Brothers (and Me)

by Donna Britt

  My revelation, I suddenly knew, wasn’t just about me. I recalled the day that my public relations executive friend Gwen had startled me by describing a program for at-risk youths as “perfect” for me to write about because I had “that thing for young black men.” Gwen had seen something that I’d hoped my feminist trappings had hidden: I’m a guy’s girl, particularly a black guy’s girl. Like most black women.

  Don’t expect us to admit it. Like independent white women with a soft spot for men, sisters talk a good “I’m my own woman” game, warbling with everyone from Gloria Gaynor to Beyoncé about our self-sufficiency. For years, when a man bullshitted a black woman on TV, her “Say what?” response was a cliché: Her head swiveled. One eyebrow arched. Her don’t-even-think-about-it finger snap said, “Honey, I am not having it.”

  Please.

  Let a black man, any black man, be publicly compromised. Let one be fired, arrested, swept up in a melee he had no hand in or caught in a crime he masterminded. Let a prominent black man be accused of anything, from asking a female employee about pubic hairs on a Coke can to raping a virginal teen beauty queen, from sleeping with boys at his fairy-tale ranch to stabbing to death his blond ex-wife and her friend.

  Guess who’ll be his staunchest, if not only, defenders. Of dozens of possible explanations, one is irrefutable: No group of women has a more agonizing history of seeing their fathers, sons, and husbands snatched away from them, of shrieking helplessly as their men were dragged into the night. The cruelties visited on black men have scarred them in myriad ways, and cut black women just as deeply.

  Finger snaps and platitudes can’t dismiss the sense of lurking tragedy many black women feel, or their unthinking response to it.

  Before that moment on the sofa, I’d never connected the dots. Darrell’s undeserved killing had inspired me to heedlessly dedicate myself to supporting and protecting black men as penance for my failure to protect him—and as insurance against tragedies to come.

  How many other black women were doing the same thing?

  How many sisters were putting their dreams and well-being on hold on behalf of the men in their lives, men often unaware of their efforts? How many were taking a backseat to brothers, in private or in the public consciousness? Far more has been written about “endangered” black men than about their equally threatened sisters—with barely a peep of protest from the ignored. The disproportionate attention focused on black men results from brothers inspiring more fear than black women. If I’d been in that ditch behaving as the cops described, I might have been spared.

  And the person who’s most likely to die is the one who’s “endangered,” correct?

  Survivors of such killings know better. Darrell was gone, but Mom and I, as well as my father and brothers, had to live on and endure it. The carnage that has decimated the nation’s population of black men barely acknowledges their shell-shocked kin, the thousands of wives, lovers, mothers, daughters, and, yes, sisters left behind, many of them emotionally and financially devastated.

  No one can tell me they aren’t endangered.

  By the time my son Darrell was nine, my own hidden array of fears had spurred me to enroll him in tae kwon do. His roiling dissatisfaction in a world hostile to angry black boys frightened me. Perhaps the Korean form of karate would boost his confidence. Besides, the kid was skinny with an attitude. It seemed prudent that he learn to protect himself, if only from me.

  Inspired by movie martial artists like Jackie Chan and Ernie Reyes Jr., Darrell happily attended classes and learned quickly. Though frustrated that his early training focused on hyeong, a precise series of intricate movements, rather than on the high kicks he’d admired on-screen, he appreciated the system’s rigors. When his instructor suggested Darrell was proficient enough to enter a kids’ tournament, I signed him up.

  Arriving at the competition, Darrell, Mani, Kev, and I were immediately surrounded by dozens of grunting, kicking kids in uniforms tied with various colored belts. As loudspeakers boomed the results of separate contests, I watched Darrell warily absorb the noise and activity. Feeling his caution slide into terror, I offered every assurance I could think of: “Isn’t this cool? You’re going to do great! Look, there’s the medal you could win!”

  Finally, it was his turn to compete. As five other beginners lined up, Darrell stood aside, studying them. He’d never seemed so tiny or vulnerable.

  Suddenly he spoke: “I’m not doing it.” Sounding as resolute as he had at the airport when he stated he was not going to St. Louis, Darrell added, “Nope, not doing it,” and headed for the door.

  Desperate, I ran after him. “C’mon, you’re really good at this!” I called out to him. “If you leave, I’ll be really disappointed in you… So what if you don’t win. Just try!”

  Jumping between Darrell and the door, I placed both hands on his shoulders. Bending over, I looked in his eyes. “Honey, please don’t do this,” I pleaded. “Don’t quit.”

  Eyes locked with mine, Darrell inhaled. Turning, he joined the other contestants. I couldn’t breathe. Mouth set, he awaited his signal, then moved through his paces with perfect precision. I didn’t care what the judges thought. He’d done it!

  So when the loudspeaker announced that he’d won first place, I was astounded to hear screams—mine—and feel a perplexing wetness engulfing my face. I’d burst into tears. How could this pint-sized person have such power over me? It didn’t matter because I knew:

  Darrell wasn’t alone in having won that day. Everything was going to be okay.

  Any black woman can tell you: Our kids aren’t the only ones who surreptitiously burrow inside us. So do our men.

  Yet so much has been written about the tensions that divide black men and women, it’s easy to overlook what unites us. Ours is a dance of mutual affection and hostility, dependence and distrust, fascination and resentment. This push-pull dynamic has forged a gap between African-American women and their men that yawns, shrinks, and yawns again. The breach contributes to 70 percent of black children being born to unmarried mothers—and the vast majority of those babies having black fathers. Statistically, sisters are the least likely of all U.S. citizens to marry outside their race, though we’re far less likely than other women to be permanently linked to our children’s fathers.

  As dismaying as such statistics are, and no matter how many beauty shop rants black women begin with the words “All brothers are dogs!” we won’t give up on black men. We won’t let them be dragged into the night.

  My revelation about the man I’d lost made me reflect more on the guys whose well-being now consumed me, especially my sons. Who would I even be without Mani, Darrell, and Skye? Their births taught me that the stretching required to push something as substantial as a baby through a tiny opening is too profound to be merely physical. Becoming a mother opened me like nothing else, and no one else could fill the space they’d created.

  Surely I would have felt the same if I’d borne daughters. But I’d had three black boys. Years after their births, I still asked myself what every mother of black sons must: Did I have what it took to equip them to become strong, loving men in a harsh, unloving world?

  By high school, the sweet certainty I’d felt after Darrell’s martial arts triumph was a distant memory. Sometimes, wading through the tumult of clothes and sports gear in his room, I’d run across his gold medal and gaze at it in wonder.

  Its recipient had long since abandoned tae kwon do—along with playing sports with any seriousness, pretending to care about school, and listening to me.

  I still offered Darrell praise, encouragement, and surprises; nothing pleased him for long. His resentment was so palpable, and our fights so fierce, I wondered if he hated me. Sometimes I wondered if I hated him. I’ll never forget the day he hurled a taunt at me so piercing that I lunged at him, wrapping my hands around his neck. Immediately, I pulled away, flabbergasted by my fury. Darrell’s expression was more shocking. Though enraged, he looked as if he felt
he deserved it. Feeling desperate and defeated by his hostility, back talk, and lies, I studied brochures from military academies. But I couldn’t send him away.

  If not for Mani and Skye, I would have felt certain I was an atrocious mother. But these sons, like my brothers Bruce and Darrell, not only welcomed my efforts, but reciprocated them. Like the time Skye, who as a preteen despised shopping, wheedled his way out of a trip to buy school clothes, leaving me to guess at his sizes. Returning home, I found a sorry-about-that fruit salad he’d fixed me on the counter. Modest and self-sacrificing to a fault, Skye was the most likely of my sons to say, “No, Mom, you take the last brownie/comfortable chair/extra taco for yourself.” No wonder he won his middle school’s “Quiet Giver” award, voted by fellow pupils and teachers as the student most “helpful and generous in ways that might go unnoticed due to his quiet nature.”

  Mani, too, took my example to heart. “Trying to please everyone is a gift and a curse I inherited from you,” he told me. “When I was little, I saw how tirelessly you worked to please people. What better way to earn people’s love and respect than to be the one who never lets them down? I wanted friends, people I worked with, my girlfriends, to think, Mani always comes through.”

  My eldest was also like me in a less noble way: enamored from day one of the opposite sex. The toddler who’d pinched the legs of the prettiest girls in my journalism workshops became a man who adored women, to the point that he often warned potential lovers he couldn’t swear to be faithful (though his innate honesty wouldn’t allow him to be unfaithful). Darrell’s vaunted opinion of him notwithstanding, Mani wasn’t perfect. A casual observer of the two brothers would have assumed Darrell, the hip-hop scowler, was the liquor-and-drug experimenter. In fact, Darrell never drank or got stoned, once saying, “People get high to be me.” Mani, on the other hand, not only drank wine, beer, or liquor at every high school party; he eventually experimented with weed, coke, and even ecstasy. He got away with such behavior because he was like me in another way: a born discloser. How do you stay mad at someone who instantly confesses, and apologizes for, his sins?

  But Darrell was like me, too. His sudden rages and refusals to back down resembled mine more than I liked to admit. But his riotous humor was delightfully—and disturbingly—reminiscent of someone else’s: my late brother’s. My other hilarious Darrell had been volatile, too. Knowing what it may have cost him was frightening—and impossible to discuss with his namesake.

  By the time Darrell left for Hampton (we figured my small alma mater would be more nurturing to a complex youth than a huge state school), I’d surrendered my perplexing middle son to God. I certainly wasn’t having any impact. I hadn’t stopped loving him or trying to reach him. Yet when I told him, “I think I’d have to die for you to appreciate me,” I meant it. Darrell just looked at me.

  Although I missed him when he left for college, I reveled in our home’s relative peacefulness without him. It didn’t last. Like me, Darrell found Hampton’s intimate campus restrictive. Unlike me, he had the presence of mind to transfer, to the theater program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, a half hour from our home. Darrell and his drama were back.

  During a talk with Kevin and me about our frustration over how he kept his life and feelings hidden from us, Darrell, who had seemed unusually nervous, made an astounding confession. At Hampton, freed from parental prying, he’d unleashed his inner outlaw. Lacking funds to buy the stylish sneakers he craved, Darrell started stealing them. Channeling Melech, he described entering a store, slipping on a pair of desirable shoes, and studying them in the mirror. When the salesclerk got distracted, he’d slip his old pair into the empty box and boldly stroll out in the new ones.

  As if that wasn’t enough, Darrell (who still didn’t get high) briefly sold marijuana, though only to people he trusted. Unbeknownst to me, my son had been risking his freedom, his future, and his family’s reputation. And he didn’t care. “It was all about me, what I wanted,” he admitted. “I was smart about it so I knew I wouldn’t get caught. And if I did, so what?”

  So what? I’d spent years working to instill character in my sons, certain to assure their actions would reflect and prove their worth—black people’s worth. Yet Darrell had blithely validated the worst stereotypes, flirted with the possibility of jail, and behaved in ways that suggested my integrity, too, might be a lie. I’d lost my brother because others had only thought he was stealing. The son I’d named in his honor was actually doing it, throwing himself to the very wolves I’d tried to shield him from. How could my son—nephew of my slain brother, a teen we’d taught about the criminal justice system’s harshness with black youths—be so reckless?

  “What were you thinking?” we asked him. “I wasn’t thinking,” he said. Asked “What were you feeling?” Darrell was silent. Then:

  “A lot of it had to do with just not wanting to be around,” he said slowly. “I almost think I wanted to die. It seemed like an escape. I had no direction, I felt useless and didn’t care what happened to me. So I said, ‘Fuck it.’ Since I was a burden to everyone, if I got locked up, no one would have to worry about me.”

  Escape. Utterly at a loss, I remembered the times I’d been confounded by reports of black and brown youngsters whose prison-or-death mind-set suggested a desire to bolt from life. Yet these kids were impoverished; their most compelling role models were in prison or their graves. Darrell had spent his life surrounded by encouragement and success. Why would a kid from a stable home commit minor criminal acts? What had he hoped to escape?

  Searching for answers, I reminded myself that many wild-oats-sowing white youths also behave badly. Then I wondered if Darrell’s lifelong antipathy was at all linked to his having been just five months old when I left Greg. Hamani had been four—old enough, perhaps, to know his father, to feel assured of his love. Darrell had always grieved more for the man whose connection grew increasingly tenuous after I married Kevin. Millions of black boys lack any father-son connection. That has a huge effect, no matter how loving or giving their mothers.

  And there was this: for every child like Mani, whose sense of self is solid from birth, there’s one like Darrell, whose inborn fear of being unloved and unworthy haunts him. Such kids come in every shade, yet those who are black or brown hear whispers that support every nasty thing they fear—you’re not good enough, you’ll never succeed, we’ll never accept you. Hearing such messages as a girl, I decided to be so perfect that “they” would be forced to accept me. Darrell decided differently. Unwilling to try to live up to an impossibly high standard, he set his own: a low one.

  The fact that a multitude of kids were like him didn’t make his behavior, or the cavalier attitude behind it, tolerable. Too crushed for words, I left the room.

  The next day, Darrell found me in my office. Sitting at my computer, I’d been staring at the screen, trying in vain to write. All I could think about was my son’s confession, and its suggestion that I’d been an even bigger failure as a mother than I’d suspected. Turning in my chair, I stared mutely at my son, contemplating his charisma, humor, insight, and preciousness, none of which he believed in, and all of which reminded me of another irreplaceable Darrell’s.

  Tears filling my eyes, I found words. Darrell remembers them clearly. “You started telling me about your brother,” he recalls. “How he had all this promise that got thrown away. You said you’d secretly feared that the same thing could happen to me. You’d given me his name. Now you were worried about what it meant for me.”

  My macho middle son remembers that he started to cry. “That was a defining moment,” Darrell says. “It was the day I promised to not let the same thing happen to me.”

  After years of failing to make my son understand how loved he was, he believed me. After two decades of wondering if I was the wrong mother for my son, I felt I was the right one. All because I’d told him what I’d hardly admitted to myself: how vulnerable losing my other Darrell had made me. For years, I’d
feared that admitting my terror to my sons would somehow put them more at risk. Yet it had the opposite effect: Darrell, sensing how much this confession had cost me, finally understood that he was as essential as the brother I’d lost. As he put it:

  “Seeing how much we meant to you changed everything.”

  Countless black women spend a lifetime terrified by the vulnerability kindled by their inseverable link to their embattled brothers. Sometimes, as with my cherished middle son, that connection pays off. Sometimes not. And sometimes, after a brother’s crisis has passed and he has moved on without noting or acknowledging our support, we ask, “Who supports me?”

  More often than we’d like, we must do that for ourselves. At times I’ve wondered: Is that such a bad thing?

  Self-sufficiency was one of the chief traits I’d hoped to engender in my sons; by 2005, they were twenty-three, twenty, and ten, old enough for me to begin to gauge my success. I knew my brother’s death had made me feel unduly responsible for their welfare. To shake free, I had to feel my boys were on the right track.

  Skye, our youngest, most easygoing son, was already his own (young) man. Telling him to do something that made no sense to him was like bitch-slapping the wind: pointless. No argument, threat, or intemperate display disturbed his monklike peacefulness as he swatted away directives from teachers, peers, and us. Skye’s sense of honor was stronger even than Mani’s; he never abandoned anyone or anything, including homework if he didn’t complete it by bedtime. He kept plugging away, finishing every assignment no matter how late it got or how forcefully we ordered him to stop. A violin student from age five, Skye performed at recitals with ease, and acted in school plays with as much ferocity as Darrell, who said, “Skye’s the only person I know who’s fearless.”