Thank You Dad

With Sunday rapidly approaching, Father’s Day is getting closer and closer.  I vowed to write about my dad and give him his time in the spotlight after writing a post about my mom on the Tuesday leading up to Mother’s Day, so here we are.  I want to focus on him and talk a little bit about why he’s so special to me and hopefully some of what you read will remind you of your own dad or someone who played a father figure in your life.

Father’s Day is a special day for me because it always causes me to reflect on my dad and the impact he has had in my life, but it also causes me to think about the type of father I want to be when that time happens.  I don’t have any kids right now and I have to say that I really look forward to the day when I become a dad.  I’m not rushing into anything, but I eagerly anticipate that time with a certain fondness because of my own positive childhood experiences, and I aim to live up to my dad’s model of fatherhood to my child(ren).

Some of my earliest memories of my dad are quality time experiences of him teaching me to ride a bike, watching Saturday morning cartoons, and sledding together.  I also learned how to play soccer from him, and he was an assistant coach on a couple of my youth league teams.  Whether he was a coach on the team or not, on the way home we would talk about the games I played in and throughout the week I would pull him out into the backyard to practice kicking the ball around and to build my skills.  We would watch professional soccer games together on TV and also get excited about the World Cup (I’m sure we will have some lively conversations about World Cup Brazil 2014 which kicks off soon).  I remember when I showed an interest in basketball too.  My dad went out, bought a rim, and made a backboard with a painted Spartan ‘S’ on it for my favorite team, Michigan State.  He put the whole thing on our garage above the door making sure it measured the regulation 10 feet, and we would spend many evenings in the driveway shooting around and hanging out.

My dad is a bit of the strong silent type until you get him warmed up and chatting.  Then watch out, because it will be open season for jokes, and some friendly funny sarcastic jabs.  If he starts to talk about a topic on national or world affairs, I learned very quickly at an early age that I would be in for one heck of an educational lesson.  You see my dad has a PhD in Political Science so one question about something on the national news can easily turn into a 2 hour conversation about the history of why that event happened, at least 5 or 6 potential outcomes of what the result can be, and who knows what other useful information will get thrown in there.  Even watching a movie (fictional or not) based on a historical event can turn into an eye opening educational moment with my dad.  I always listened in amazement at how much he knew, never getting bored, and I remember thinking as a child that I needed to get my dad on Jeopardy one day.  But those are some of the best conversations that I’ve had with my dad, and what has fueled my own curiosity to collect a wealth of knowledge and seek out answers.  Sometimes he wouldn’t give me the easy answer when I had a question and would say go look it up instead.  I wasn’t the happiest when I heard that because during a very significant part of my childhood there was no such thing as Google, or even the internet.  So paper cuts from reading and flipping through the encyclopedia and reporting back what I found was how I got to some answers from questions I had and then we would talk about what I found. 

Some of the other best conversations I had were sitting with my dad getting my hair cut.  He cut my hair throughout my entire life until I moved to Austin about 3 years ago.  Besides playing soccer and basketball with him, my haircuts have been some of the best father son times we have had so far.  We would engage in all sorts of great conversations about current events, things happening in school, dating, and almost any other life circumstance you can imagine.  Those were truly some special times that we spent together bonding as I learned life lessons, how to be a mature adult, and laughing together.

I’ve probably written it in numerous Father’s Day cards to him, but if I could achieve even half the things as a father that my dad has done for me, I would consider myself a great dad.  I’m not even referring to the financial support side of things because my best memories were never rooted in a dollar amount that he spent on me, but quality time spent together as I grew up.  That’s one of the things that makes my dad so special to me, is the quality time we have spent together.

Whether it was going to my first Yankee game with him, watching Saturday morning cartoons together, learning about worldly events, playing sports together, laughing together or anything else, my dad has always been there for me.  I understand what a privilege that is, and I am absolutely grateful for having that relationship with him, so I do not take it for granted at all.  My goal is that when I become a father that I can be a great dad for my child(ren) the way he has been for me.  He’s my role model as a man and a father, a best friend, a fill in older brother (since I’m an only child), and one heck of a great listener.  Love you Dad.

This pic is from my family's 1st visit to old Yankee Stadium the year they closed it.

Definitely in my top 10 of father-son moments with my dad.

It's Not Just a Costume

It’s that time of year when kids get dressed up as their favorite characters from movies, television, and books.  They descend on America’s neighborhoods with parents and guardians in tow in the hunt for the perfect stash of candy.  I fondly remember dressing up and doing the same thing with my parents.  As this cherished tradition comes around every year we see some very creative costumes emerge.  Unfortunately, somewhere along the way the innocence and fun that Halloween brought us as kids, now contains a sobering reminder of a social ill that plagues our society.

I won’t sit behind a keyboard vilifying those who have decided to don blackface as a part of their Halloween costume because there are countless other blogs you can go to if that’s what you want to read.  While I believe that it is offensive for people to dress in blackface I also believe that there is a larger picture that needs to be viewed.  Also I believe that there is a more fruitful approach that can be taken before we simply attack those that are ignorant of the ramifications of their costumes.

I’ve done a lot of trainings, and led many discussions about diversity and cultural sensitivity.  Through these experiences I’ve come to find that many people (of all ethnicities) believe we live in a post racial world.  We don’t see the things in our day-to-day lives that we see when we look at newsreels of the 60’s and 70’s so there are many people that believe that we are somehow safe from racism now.  It’s far from the truth, but it’s from these beliefs that people choose blackface as part of a Halloween costume because “it doesn’t matter anymore”, or “I’ve got (insert any ethnicity here) friends so what I do can’t be seen as racist”.

These thoughts are proof that we ALL, not just white people, not just blacks, etc. have failed to educate our society and that we have a lot of work to do.  We tell people it’s wrong, and jump on a bandwagon about how they should be sorry for their costume by saying it’s racist and offensive, but often I don’t believe we go deep enough into why.  Despite the inevitable that some people will do it for mal intent, we all as a society need to continue the conversations beyond it being wrong and educate people on why it’s wrong.  Engage people who aren’t aware of why it’s so wrong in a meaningful dialogue about what blackface is, what it was historically and why it is still offensive today. 

Quite often people are scared to engage in meaningful dialogues so it’s a challenge, but it makes it that much more crucial to have them around these topics.  People are afraid to reveal what they don’t know and sometimes we aren’t even aware what we don’t know; this is true for all people of all ethnicities.  That is why when issues such as blackface costumes come up we must use them to come together and use it as an opportunity to learn from each other and talk about why it is offensive. 

Embracing a solution-oriented position I can only hope that the knowledge shared will spread.  In doing so I’m not encouraging people that are offended to negate the gravity of the situation, nor downplay emotions about it.  Instead I’m encouraging them to channel it all to do something positive to help prevent it from happening in the future and raise awareness.   If you aren’t aware of why it’s so offensive, hopefully the links below can shed some light on the topic and help you have your own informed conversations about blackface.   

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/foster/sfeature/sf_minstrelsy.html

http://blackhistory.com/content/61585/blackface