Brooke Stephens - Men We Cherish

Also by Brooke Stephens

Talking Dollars and Making Sense: A Wealth-Building
Guide for African-Americans

Copyright 1997 by Brooke M. Stephens

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

A NCHOR B OOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Men we cherish: African-American women praise the men in their lives / edited by Brooke M. Stephens. 1st Anchor Books ed.
p. cm.
An Anchor paperback originalT.p. verso.
1. Afro-American men. I. Stephens, Brooke M.
E 185.86. M 47 1997
305.328896073 dc21 97-2830

eISBN: 978-0-307-81351-0

www.anchorbooks.com

v3.1

M y heartfelt thanks go out to the many friends and supporters who helped me to create and complete this collection:

Lorena Craighead, a tireless little trouper of an editorial assistant who showed up at the right time and offered many useful insights during the evenings and weekends when we plowed through the reading and evaluation of many of the manuscripts submitted;

Neeti Madan, my agent at the Charlotte Sheedy Agency, for her faith in this project;

Arabella Meyer, my editor at Anchor Books, for her enthusiasm for this book;

Arthur Flowers, Ethelbert Miller, Tony Groomswriters/poets/friends who helped me to find the writers;

Lynne Scott, Fern Gillespie, Keith Hudson and Sapphire for the skill of listening and caring enough to cheer me on;

To my dear departed friend, mentor, and writer/role model, DorisJean Austin, who insisted that I do this project on my own;

To the many women writers who submitted material and shared their special experiences of the men in their lives, I gratefully appreciate the gift of your effort; and the Ragdale Foundation for providing their space, solace, and support.

Thanks to the many women supporters who encouraged me to develop and continue the project even though they were unable to participate in this project because of other commitments.

Om Shanti,
Brooke M. Stephens

I love Black men.

Okay, so I like men, period. But brothers?

Oh, man.

The slide-y walk, the mighty talk. The power and glory, their survival story. Im so far gone that I love the smell of a brother, even after hes spent hours taking it to the hoopor the tennis court or the jogging track. Or the library, if attacking a book gets him in the flow.

I love them so much that though I prayed to have a daughter, God read my traitors heart and stamped my womb, For boys only.

I love each and every one of you so much that Im going to do what everybody who has ever utterly loved someone has had to do:

Im saying No.

No. Stop. This second. Cease and desist from:

Being so angryrighteously or otherwiseall of the time.

Hitting, dissing, lying to, seducing, and abandoning your sisters.

Killing each other.

My reasons for saying this are purely selfish.

I need you. Not just the Black men who, by birth or fate, belong to me. I mean all of you. I dont want to lose another one of you.

Not to drugs. Not to the police. Not to immobilization or despair, to the courts or to blind fury or certainly, for Gods sake, to another bullet.

Im asking a lot. But if you werent bigger and stronger and more marvelous than any man has a right to be, youd never have survived. But here you are.

Lets say right off that most brothers are not hitters, thieves, abusers, or shooters. Anyone who doesnt know that, who doesnt realize that most want, very much, to Do The Right Thing, is a fool.

So you millions of African-American men who are none of those things: I applaud and congratulate and offer you my deepest, amazed gratitude. For you are miraculous.

The rest of you: Just stop.

I am not letting white men off the hook. They are just as liable to hurt women, white and Black. To knowingly and unknowingly stick it to brothers, on jobs, in courtrooms, on the streets of every city in this nation. As a rule, they have more money, resources, institutions, external power and even guns than you. The reasons are historic, ongoing and must be confronted.

But right now, in this letter, white men are not my concern.

They arent dying like you. They havent learned to hate themselves enough to devalue everyone who looks like them. Its you that I want around tomorrow. And next year. Its you I want to grow old with.

I know what youre thinking.

What about you? What about Black women doing the right thing?

Fine. Tell me and my sisters to be less grasping, snappish, materialistic, and vengeful. To give you a break. Swallowing hard, Ill listen to every valid criticism you hurl. I want to be worthy of the very-best you. Like I want you to be deserving of the wonderful-est me.

Its hard, being a Black man in America. Tough, being a Black woman. Dealing with so much toughness makes us hard. But it is only by uncovering our softness, our love, that we will survive.