Confessions from a Professed N-B-

Man, life can get all up in your ass, baby you better work it out…
Never have more truer words been spoken from the genre of hip hop. Thank you DeLa Soul. Today has not been as productive as what I would have preferred. Of course I did the basics, I woke up, ate, checked for communiqué, applied for more jobs via the web, probably need to do more following up on some things. This week I had a pretty rough scare. The good doctor, Dr. Jean, gave me cause for alarm. The reason, well, allow me to back track for a second. In my marriage, there, I would have to say I was hesitant. I shied away from conflict. At this point of self-critique, I can freely admit to myself, I latently had some self-esteem issues. I don’t know why this is coming out so freely now but it is. I was so romanticized by the acceptance from my wife, that I slowly morphed into a person I now recognize as what I would consider my anti-self. I was a sacrosanct. I would go along with anything, for the sanctity of being in my marriage plus the added luxury of peace and quiet. Why: I think because I was in competition with a ghost, maybe a series of them. There was my living dad, my deceased grandfather and my deceased step-father. I wanted to demonstrate to all three, that I could be a loving husband and a dad with a presence. For me, to be happily married satisfied that need. That added to my list of anxieties: rejection, failure, inability to provide, fueled what in hindsight might have been a gas fire I couldn’t stop. I grandly bought so much into the concept of marriage, where I forgot, that I too, needed to be happy. There were many opportunities which presented themselves for me to vocalize my objections to certain decisions but instead I bought into the notion that a still tongue makes a happy life.

A large part of the issue for me centered around my returning to school full time. As I valued that, she and I think members of her family and mine too for that matter rejected the idea. What man is going to go back to school while his wife supports him? That was the white elephant in the room. As they offered their opinions, I began to view myself as a second-class citizen within the marriage. Because Jean was the “financial breadwinner” I felt a great deal of my opinions were valued at only ½ in relationship to her 1 and ½ vote in our marriage. I think negative self-talk also reinforced this image. In short, I bought into the idea of being a social eunuch. That’s how I saw myself. I lacked value. I felt I wasn’t worthy of being loved because I wasn’t the “bread winner.” I wasn’t the provider. Consequently, that made me more vulnerable to emotional abuse. Oh I don’t think it was intentional, but looking back at the whole thing, I was being punished and didn’t know it. This is the sad thing about the duality of being African-American and male in the middle class society. Returning back to the question of financial stability, in our culture we (black folk) equate one’s sense of socially constructed manliness to ones means to economically provide. The social cues are there. We buy into them every day. The materialism, the keeping up with the Jones’s. If our friends had a house, we had to have a house. If our friends were in a certain daycare, we had to be in a daycare that was comparable. If our friends were going on a cruise, we had to go the Europe. It was like a grown up game of follow the leader and I felt penalized because my life for the next five to eight years was to be a Ph.D. student, not Cliff Huxtable. But I felt forced into that modality of thinking because I wanted to keep my wife happy. We played the game but the roles were reversed. I didn’t have the full time 9 to 5, but she did. She made more money than I did. Put simply, I was not the man in my marriage. This was never more thunderous when her brother called to “put me in check.” I was branded irresponsible, lazy, lacked motivation, you name it; I wore the brand.
My aunts even reminded me of this when we were pregnant. You cannot go back to school. If you go back to school your wife is going to leave you. The messages were so threatening, that I had to put certain members of my family on mute. I just couldn’t take it.

I easily remember the time I had a severe nervous breakdown in the fall of 2003. It was one of my worst panic attacks ever. My immediate 360 degrees personified a paralytic storm of emotional debilitation, thus forcing me to take a medical leave of absence. Basically, my manager, who was as racially sensitive as Steve Urkle was socially graceful, reached me at a point in my life when I finally decided, enough was enough regarding her white superiority-complex. The bullshit had to cease and desist, and my early to mid 30s would initiate my new state of racial consciousness. Before you I present the back-story. Our professional relationship was tumultuous, and that was on a good day. I’ve never been one to back away from a social stand. In 1997, I came to the aid of eight African American boys who decided getting admitted to one of the top HBCUs in North Carolina on free rides mind you, thrust them into manhood, ergo placing them into a celebratory mood and a state of public drunkenness. Loveable jackasses they were, they brought 40 ounce malt liquor into their residential halls which of course was state run. I and other black people on the campus saw the writing on the wall. It was so clear Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles could see it. These boys, loveable jackasses they were, who were at the flagship high school in North Carolina, were looking down the barrel of expulsion. Now, the administration was not stupid. In fact beyond the handwriting on the wall, they saw the newspaper headlines. Eight African American Boys Expelled. No, this would not be a good admissions tool. Instead, the administration targeted two. When I saw how one boy who really didn’t have a strong African American male role model come to is aid, guess who did. After a month of going to meetings with his mother, his lawyer, the court you name it, he and his co-conspirator were able to stay in school. Now, its not everyday that black people step to white folk and live to tell the tale. Hence, a new white female supervisor who pretty much was told, we (the administration) have got a price on that niggers head became my bounty hunter. Get that nigger dead or alive. We prefer he be dead.

Round One: Fall of 1997, out of nowhere, I am getting written warning after written warning. I had no back up to help me do my job. Round Two: Spring 1998, I am suspended for two weeks (an attempt without pay). Learning that my rights of due process had been grossly violated, I was still suspended, but my pay was re-instated. Round Three: Fall 1998, I experience my first job related panic attack. I resign, only to rescind the resignation 24 hours later. I also realize I do have a voice and discover the EEOC and file complaints. Round Four: Fall 1999, after getting another written warning, and learning that my supervisor was attempting to fire me, I learned later that because some previous written warnings had expired, I just had to get another written warning. Round Five: Fall 2000, I filed another complaint with EEOC about what I interpreted as intentional attempts to create a hostile work environment. Its here where I am called into a meeting with the president of the school to come up with a way to peaceably get me to leave. By this time, I’ve learned that when an EEOC complaint is filed, it puts the breaks temporarily on any human resources process because the federal government is now involved. Round Six: Spring 2001, the most climatic battle between my supervisor and myself takes place. By this time, I am accused of tampering with a computer system as well as poor job performance. Again, she was trying to force me out, I wasn’t trying to go. In the Spring of 2003, I am admitted to Howard University and my boss is giddy. He’s going to leave and go to school at the end of the 03 school year. After careful consideration I decided no; I needed one more year of savings. On top of that, Jean was not happy with me relocating without her, right after we got engaged, so I followed my heart and my wallet. Round Seven: As I made the decision to stay at my job for one more year, my manager, suddenly found problems with my job performance. One day, I was called into a meeting behind closed doors she basically called me Nigger without saying the word. Defiantly pointing her finger at me, raising her voice, I felt was threatening let alone condescending. Me, attempting to assert my rights as a human being, let alone my feelings of being racially disrespected, I lodged yet another complaint against her behavior. What I failed to learn, after all these bouts, was that I was in violation of certain social contracts.

Breach of social contract one: you as the employee are never, ever, to question the actions or motivations of your direct superior.
Breach of social contract two: as a black man employed in North Carolina State Government, regardless of your training and education, you are still relegated to a stigmatic classed existence. You are (at least in 2003) forbidden, to assert your state of being, be creative, take initiative and in general, be considered equal to your white folk counterpart. I discovered this after learning of a study where the state even admitted; we have done black men wrong in state government.

After bringing this matter to the attention of a white supervisor, a white human resources director, a white administrator, and of course, a white executive director, I was viewed as the Negro Problem of 2003. Sure enough, after I vocalized what I now knew was my racialized experience, I found myself in the midst of another, in now what I considered an absurd list of job disputes with my Lilliputian tyrannical, Napoleonic, cookie making desperate housewife boss. After numerous attempts to discharge me for cause, I had been brought into a pre-disciplinary dismissal meeting for of all things, a damned walkie talkie. Trying to be professional about this trumped up discharge, she gives me a notice, Friday evening, telling me that Monday morning, I am to come to a pre-termination meeting. We’ll disregard the fact that I had been elected to the post of Staff Council President, (the youngest one). At the time, I’m calm. I’m cool like Shaft. I ask, “Are you sure this is what you want to do?” Gleefully she said yes this is what I want to do. So, in my mind I am getting ready for another installment of “The Terminator.” At Jeans apartment, as I am preparing for my mounting defense, I suddenly go numb. I can’t speak for an hour. My body is stiff. OK, not only can I not speak, I am now paralytic. On the next Monday, the doctor tells me that I have had a panic attack, and what I need is some time for lack of a better term, to reboot myself. So after making amends with my psychologist of the moment, I elect to take what is called emergency family medical leave. Its here where I am diagnosed with Anxiety Disorder. So for the next three months I am out of work, trying to figure out what has happened to me. Now here is where the line starts to become a circle. Being one who believes in total disclosure, when the, to-be, in laws come to visit, I feel the need to be up front with them. I tell them everything that’s happened. Her father is pretty much from the old school saying in so many words, “Sometimes when you are working for someone, you’ve got to take what the boss gives you, even if it is crap.” My family wasn’t much better. One of my aunts was of the opinion, “You know you know how to work with that white woman. Just keep your mouth shut and do your job.” So in short, I felt as though I was in the middle of a conundrum. Yes I have a job, but am I predestined to a life of racialized second-class citizenship, in order to get a pay-check? Apparently, I am. So everything I was taught about being a man, self advocating, being racially conscious, being the man who would risk his neck for his brother man, going to the million man march to say I am my brother’s keeper, is only to be practiced during Black History Month and every first Sunday. My racial and gendered state of efficacy is now in a crisis of conscious. Wonderful. Those who were of the generation of the civil rights movement were now hypocrites. In the words of Prince, I wanted to smack somebody because I felt as though the people I sought out for guidance and inspiration were cowards. Oh no. Where I worked, regardless of my academic achievements, regardless of what I had done over the past 8 years there, I’m was supposed to know my role and shut my damn mouth. In other words, roll over and play the role of nigger/bitch and I regain my masculinity. Be all you can be, be the nigger-bitch, and proudly, be the best damned nigger-bitch you can be. Yep that’s me, your friendly neighborhood, nigger-bitch. Capitulate, sell-out, and then you will walk like a man my son. In the words of one of my deceased associates, I’d rather lick my own vomit. To me, to capitulate socially at that level, in short is congruent to self emasculation. That, I could not and will not do. But in the eyes of the traditionalist, their view distinctively represents an oppositional gaze.

I could hear the commentary from the sidelines. He’s going to lean on this woman for life. He’s going to loose his damn job and become financially dependent on his new fiancée. Well, by 2004, I was married; I left my job on my terms and went back to school. The wife in essence was making the bulk of the money but in all fairness, I took my retirement from the state and subsidized a great portion of my first year of graduate study. Here is where the arc becomes 3/4s of a circle. Regardless of the fact that I was paying for my education and not asking my wife really for anything except a ride to and from the airport; I paid my portion of the rent, I paid my share of the utilities. That said, as I was doing all of that, I still felt afraid to vocalize my opinions. I would allow myself, to deny myself. I represented a work in progress, not instant husband, just add water. Its interesting how that level of corrosive thinking, distorts your self image. You see, because I was not viewed, even through my own eyes, as a providing partner, I resigned myself to a second class status in my marriage. One could say there was a genderfuck within our home. Through the eyes of patriarchal hegemonic constructs of the American marriage structure, she, culturally and symbolically was wearing the pants in the family because she culturally personified what we in our society view as what a man is suppose to do. She was making the money with her Ph.D. where as I, was just the Ph.D. student; what was I contributing to the marriage? That type of negative self-defeatist that I allowed myself to buy into, made me silent. I was afraid. I was afraid to assert myself to my wife, my mother, her father and her brother and even her friends. I was afraid to lead. I think also what needs to be mentioned is that it takes two for the process of domination to be complete and fittingly my circle comes full. Domination is a two-person process. Now I am not saying Jean was a bitch. What I am saying is that she was not cognizant. Was that her fault? Not at all, I take the blame for that. I take the blame for that because I bought into a system that perpetuates the myth and lie combined. One has to enable domination and one has to assume the role of the dominator. Now over the course of time, anyone is capable of learning from trial and error. I sincerely believed that Jean did begin to learn from her experiences and thus took control to a certain extent from me. Every person has a price, mine was peace and quiet. I wanted a tranquil home. That said, there is another word that comes from tranquil, tranquilize. How do you have a tranquilizing home without crossing the line to being anesthetized? I was afraid of her throwing fits, withholding affection, going into a funk. These things were bargaining chips or points of currency if you will which had me in check. Whatever you want baby you got it. I’ll do it. Because again you see I wasn’t bringing home the bread so I didn’t have much say so over what went on in my home. So the cycle of domination was pretty solid. Even when I was making decent coin, it was only ½ of what she was making and guess what, I still bought into it. And guess what, she left anyway. The good thing about this, and if you go through this yourself, all ways look for the good, even in the most horrid of places, going through my deepest fear regarding my marriage, I haven’t done anything destructive to myself, nor to anyone else. Oh I’ve been depressed, but dysfunctional and depressed aren’t in the same category. When this is all done, and I recognize I still have a long way to go, I can say with my head held high, I am a man and I am setting a damn good model for our son. I may not always win, but even in our defeats and losses, how we react, absorb and learn from the lows, without question is a testament to our real character. I was a man in tact when I came into my marriage and damn it, I am going to be a man, a bigger man as I exit this marriage. I know I know how to love and I am worthy of someone to share that with. Do I have everything together today, no.. Will I have everything together tomorrow? Probably not, but what’s most important, and I hope you take this with you as you read this, I am showing up ready for practice, getting ready to play. If you can do even that, just by showing up, think about what you can do, when you learn the rules of the game and actually play it. Not only will you be a player, but eventually, you will be an owner of your own team, the team called yourself.