticized. 

Burning down your own neighborhood should never be criticized.

Ironically, this is the judgment on the Negro for removing God from the foundation of their culture, and the father from the family. With the signals of judgment silenced, there’s nothing telling them to turn back from destruction.

By Kevin Metcalf