me and my dad

When I publish something (anything) that talks about race, I brace myself. I know it’s coming. Not the thoughtful critiques, which I respect. But the ones that are so familiar to woman and people of color, the expletive-laden missives calling me the n-word, the b-word, the c-word (or a combination), wishing I’d die, wishing I’d never been born, etc., the ones rank with misogyny and racism, air-horning a view, which, yes, we’re all entitled to, but not a thoughtful, considered one, not a humane one, not one you’d likely voice to my face.

And not one you’d voice in front of my dad. He died four years ago, but when he was alive, and before age diluted his presence into something quieter, more delicate, he stood six feet and four inches, weighed three-hundred-plus muscled pounds, had broad and wide shoulders, hands that could palm a basketball like an apple, feet that could shake the porch when he came up the steps, and intelligent eyes, kind and brightbrown eyes, eyes the color of Hershey’s bars, but eyes that could also, when needed, go cold, go fierce, tell you go ahead, make my day. His eyes were telling the truth. He could fuck you up. Put you in the hospital. Land you both in jail. He could terrify you. The biceps, the rifles, the prison tattoos, the Black Panther vibe, the sense of noble and near-blind loyalty that governed his relationship to anyone he loved. He appreciated peace and beauty, lingering with reverence over sunsets, the singular pleasure of homemade tortillas, the purring swing of Coltrane ballads — but he was not, by any means, a pacifist. He had the capacity to defend with force, the willingness to harm should that be, in his judgment, the most effective means of communication. I remember reading that Marine Corps slogan somewhere — no better friend, no worse enemy — and thinking, oh boy, that’s my dad!

For better or worse, this was all visible. His big, Black, male body conveyed all the bluster I just told you about — whether or not it was how he felt in a given moment, whether or not he wanted it to, whether or not it reflected his interior sense of self. He had no choice in this conveyance. It would therefore be more accurate to say that all the bluster I just told you about was inscribed on his body. He bore the culturally-imposed stigma and stereotypes of male Blackness, even as a little boy. He didn’t ask for it, he didn’t consent to it; he perhaps hated it, at least sometimes; he found ways to make the most of it.

We made the most of it, too. If my dad was around, I felt physically safe — being female, I don’t take feeling physically safe for granted and haven’t since I was about ten years old. And I knew I could deploy him — meaning his image, the threat the world associated with his body — in my defense. If a boyfriend did me wrong, I could send my dad. If I felt harassed at work, I could bring my dad to the office. If I felt belittled by a teacher, I could bring my dad to campus. That’s all it would take — the sight of him, his body leaning in the doorway, waiting for me as I packed up. I wouldn’t need him to speak with that boyfriend or boss or professor, I just needed to reveal his presence, like lifting the edge of a jacket to expose a gun. If you mess with me, you mess with this guy, too.

I still summon him, am comforted by the idea that he can, in some way, from some register of existence, still stand between me and the world, out in front, safe-guarding. My editor sends a quick email, just the words we’re live and a link. Then I wait. The messages mount and stack. I open, I skim. Not a deluge, but enough. I sometimes forward them to friends so they can see what it’s like. Occasionally I contact IT with a question — can you check if this is the same guy as last time? Less frequently, I forward them to the campus police, who can do nothing, really, but apologize and tell me sure, it can’t hurt to keep a record. It is a conundrum of social and political precarity — where do we turn for protection? From what do we fashion shelter, or a reprieve? I know what my dad would say — if somebody hurts you, you hurt them twice as bad. He called this the double get-back. That, he’d say, is your shelter, girl. My dad was a smart man; he both believed this advice wholeheartedly and knew it wasn’t practical in my life. (I have no power to hurt these mouthy dudes twice as much as they hurt me — for one thing, they don’t sign their real names.)

A Jewish colleague who happens to be a progressive and very-public figure told me he gets hundreds of hateful, vitriolic emails a day and finally decided to stop reading them. I said, Don’t you worry you’ll miss a real threat? He shrugged. What can you do? You have to live — meaning, you can’t steep yourself in that sewage. Which is true. But, I think to myself, you have to live — meaning, you have to know if some bitter dude is loitering outside your office, your house, aroused by his hatred for women or Black people (or Jewish people), entitled and armed… But back to that moment: the moment I hear from my editor that a story is live: I close my eyes and summon, really try to conjure, my dad. I imagine his presence surrounding me, his grand, proud face and barrel of a chest pointing outward. I am a circled wagon. I am a queen behind henchmen. I am a child — an adult child, but still the child of my father, entitled to his care, which is fueled by a primal imperative to shield and protect. His energy mutes the energy of those vile emails and DMs.

But I’m also aware that my dad never asked to be seen this way, read this way, used this way. It was an accident of genealogy and geography that he was born into his body, and that his body moved through this culture. Accidents can be happy, but more often, they’re sad. Did he try to tell us not to hold him forth so readily? If he did, did we hear him? I remember sitting with him at a fancy-neighborhood playground when my daughter was one or two. A couple small kids, maybe kindergarteners, stared at my dad with wide eyes; they were white, their families were white. One of them pointed at my dad and whimpered. I looked across the bench at my pops, a big old man wearing a sweatshirt against the chill in the breeze. I said, “I’m sorry, dad.” He answered, “I’m used to scaring people, hon.” I didn’t see it then, but maybe, in addition to telling me it’s ok… he was telling me something about his own private longing, his own desire to be free from the social categories that defined him.

Another salient memory: A particular time that my mom called him for help — two (white) men living in the communal space she rented were fighting, drunk and belligerent, loud and swerving. She was unnerved. My dad showed up, his body like a cannonade, his presence and proximity to my mom enough to silence them, to send them to their rooms, tails tucked. My mom thanked him. He accepted her thanks sincerely. He also told her not to do that anymore. At the time, I understood this fascinating comment to mean because I’m too old to throw down or because if you summon me, ‘no worst enemy’ might show up and nobody really wants that. But he could also have been voicing a desire for freedom from being read by (frequently white) people as scary, freedom from being weaponized by his family to that end. He might have wanted a break. Don’t do that to me anymore. God knows he earned it.

Which leaves me with a question. Should I stop asking him to stand in front of me? He’d be livid at the hostile, disrespectful screeds I get. But should I let go of using him for protection, albeit “energetic” instead of actual? Should I, maybe, stand in front of him? I’ve tried, since his death, to honor his life by presenting him. By not just shoving him before your eyes, but by introducing him with the humanizing details and love that the cultural gaze so often denied him. When I learned he died, I cried out no! no! no! — disbelief, shock. What came to me later that day, though, was the vivid image of a big, dark, soaring bird, a bird doing loop-de-loops in the sky, total and exquisite freedom, a being unburdened. Yes.

Maybe it is the right thing to do, this letting go. This way I hold onto him — guard me, dad — is both a celebration of how he loved me and another link in the chain he was forced to carry. He must have wanted to put that particular chain down, at least occasionally. Maybe I can help. Because I can’t separate my desire for the type of protection his body broadcast from the systems that made it so. And there are other ways to honor him, to keep his presence in my life. Such as wearing my hair natural, a ravishing, frizzy crown. Such as this writing, which someone will read. Such as bravery in the wilderness, which he had in massive measure, which surely he gave to me, too.