My Own Liberation Struggle

When I awakened this morning, I had one of my rare moments of clarity. I finally realized after over 20 years of misguided attempts at living a truly independent life that which drove me to do the things that I have done.

I taught school for 15 years, but never could earn enough to take care of myself without my dad's help. I taught political science and history at a 4 year college and at 2 community colleges for over 5 years with the same result. I never could earn enough to take care of myself without my dad's help.

It finally dawned on me why I was drawn to history and politics as a discipline. I never really liked them as such, and I never really excelled at them, but I worked hard and I rarely rested when studying those disciplines. I was drawn to freedom struggle. Why? I felt like a colonized country within my own family.

As a child, I never felt like I fully 'fit' in within the unit. I am sensitive, romantic, and love the arts. My family was led by my father who was a neurosurgeon and a clinical neurologist. My mother who really led the family behind the scenes was a teacher and a homemaker. While art and music was something to be enjoyed, it was never something to be taken seriously as a profession. This is only the tip of the iceberg of my identity crisis.

As I grew up, I was a cub scout, a first-chair trumpeter in my grade school band, a lousy PAL league football player, a gifted pianist, a Jack and Jiller, etc. I was exposed to a lot of things, but I never was allowed to focus on excelling at any one thing to really grow to have confidence in it. So, as a result, I never grew to be confident in my own ideas.

When my parents took me to see Dr. Ivan Van Sertima and Dr. John H. Clarke at Mayflower Church in Detroit, I was amazed. They were talking about liberation, although they professionally worked in the middle class professions of historians. So, I grew to be interested in what and how they interpreted history.

My family thought I liked history, and I believed them so I pursued it in college and even got a master's degree in international studies. I haven't been able to earn a living in either area. After decades of dysthymia, medication, therapy, journaling, and frustrated attempts at a multitude of things, I finally learned why, at nearly 41 years of age and after losing a career (and I use that word very loosely) and a domicile (an apartment), I pursued this. I needed freedom from my family.

My father was generous but controlling. My mother is controlling. They both believed in conditions. They would love and support under the condition that we did what they insisted. This meant that we had to do things that would not embarrass them. Life as a musician, would be embarrassing to them. Most of the musicians that they knew were music teachers, not musicians. The musicians that they were acquainted with were troubled and never seemed to be able to support themselves, so if I were to remain in their good graces, then I would have to pursue what they thought was right.

In this broken economy, educators are essentially worthless. Colleges keep advertising that there is a 'demand' for them, but they are being laid off and fired all over the country and particularly so in my hometown. Ironically, when times were better, I couldn't make a living in it. The profession was saturated with frustrated lawyers, etc. who were and are taking up spaces in colleges, universities, etc. Yet, my family kept encouraging me to stay the course. Let me return to my home life and how I learned to be dependent.

My dad controlled the money. He would give liberally, but he wouldn't really teach you or guide in how to manage it. When he died a couple of years ago, he left no will and left a lot of debts and other financial problems that we didn't know about. In such an environment, it's no wonder that I was drawn to freedom and liberation struggle. It is also no wonder that I never learned to free myself. I'm still working on it though. I thought about it today and my dad was like our 'world bank.' He'd loan us or grant us money without training us in what to do with it. So we'd have to always come back. He believed that if his kids were dependent on him then they would love him. We loved him and miss him desperately. I guess when you lose your mother and father to illness within a month of each other at 6 years old that you always fear being abandoned again.

Ironically, he abandoned us in the end. At the same time, I noticed that my brother and I were always called 'the boys,' long after we were adults. In his house he was The Man. Before he died and was sick with Parkinson's, high blood pressure, etc., I would tell people that I was going over to see The Man. That was my nickname for my dad. He was The Man. He came through on the clutch more times than Isaiah Thomas, Jerry West, Terry Bradshaw, Bruce Lee, Muhammad Ali, Jackie Chan, and any other hero I ever heard of.

My wish was to learn how to be a man like that. I wish that he could have taught me. This is why I spent so much time with him. I worked at his office, not because I wanted to be a doctor. I never could figure out science and math that easily. My sister could, but she became a lawyer, another psychological study in itself. I just like being around him and wanted to learn how he did it. I saw how he did hit, but I really needed to learn how to become my own version of him. I still haven't figured that out. My goal is to figure this out before my brain or some other vital organ gives out. I don't know how much longer I have. Black men don't as a rule live that long here in the United States. Those of us who do lead compromised lives either materially or psychologically. Unfortunately, I'm compromised materially and psychologically. Since I've never been good at finding financial resources, I've focused on trying to untie the knots in my dysthymic mind. I've composed a free verse poem called, My Hands, that may give the reader some insight about my own personal struggle that co-exists within my life's struggle that co-exists within the struggle that African people worldwide have.

"I always struggled with knots, physical ones. As I've aged, I've grown more patient and can untie them better than I used to. My hands would fight against each other, left against right, like two stair-stepped brothers who never learned and never were taught how to work together. With medication, therapy, insight-training, my hands now work together a lot better. Ironically they play music together well and they don't fight, but when there's a conflict like a knot, they fight. Because of it, the knot, the dumb, simple, mixed-up knot, just sits there and does nothing. Ultimately the knot wins because the hands work hard to lose the battle by fighting against each other, logic and reason against creativity. Two brothers born of the same brain, connected by common neurons and tissues but fight because they have different approaches to the same thing. Liberal vs Conservative, neither of them is free, but each think the other has the best idea and strategy. The orthodox vs the avante-garde, both have value and have a need to express, exist, and to co-exist, but they fight. Just like my hands."

Between the bizarre nightmares, the mild hallucinations that come from this medicine and the stress of underemployment, unemployment, co-dependency, racism, Black internal color prejudice and self-hate, family dysfunction and other classic features of Black Urban American life, I do get moments of insight and clarity. I've been afraid up to this point to articulate these things, but I need to write them down while I'm able to.

I have deemed it vital to reinforce the fact that co-dependency is a key theme. If you want your kids to be around you when you get old and infirm, one effective way is to keep them dependent on you for advice, money, psychological reinforcement, etc. The best way to do this is to never train them properly. Never teach them to trust themselves, their intellect, creativity, insight, etc. This way they will need you, and even if you spend all the money and leave nothing but problems behind, they will take care you and your problems. You won't be happy nor at peace, but no one else will either.

While I'm not finished with this, there is a moral to all of this. If you don't face your own imperialist demons that exist within you, then you have absolutely no chance of ever becoming truly free.