The Michael Eric Dyson Reader (9 page)

For despite his discipline, I knew he loved me as if I was his very own, like I was your full blood brother. For that reason, I have never made the distinction between any of us five boys who came up together. In my mind, not only did we have the same mother, but we shared the same father. He was as much father as most of my friends had, and often, much, much more. Since he adopted me when I was two, he is the only father I have ever known. He was Daddy to me, just like he was to you.

No, I was very specific about my beef with him. It wasn’t blood, it was those beatings. The same ones he gave to you, Anthony, Gregory, and Brian. And probably to John Everett, Etta James, Robert, and Annie Ruth, our late brothers and sisters from Daddy’s previous marriages.

My conflict with Daddy came to a head when I was sixteen, the same age Mike is now. He had ordered me to do something, what I can’t remember. I do remember feeling the familiar threat of physical punishment behind his words if I didn’t immediately obey. I had had enough. We were at the house, upstairs on the second floor. He barked his orders, but I wasn’t moving fast enough.

“Move, goddammit, when I speak to you,” he bellowed.

The resentment weighed me down, and slowed my legs. I knew instantly that we were heading for a showdown. Daddy jumped up from the bed in his room and moved toward me. Even that gesture failed to speed my pace. This wasn’t worker slowdown, a domestic uprising against an unjust guardian. This was sheer frustration, anger, and weariness.

“Move, I said,” Daddy repeated. I didn’t.

Then he grabbed me by the arm and pushed me against the wall. Something in me exploded. Or did it snap? Either metaphor, or perhaps both of them, captured my state of mind, my state of soul.

“Fuck it, man,” I heaved. “You just gonna have to kill me, ‘cause I refuse to be scared any more.”

I guess he took me seriously. He literally lifted me off the ground with his left arm, his massive chocolate hand sunk deep into my yellow neck as he pinned me against a hallway wall. They didn’t call him “Muscles” for nothing. I thought for
sure that he might really kill me. I didn’t care anymore. I was tired of running. Mama saved me.

“Everett,” she hollered. It was all she said. But it was enough to bring Daddy to his senses, to make him drop me to the ground before he completely choked me. Never mind my gasping. I felt free, delivered of some awful demon of fear that no longer had power over me. It was my emancipation proclamation and declaration of independence all rolled into one moment. It was a milestone in my relationship to Daddy.

For the next seven years, his last on earth, Daddy and I got along much better. After I got Terrie pregnant at eighteen and married her, and after Mike was born, Daddy and I grew much closer. In fact, he’d often cook for me and Terrie because we were so poor at times that we didn’t eat every day. In fact, at times, we didn’t eat for two or three days in a row. But then we’d go by the house, and Daddy would always give us a good meal. I even sent Daddy a Father’s Day card in 1981 when I was in Knoxville attending college. I told him how much I loved him, and how much I appreciated the fact that we had overcome our differences now that I was a man with major responsibilities. A few weeks later, he was dead from a heart attack at sixty-six. So young when you really think about it.

But I must confess, even now as a thirty-five-year-old man I have dreams of Daddy doing violent deeds to me, whipping me in vicious ways. The lingering effects of the whippings Daddy administered are illustrated in a story I heard about a boy and his father, who sought to rid his son of his habit of lying. The boy’s father hammered nails into a piece of wood for each lie his son told. Finally, when the board was nearly full, the boy pledged to stop lying. And his father promised to pull a nail out each time his son told the truth. When the board was completely empty, the boy began to cry.

“What’s wrong, son?” the boy’s father asked. “You should be happy. You’ve stopped lying, and the nails are all gone.”

“Yes,” the boy replied. “The nails are gone, but the holes are still there.”

Well, the holes are still there for me as well. My psyche bears the marks of spiritual and psychological violence. But I am not bitter toward Daddy. I honestly believe he was a good man trying to do his best in a world that was often difficult for him. The older I get, the more clearly I understand the forces he faced.

I guess I’m sharing all of this with you now because we never enjoyed this kind of intimacy before your imprisonment. A shame, but it’s true. And even though we grew up in a household where we knew we were loved, we rarely, if ever, heard the words, “I love you.” Daddy taught us to be macho men, strong enough to take care of ourselves on the mean streets of Detroit. And though Mama protested, thinking Daddy was trying to make us too rough at times, I’m sure we both appreciate many of his efforts to prepare us for an often cold-hearted, violent world.

I yearned for a home where we could be both strong and vulnerable, tough but loving. Daddy’s reading of the world led him to believe it was either one or the other. He chose to teach us how to survive in a city that was known then, in the
seventies, as the “Murder Capital of the World.” And because I loved books, and not the cars that you and Daddy and Brian loved to work on, he sometimes thought I was “too soft.” Daddy was really proud of me later when I excelled at school. He wanted me to be better than he was.

I remember once when I was about eight years old, I was mimicking his pronunciation of the number 4. He pronounced it “foe.” I followed suit. But he stopped me.

“Don’t you go to school, boy?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Don’t you know how to say that right?”

“Yes.”

“Then do that from now on. Okay?”

I’ve never forgotten that exchange. He didn’t have a great education, but he sure wanted me to be learned. Indeed, he wanted the best for all his boys. I imagine if he was alive he’d be heartbroken that you’re in prison. Daddy was the complete opposite of so much of what prison stands for. He rose every day before dawn, even after he retired from the factory, and worked until evening, cutting grass, laying sod, painting, or working as a maintenance man. I learned my work ethic from him. I can still hear him saying, “Boy, if you gonna do a job, do it right or don’t do it at all.” I’ve repeated that to Mike at least a million times. And of course, his other famous saying was “If you start a job, finish it.” That is, other than his maxim: “Laziness will kill yo’ ass.”

And even when he worked those thirty-three years at Kelsey-Hayes Wheelbrake, and Drum Factory, he often put in sixty or seventy hours. I swear I once saw a stub where he had worked nearly eighty hours, pulling a double shift for an entire week. It was Daddy’s example that led me to work two full-time jobs after Terrie got pregnant with Mike. (He warned me then, “The more money you make, the more you spend.” He was right, of course.) I’d go to a maintenance job from 1:00 A.M. to 7:30 the next morning, and then work a menial “construction job” (a misnomer, to be sure) from 7:30 to 4:30 in the evening. And I still had to get food stamps while Terrie was enrolled in WIC (Women, Infants, and Children). That stuff saved our lives.

I’m glad that you and I have learned to talk. To communicate. To express our love for one another. It hasn’t been easy seeing you cooped up like an animal when I visit you. But the one good thing to come out of all of this is that at least we’re getting to know each other better. That’s why I feel good about telling the world about you.

Even as I talk about you on television and radio, though, I always try to impress on the audiences and interviewers in the short time I have that ours is no “one son makes good and the other makes bad: what a tragedy” scenario. I’m not trying to pimp your pain or commercialize your misery to make a name for myself. That’s because, I believe in my heart, and hope you do too, that it could just as easily be me in your cell. I don’t want people using our story as a justification
for rewarding black men like me who are able to do well while punishing brothers like you who’ve fallen on harder times.

No matter how much education I’ve got, this Ph.D. is no guarantee that I won’t be treated cruelly and unjustly, that I won’t be seen as a threat because I refuse to point the finger at “dem ghetto niggers” (a statement made by black and white alike) who aren’t like me. I’m not trying to erase class differences, to pretend there’s no difference in a black man with a Ph.D. and a black man who’s a prisoner. I’m simply saying I can’t be seduced into believing that because I’ve got this degree I’m better.

How could I be? I was one of “dem ghetto niggers” myself. Even now I think of myself as a ghetto boy, though I don’t live there anymore, and I refuse to romanticize its role in its inhabitants’ lives. Not even survivor’s guilt can make me that blind. But being from the ghetto certainly leaves its marks on one’s identity. Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for serious, redemptive criticism of black life at every level, including the inner city. There’s a difference between criticism that really helps and castigation that only hurts.

I should close this letter for now. I fear I’ve touched on many sensitive spots, and you may sharply disagree with some of the things I’ve written. But that’s all right. The important thing is that as black men, as black brothers, we learn to embrace each other despite the differences that divide us. I hope you write me back. I’d really like to know what you think about what I’ve said. In the meantime, stay strong, and stay determined to renew your spirit and mind at the altar of devotion to God and our people. In the final analysis, it’s the only thing that can save us all.

Peace and Love,
Mike

NOT OFTEN IS THE SUBJECT OF
BROTHERHOOD brought
up. War, crime, and other various things are often talked about, but not brotherhood. I believe that one day we won’t have discrimination or anything relating to it in the world. There shall be, someday, a faith in all people that will make them see, if they have faith in their country and its peace, that they are taking a step toward having a better world.

Our leaders of yesteryear, and our leaders of today all have tried to make a profitable world for us. If we want peace and justice for ourselves, we must also sacrifice to become profitable.

We must look ahead, never back. When I say this I mean we shouldn’t think of the time when a man was beaten, or had to go to jail because of the color of his skin. Instead, we should look for a brighter future.

Our motive shall be to seek the day when all men, disregarding the color of their skins, shall be able to stand up and say that they have overcome the act of devaluating other people and that they can live together in continuing harmony, a harmony that will accomplish what leaders before us have tried.

All people, at times, have dreams about how they can improve our world, but some of us can’t quite express ourselves because we are young and don’t know how to bring these dreams out. If this is your problem, you should get your ideas across to someone who will act upon them, in a way that will make them sensible and conspicuous.

We should construct an enduring faith within ourselves, a faith that can withstand the problems caused by man, a faith that can someday help man solve the problems he has committed, and that faith should be entrenched in understanding!

We can’t judge a person because of the way he looks or because he handles situations differently than us. I believe you should judge a person on what he attempts to do, rather than on how he accomplishes it. I believe that he is putting effort into what he is trying to accomplish. Leaders from many nations would agree that it’s not how you do it, but what you try to do. That’s what counts.

The late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., provided many benefits for people, but the night before he was assassinated he asked, when someone delivers the eulogy at his funeral, not to mention the many awards he won, but to mention that he had tried to clothe, feed, and get equal rights for all people. Sometimes when someone does something little, he looks for a lot of praise, but this brilliant man only wanted people to remember him in a way knowing that he helped humanity. This sets an example for all people. Dr. King struggled for what he thought was right.

If we have dreams that will benefit our world, we must bring them out, or get them across to someone, because if you think they’re worth hearing, they must be heard!

All people, young and old, can at least be listened to, to see if they have anything of meaning that will make our world a better place to live. An old saying composed by Benjamin Franklin, “A penny earned is a penny saved,” relates to this, because “A dream gained is a dream made into reality.”

I believe that true leadership in bringing people together in a way that is understandable and acceptable to them is the first step in having people respecting and sharing their thoughts and beliefs with humanity. When people have reached the time in their lives when they can accept others as they are, then we might have a world fulfilled with tranquillity! This will be the day when all men will be able to transform their oasis of belief into a quality of success.