I was sitting there the other night thinking, Why did I end up growing my locs? The first thing that came to mind was roots. They’re growing right out of my head, and maybe I wanted something I could actually touch that reminded me where I came from.
I don’t know how much of it has to do with being a Black dad raising mixed kids. I do know I picture them years from now saying, “Daddy had these long dreads.” I hope they say it with a smile. I like the idea of them carrying that picture of me around.
I’ve been thinking about Charlie Kirk, too. I heard things he said about Black people as racist, and I worried about what young white people who looked up to him were taking from those remarks. I feel some relief that he’s no longer speaking to that audience. I feel for his soul, too. I wish he’d met somebody who could go word for word with him and make him sit with what he was saying. I wish he’d had more time to reckon with it himself.
That line of thought took me back to things I’d seen up close. At a community event I worked, we had a limited number of things to give away, my co-worker suggested we draw names. When the drawing was over, not a single Black person had been picked. In typical me fashion I said nah, split the drawing so each group get’s a chance, that way some of the Black attendees would get something as well. Mind you the representation was 70/30 so I made sure it was representative. What stayed with me was how familiar that first result felt. This company talked about serving “Black and brown” communities, and I kept seeing Black people get overlooked in the work we said was for them. And that’s what I was seeing on the good guy side. By the good guy side I mean a company that was picked by the white house as one of the 8 exemplars for providing our service which includes equity and the pursuit of racial justice.
I want to talk honestly about the anti-Blackness I’ve experienced, including from people in Latino communities. I don’t know if the time is right but there is something strange about watching someone as dark as me choose hispanic/latinx then select race as white all while having a passport from a country where brown is the main color. Or how the other day it was alleged some people from the same demographic wearing KKK uniforms and marching in the United States in 2026.
If there is a cultural shift and whites are no longer the majority and become a minority. What happen if somebody threatens a Black family, who shows up for them I hope my fellow POC’s would but would it be wise to be confident in that belief? It’s not time to talk about it now but one day we will need to do an autopsy on this last election and Trump-ism.
I’m scared for my babies. There’s that old adage about giving your kids everything you never had. I want them to feel like drawing breath on this earth is enough for their lives to be worth something that’s what I have believed and with them I have everything. I want to give them peace if anything and I want the only thing they need to be happy is to be Black and breathe.
Sometimes my future soul aches for the young Black people who’ll still be dealing with racial oppression microagressions prejudice long after I am gone. I think about how easily we’re taught to be suspicious of each other, and how much harder it gets to do anything together once we’ve learned to think that way. A people built on community and togetherness now replaced by toxic-individualism, self interest, greed. A soul unrecognizable to the motherland they are from. I wonder whether we’re doing enough now, and whether I’ll still be asking did I, did we leave this place better for my children.
When writing this I had an urge, one that feels almost alien, an urge to roar, fed to me from my ancestral DNA. A voice deep inside of me filled with energy and veracity. Then that veracity is calmed and re-focused to trying to pick the words. Surgically precise in my message (or meandering depending on who you ask). It felt important to keep that last line in to exmaine later.
I keep coming back to that vision of my kids remembering my locs talking about my Dad had these long locks, grey and black and long each dread with their own personality. What I really want them to remember is how they felt with me. A sense of levity. That we could laugh, even when things got dark or deep or sad a place where they are able to be honest and be themselves.
I want them to know things will be okay, even when it doesn’t feel that way right now. I want them to know that peace comes from within. That their own breath can center them. That being alive is valuable in its own right and waking up should be celebrated.
I hope they remember the things I taught them. I hope they remember how curious I was, and I want them to be curious themselves. I want them to know ordinary life can give you some amazing things. The sound of the wind outside of the window. The feeling of being warm and safe inside while a storm passes. I want them to remember dancing and my music. I want them to see how I treat people, with dignity and respect and love for their humanness.
I want their memory of me to live beyond my body. I hope they can still hear my voice in the wind, or in the quiet when they stop to look at the moon and the stars. I want them to wonder the same way I wonder.
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