By Evans Johnson

“My Dad is better than your Dad!” is the taunt I remember kids singing on the schoolyard. I was never one to sing this annoying little ditty, but if I knew then what I know now about my Father, I would have been the singing it the loudest during recess. Simply put, my Father is amazing: a strong, serious, hard-working, loving, God-fearing, Black Man. A cabinet-maker by trade, my Father showed me sacrifice, perseverance, commitment to life, family and the beautiful nature of silent love.

He supports me in all of my endeavors, even though he doesn’t understand why I have to live on the other side of the country to work. He cries every time I leave home to chase and live my dream. It’s the most beautiful and heart-breaking thing. But with every teardrop, I know he loves me and will continue to support me.

His support is undying. He let me and my siblings grow into the people God intended us to be. No matter what I need, I can go to my Dad. He allowed us to fly free as children. He granted us the freedom to climb trees, build sand castles, ice skate, play basketball, soccer, volleyball, t-ball, be girl/boy scouts and dance until it was time to study our books.

Dad never told us ‘No’ too often; instead, he used the word at the right times and reminded us constantly, “If you can’t hear, you must feel!” I readily admit that this is what kept me flying straight and in the light!

Every Sunday, he drove us to Sunday school and took us to McDonald’s on Friday for dinner as a treat. For any kid, that was the greatest treat in the world. He also gave us weekly allowance. Dad explained that it was given so that we wouldn’t have the desire to steal and he always made sure that we had it…even when he was laid off.

All the way through university, he made sure that my books and tuition were paid for. He even bought me a car in order to cut the one-way hour and fifteen minute bus ride in half.

Some people say, “I come from money”, but I say, “I come from ‘enough’ money”. Enough to buy a loaf of bread, milk, butter…enough to keep the heat on, the water running and a roof over our heads. No matter what the situation Dad always made sure that we had enough.

And he never did it alone – he had Mom and she’s a strong, smart, beautiful woman. So, whether he chose her or she chose him, I celebrate my Dad for standing, neither in front nor behind, but beside my Mom for forty-one years. Watching my Dad love my Mom unconditionally, honestly and happily is the greatest gift I could ask for.

For this and all the things said before I pay tribute to the greatest man I know, Calvin Hugh Johnson.

Evans Natalie Johnson is a Toronto-born actress who currently lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. Some of her credits include Smallville, He Loves Me starring Heather Locklear, ‘da Kink in My Hair, Dead Rising 2 and The Rise of the Planet of the Apes which will be released in theatres worldwide August 5^th. Currently, Evans Johnson is hard at work organizing a breast cancer campaign she launched on June 1^st called ‘Paint Yourself Pink’. If you’d like to support her campaign ‘like’ the page on Facebook and follow @PaintYourself on Twitter.

Naki (in hat) with her brother, Daddy and Mommy in High Park

By Naki Osutei

As we neared Father’s Day 2011, I could not help but take stock of the fact that so many people I know are estranged from, or have very strained relationships with, their fathers. While, like most adults, my relationship with Dad has had its share of difficulties (we’re all human, after all), the very fact that I can call on my Dad for advice, support and last-minute help makes me very fortunate indeed.

In addition to the very foundational lessons (i.e. love God, love family and love self), I want to highlight three lessons my Daddy has shared with me in different ways over the years.

Lesson #1 – I’ll teach you how…mostly so you don’t destroy it.

Both of my parents love music and incidentally, our next door neighbour in the high-rise tower I grew up in did, too.  He was a nightclub DJ, originally from Germany and spent hours practicing his sets. Upon discovering a three year-old Naki dancing in front of his door, he decided to make mix tapes and LP suggestions for my parents.  Naturally, this led to the purchase of a TeleFunken sound system (cutting-edge technology at the time).

My dad took the time to teach me how to put the needle on the record, knowing that I would be curious and want to do this anyway.  Not only did this create a novelty for guests who would visit and share their amazement at the sight of a four year-old music selector, but it meant that he didn’t have to worry that I would scratch records or tear apart cassettes out of an unmanaged curiosity.

Complemented by trips to the Science Centre, High Park, local farms and other sites of learning, that early lesson helped me to be unafraid of exploring the unknown. As a result, both my brother and I are curious, love to explore how things work and challenge ourselves to ‘figure it out’.

Lesson #2 – Yes, who you know is important.

My dad tells the story of coming to Canada in 1979 and it is marked with many of the challenges you hear in the stories of immigrants. What has always intrigued me is the role his network played in helping him apply to come to Canada.  It was the senior leaders he met through his work on student councils in Ghana who introduced him to the people who could help along in his journey to apply to come to Canada.

I’ve held that lesson close to me as I’ve traversed through my educational and professional careers.  When I’ve had to make decisions about jobs to take or courses to pursue, my Dad has reminded me to look for new, diverse, challenging networks in which to invest – they are a ‘currency’ of their own.

Lesson #3 – We [the family] struggle and celebrate together.

We grew up with the expectation that you offer to do anything you can to help your family members and you mark even the smallest victories with celebration. Examples go back decades and continue to this day.

Though I knew nothing about Humanities at the time, at the age of seven, my small, nimble hands were able to more quickly type my Dad’s essays than his were. Among her myriad examples of sacrifice, my Mom, without hesitation, would empty her purse to ensure my brother and I had lunch money before we left for school.

My dad took an indefinite leave of absence to be at the hospital with me round the clock when I fell seriously ill. Throughout his high school years, my brother made himself available to edit my undergraduate essays and continues to do that for me to this day. In addition to being there in hard times, we’ve also taken the time to mark the victories in life as well. The Mandarin Restaurant photo fridge magnets are evidence of that.

Certainly, there are many other lessons Dad has shared with me, but these seem to be the ones that resonate most with me at this point in my life.

Naki Osutei is the VP, Strategy at the Greater Toronto CivicAction Alliance and founding director of CivicAction’s Emerging Leaders Network, a network of almost 400 rising leaders and co-founder of DiverseCity Fellows, a participant-driven leadership development program.

Jaelin with his Dad, Curt

By Jaelin Burnett-Handy

My name is Jaelin Burnett-Handy and I’m 12 years old.  I’m in the sixth grade and I love basketball and science.  Any free time that I have is spent at the basketball court with my dad and my neighbour. We sometimes play for hours.

When I’m in my bedroom I like to do experiments, but my mom doesn’t let me use dangerous things.  I go to church every Sunday and listen to my uncle preach.  My parents are awesome because they help me with my homework and I can talk to them about everything.  They never stop trying to make me better person.  When I grow up I want a career as a lawyer or a basketball player.

Every day my dad wakes me up and drives me to school.  He’s a very social person.  All of my friends and teachers know him at school.  They think he’s hilarious, smart and helpful.  He helps with school programs like the basketball team.  He’s been coaching at my school for 4 years.  We got so good that we made it to the semi-finals.   He loves basketball and kids so much that he started his own afterschool program. He also started his own basketball summer camp.  He also helps at other schools in Toronto, volunteering as a coach for track and field and, of course, basketball.

My father is the perfect dad! He’s a really good role model because he’s intelligent.  I think he’s a mathematician because he knows his multiplication, division and fractions really well.  He’s good at keeping secrets.   I’ve told my dad secrets and he never told anyone about them.  He is such a fun loving person and when he tells a joke, I laugh really, really hard.  Every night when I go to bed, he comes to my room and he wrestles with me and tickles me till I feel like peeing myself!  We enjoy the same things and that means we can spend lots of time together.

My great grandmother has Alzheimer’s and it can be a little hard to talk to her at times, but my dad and grandma seem to understand her.  With her he is caring, loving, playful and very understanding.  He sits in the living room and watches TV with her and sometimes, he play-fights with her.  He helps my grandma pick up groceries and she loves him very much.  My dad gives to homeless people because he has empathy and a big heart.  Anyone can ask him for anything and if he can, he will help.

I think that every child should have a father like mine and maybe the world would be a better place.   When I become a man I’m going to remember all the things that he taught me, and when I become a father I’m going to do the same things he did with me.  He’s teaching me all the things I need to know to be a good man, just like him.  When I think about my dad I think of two lines from a poem: “If I could paint a perfect picture the contours would be of you” and “From north to south and east to west you stand above all of the rest”. I tell him I love him all the time and I hope he feels like every day is Fathers Day.

His name is CURT BURNETT and he is my Dad.

By Tendisai Cromwell

The youth-based initiative, Young & Potential Fathers (YPF) is promising and ambitious in addressing one of the most pressing issues affecting the black community today: absentee fathers and poor parenting skills. Made possible by funding from the Youth Challenge Fund, YPF seeks to provide the much needed parental support to young and potential fathers with particular emphasis on Caribbean and African-Canadian communities.  Adelin Brunal, Director of YPF explains that the afrocentric approach is important, as the services are delivered more effectively when “in a way that speaks to their identity”.

The initiative is based on the academic efforts of Noah Boakye-Yadiom who, through his Master’s research work on father involvement in healthy child development, recommended the establishment of a space for young fathers, fathers-to-be, and their children.

In placing spaces in two priority neighbourhoods, one of which recently opened in west Toronto, this initiative will have increasing reach to those that may need the support the most. Brunal says that YPF is welcomed by the community and the overwhelming sentiment is that an initiative of this nature is long overdue.  He would like the space to be considered “a home away from home,”  explaining that young fathers should make use of all the resources YPF can provide for them.

YPF is holistic in its approach offering programs such as father and child drumming, nutritional cooking, movie nights, family and father drop-in time, and a multitude of other workshops and forums. “[These services are] intended to reconnect father with child and to further that bond” says Brunal.  He emphasized the need to give the youth “as much knowledge as possible to be able to play the role of father, the role of men…but also beloved”. Brunal believes that YPF will assist young men to “[become] as strong as possible as individuals in these various roles that are all intertwined.”

Brunal envisions YPF becoming tomorrow what the YMCA is today, an institution serving various communities not only in the city, but as well nationally and continent wide.

The official YPF launch will be held Tuesday June 21 at their newly opened space located in Toronto at 1901 Weston Rd, Unit B. The YPF website is currently under maintenance, however the YPF Facebook group is regularly updated with events, news and programming information.

Photos courtesy of Young & Potential Fathers

Tendisai Cromwell is a freelance writer and editorial intern for swaymag.ca.

Will with his reason for being, son Cameron

By Will Strickland

It ends here…

This has been cathartic for me.  Hopefully, you will have taken something away from this, too.  Father’s Day was this past weekend.  Again, I am without my ManChild for another Father’s Day, but I will see him soon… We will spend the summer together, as usual, continuing to forge our bond…

For those who loved but felt that they were not loved in return by their fathers, for those who are reliving their past with their actions or inactions toward their own children, this is for you.  Fame, money, music careers…all fleeting in the face of your Forever… Cherish every moment with your children, as best you can…

This last piece was written during a flight back home to NYC in 1996, while hovering over LaGuardia Airport at 35,000 feet in a holding pattern to land. I was taking on a new job at RCA Records, running the promotions department after helping to get WuTang Clan signed to Loud/RCA. Looking out of my window, it seemed like the sun was floating on the clouds, settling into its evening mode, playin’ its position in the night sky…

The result of this view?

If

If I could Dance on Clouds…

If I could Control Crowds…

If I could Make all the Best Songs,

If I could Right all of My Wrongs…

If I could Revive the Dead…

If I could simply Clear My Head…

If I could add about $999,999 to my dollar

If I could whisper instead of “holla”

If I could be Understood as well as I Understand

If I could Grab the Fortune, f**k being The Man!

If I could commit My Love to just One

If I could just make Life fun

If I could escape all Stereotype

If I could give You Substance instead of Hype

If I could ease your Pain

If I could Retaliate instead of Refrain

If I could Pave a path of Gold for Cameron, My Diamond

If I could Rap, I guess I’d be Rhymin’

If I could just Make a Difference and do some Good,

If I Could…

My son is all I have.  He is my reason for breathing…for doing what I do so very far away from him.  My resurrection…A new and better me… No, WAIT! A once and forever great Him! I just hope I have poured enough cement for a proper foundation… he is building his home in Life right now… I know it will stand…

Happy Father’s Day to everyone…and not just the Dads out there, but the single Mothers, who hold down both positions with strength and grace. I can only admire and applaud. You should, too…Take some time to listen to “A Song for My Father”, a great jazz tune by Mr. Horace Silver… lounge to the late, great Luther Vandross’ offering, “Dance With My Father”… or if that’s not your flav, check Little Brother’s “All For You”, my Father’s Day song for LIFE!

As per us-u-al, you know the deal…

Breathe Easy…

–The GahFatha

By Will Strickland

Sometimes, when we speak of Fatherhood, we often forget a very key element in the process: the Woman.  Married or unmarried, together or apart, the very narrative built and born within this child is rooted in the essence of the relationship between the two Life Givers.  The health of the relationship – or the lack thereof – between the two can determine the course of the Life of the Child, for good or for bad…

This is for You…and Me

If You Could Hear What My Soul Is Saying…

Heart Sounds…

I loved you for so long that I know the sound your heart makes when I throw verbal blows that cause your face to ever so subtly twist in pain…

And I am wrong…

You are struggling so hard to keep your head above water dealing with me, Love…

And I am tryin’ to turn the faucet on, full blast.  I am sorry…but I’m hoping you can swim.

Giving you every reason NOT to believe in what My Soul was trying to create…make it a real life force to reckon with…

But I just kept messing with the picture you were trying to paint.  You said you loved it, but you were growing indifferent…and fast!

Maybe the truth was you saw no value…

Insecurity is a weakness that destroys men and the women who love them.

It makes it hard to recognize what’s genuine and what’s not…And it exposes Boys when the sh*t Life dishes gets too hot…

And I am wrong for faulting you for being something you are not

I have yet to break that mental barrier.  The Rites of Passage Program is supposed to help me become a carrier of the race… Yet I stand in the faces of everyone I know like I am living the right way.

They must know I am not… Don’t have the energy to call them out, too.  The charade I carried out meant I didn’t give a damn… And we weren’t going be anything… Though I claimed otherwise…

The song I sang was limited… The lyrics were played…And you are/were angry you stayed

But I am sorry… NOW… this time… AGAIN!

No… You are sorry… Sorry because you tried to show me how this picture really looks.

You are just an imperfect woman seeking righteous salvation through your Life… to make a difference… in mine, too!  Building a foundation is your main motivation. My interpretation is mine, not yours.

And I apologize for putting pressure on you to help me when I didn’t truly care to help myself or help you build US on this fertile ground.

I am sorry that I may not be around for you to see the seeds you planted within me grow to maturation…  Righteousness, honesty and truth will be born unto me…They will set the example for me to see what I should have been doing all along.

Reality hurts and can be brutally open and unnerving… Honesty, truth and righteousness will deal with me on the justice level.

This is not for you to do… You have guided me this far.

Only they will bring change to my heart…

They will have loved me for so long when I have rejected them that they will know the sound my heart makes when they throw verbal blows that make my face ever so subtly twist in pain.

And they will be right…

See, I am struggling so hard to keep my head above water…And they will be turning the faucet on, full blast.

And they will be sorry, because they know I can swim…

In the midst of our Cold Winter, I finally learned that in you, there is an Invincible Summer…

You know the résumé for the day… Darts or Flowers…Stay tuned for the final installment in the series…..

By Will Strickland

Being a father has been on my mind a lot lately…The cost of fatherhood…The cost to the child of a father absent in the physical most of the time, though he is present in the heart, soul and mind… is it ever enough?

Escaping the shadows of my past; mistakes made by my male life-giver; seemingly repeating themselves in various ways through me and manifesting themselves in my relationship with the one I cherish most… I am never free of these thoughts and feelings. Lately, I have been thinking a lot about what exactly it is for me to be a father.  Sure, I helped to make my ManChild over nine years ago, but what does it mean to be his father?

Certain circumstances in my Life, both with his mother and within me, have occurred, conspired… whatever… to… well… Fact is, I feel like I am missing out in the best years of my son’s Life and as a result, missing out on mine as well.

I have not walked him to school on the first day of classes since the first time he ever went to school… have never taken him to a karate practice or a baseball game… But I have taken him across the United States on trips, taken and participated with him in his first basketball camp, took him to his first swim classes and taught him how to cook.

His first meal?  Spaghetti… He did everything… I just supervised… and he was great!  When we finally sat down to eat, he asked me “Dad, is it good?” to which I replied, “Baby, it’s the best thing I have ever eaten!” It was nearly as priceless as the slow, sly grin that crept across his face upon hearing my pleasure with his culinary skill!

Maybe I say all of this to justify my absentee Dad-ism… to try to somehow make myself feel better about the distance, in the many miles between and the heart sounds, between me and one of the few things I feel I have really done right in my Life… A jagged little pill to swallow, yes, but one I have been dealing with and must deal with, at least for now.

The plans are… the plans are what we make when Life is happening, right? That makes me smile… That statement is so true as it relates to my Life. I have birthed some of the greatest ideas and plans, only to see them aborted and strangled. This has not always happened by as a result of outside forces – as my ego would have me believe – but by my own “doing” or lack thereof…

I mean no disrespect towards my own father, but my goal with my son was to be a better father, drastically different than the one I had… My Dear Ol’ Dad (God Bless the Dead)… I wanted to be everything you were not as a father, a parent, a friend, a mentor and guiding light…  In many ways, I have avoided it.  But, with the distance between my son and me, I begin to see certain disturbing similarities, no matter how hard I try to ignore them…

I am not physically there for him every day, to wake him up for school, eat a bowl of cereal with him, take him to school, help him with his homework… go to karate or basketball practice with him, toss a football & play video games with him… These facts eat me alive daily.  Calling him a lot helps some, but offering love, wisdom and support fiber-optically or digitally does not a father/son relationship make!

I have this feeling that one day, when he’s older, I will be confronted with “Why?” and “Where were you when I needed you most?” It is the inevitable… I went through the same with my Dear Ol’ Dad, confronting him on who he really was and what he really meant to me… The irony of my situation with my Dad is that he was in the home with me, but I didn’t know him.  He was emotionally absent, outside the occasional barking of orders or flashes of passionate anger… He was not involved in my life at all, to be honest.

I resented him for years… for all of the things we missed out on sharing together when I was younger… That is until one day in my mid-twenties when I realized, while looking into the beautifully innocent eyes of my infant ManChild, that I could never expect to change my father into the man, the father I wanted – and needed – him to be.  I chose to begin forging some semblance of a relationship with my father.  I could no longer be bitter about not really having a past with him anymore.  I had new memories to make, both with him and with my own son… I had to look at tomorrow… and the day after yesterday, to start anew…

Recently, I was privileged enough to view a documentary film short that was nominated for an Academy Award this past year called Hardwood. It is, at its core, a story about the power of redemption and the healing of the bonds between fathers and sons, especially Black sons and fathers.  It struck me on so many levels… My emotions and thoughts raced out of control.  The final scene was particularly poignant.  The documentarian’s older half-brother reads a poem he wrote expressing his feelings toward a father who had both guided and betrayed him in the past. Ultimately, the son forgave his father for his many shortcomings, despite the wounds that he inflicted. He never actually gave the title, so with all respect due, I will offer it here for you to see:

Painful…Thankful

There are some things I had to figure out…Painful

There are some things I never had to figure out…Thankful

I had to figure out how to be honest to my sons’ mother, to be a husband to their mother and not try to own their mother, my wife, my woman…

To keep my hands off my sons’ mama…to heal my past pains so that I have room to absorb my sons’ pains when they come…

How to be present, even when my money is not right, because he is in high school and there are things that he can’t learn from high school buddies about women, fighting, drugs, drinking, Life…that I can’t tell him in drive-by lectures.

But, there are things I did not have to figure out, things you taught me well…

I never had to figure out how to get myself up early every morning to work long hours away from my family, to support my family…

How to go on family trips…

How to dance around the house with my son…

How to hold my son’s hand…

How to let my son know I am disappointed without breaking his spirit…

How to show my son how to take something apart around the house to fix it and not be able to put it back together again…

How to make my son think I am the strongest and toughest man in the world…

How to cry in front of my son…

How to blame their mother for being late to everything…

How to love my sons in a way that, no matter what I do or not do, no matter where they go or what they may do, they’ll always be able to know in their hearts that I love them…

I love them…

I love them…

There are some things I had to figure out… Painful

And there are some I never had to figure out… Thankful
I will allow you to ingest that soul food now…then I’ll hit you with my own on the subject that – one written in July 1996, on some airline napkins 35,000 feet over LaGuardia Airport in NYC and the other penned in 2002, courtesy of a rare, but nasty argument with the mother of my ManChild…

Next in The Trilogy: Good Dad Hunting, Part Deux

By The Black Daddies Club

“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Where do babies come from?”
“Um…well…ah…..”

Sooner or later, and usually at the most inappropriate time (at a funeral, in front of Grandma, etc.), some version of The Question will emerge from your child’s lips. It’s almost a rite of passage into Black Daddyhood…as if our young ones are ensuring that we are adequately battle-tested before the onset of the hormonal firestorm that is puberty and adolescence.

Maybe it’s the primal urge to know the story of one’s beginnings that drives our impressionable sons and daughters to request an explanation of how Mom and Dad came together (honestly, no pun intended!) to bring them into the world. Or maybe they overheard fantastic tales of storks delivering newborns to doting parents and want to find out, once and for all, if they owe their existence to a winged benefactor.

Whatever the inspiration, our responses as Black Daddies tend to oscillate between evasion (aka: the “Ask your mother!” technique) and deliberate vagueness (“Well, when a man and women love each other, sometimes a child is created out of their love.” Child asks, exasperated, “Yeah, but how?” Daddy stammers, mumbles something incomprehensible and then says, “Go ask your mother….”).

One veteran Black Daddy recalls his encounter with The Question. It took place on a bus packed with women. Shaking his head and chuckling as he related the story, he says that his five-year-old son chose this time to demonstrate his newfound knowledge of female anatomy by asking, “Daddy, how did I get inside Mommy’s vagina?”

Dead silence on the bus.

And then a wave of giggling, barely concealed, travels through the passengers. The coup de grace was provided by the elderly woman sitting directly across from him, who burst into raucous laughter and declared, “Lawd, you betta answer that chile!”

Do you have your own harrowing encounter? And do you have any tips for successfully responding to The Question? If so, let us know!

In the coming weeks, we will be discussing the particular challenges that the African Canadian community faces when dealing with issues surrounding mental health. Some of the questions that we intend to tackle are:

• What are the statistics on mental illness in the African Canadian community?

• Does the possible ostracism around the admission of mental illness reduce the likelihood that the people who are most in need of professional assistance will seek the help that they require?

• Does mental health outreach have to be culturally relevant in order to be effective?

• Why is there such a stigma around mental illness in our community?

• What can be done to facilitate best outcomes for both the sufferers of mental illness and their loved ones?

The attached article chronicles the efforts of the Sheffield African-Caribbean Mental Health Association (SACMHA), based in Sheffield, England, to provide culturally relevant mental health outreach and treatment that takes into account the racial background of those whom they aim to serve. Please take a moment and give it a read…and then look out for our take on the subject here in the GTA.

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jan/19/black-men-combat-mental-health-stigma

Brandon Hay

Brandon Hay, Founder and Executive director of the Black Daddies Club, will be awarded the African Canadian Achievement Award of Excellence (ACAA), one of the highest honours bestowed on African Canadians by their community.

The parenting award normally goes out to an elder parent; however, this year – for the first time – it will be awarded to an agency (Black Daddies Club). Brandon will be accepting the award on behalf of the BDC.

We would like to invite all the fathers and community members who have supported the BDC over the past three years to come out and celebrate this award with us, because it is only because of the support of the community that we have been able to enjoy three years of service.

The 26^th Anniversary Award ceremony will be taking place on Saturday, June 4, 2011 from 7:30 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts in the Jane Mallet Theatre on 27 Front Street.

Tickets are $35.00 each; students pay $25.00. for more info on tickets please contact: Joan Pierre (President/Executive Producer- African Canadian Achievement Awards) at  905-201-2836  or 416-579-8377 (cell)

Congratulations Black Daddies Club!

The ACAA, established in June of 1985 and produced annually by Pride News Magazine, recognizes and honours the accomplishments, achievements and excellence of African-Canadians in fourteen categories. It is also intended to offer sparkling testimonies of hope and inspiration to our youth — courageous examples of achievement and “overcoming” which they can emulate and perpetuate.