Confessions of a black Mr. Mom: one man's crusade to redefine African-American fatherhood.

AuthorCoates, Ta-Nehisi

IN ONE OF HIS MORE INTERESTING COMIC sketches, Chris Rock compares one group of African Americans, "niggas," to another more wholesome group, "black people." "You know what really bugs me about niggas is the way they always take credit for stuff a normal man would just do," says Rock. "Like, `I raised my kids.'"

By Rock's definition, I know exactly where I belong among African Americans today. For I am sure that even for this meager deed of fatherhood I am performing, I deserve a lot more than credit. My mission sounds simple enough: carting my young son through West Manhattan to visit another friend, working in Chelsea. I have logged enough baby hours to earn the title "stay-at-home dad," so I'm not exactly new to this. But our trek into the city elicits terror because of three converging factors: 1.) I am a hefty 6'4" black male--anything can happen. 2.) It's Manhattan--everything might happen. 3.) My son is 7 months old--something always happens.

To take the mystery out of the island on this visit to New York, I have recruited two friends. It helps that they are native New Yorkers and know the geography. It doesn't help that they are also young, black, male writers, whose size and dress (like my own), says almost nothing about who they are. Pushing the stroller, I remember the last time I was in New York with two other black male writers. As we were emerging from a Brooklyn subway that day, a white lady coming down the steps glanced our way and when she did not see Langston Hughes, immediately reversed direction.

Complicating things further today, the clouds that have been threatening us all afternoon open up with all their lordly might. Thunder and showers are everywhere. I suggest a cab. My friends remind me that we are the bane of taxis the realm over. But at least with a stroller we have a chance at netting a compassionate driver, right? Several yellow drive-bys later, we trot off with this one truth: Not even a stroller and a wet infant can take the monster out of three black dudes on a corner.

We walk the next several blocks in the rain to reach our goal. Our taxi episode initiates a contest for who has the worst "cabbies hate black men" story. I think I could win, were I focused on sorting through my "Astonishing Tales of Negrophobia" database. But I am too busy dealing with my own phobia--the one of my partner.

Samori Maceo-Paul Coates is the big-headed result of my union with Kenyatta Matthews. We met during a mutual stint at Howard University and have been together ever since. Before we met, she had a dim view of men as fathers. Her plan for parenthood was basically: get pregnant by some dude and then conveniently lose him. A father would only complicate things, she thought. When she got pregnant with Samori, I was able to convince her otherwise, but during my time as a dad, I have given my share of evidence to bolster her original view, and today's trip in the rain only promises to add another letter to the file.

Until now, Samori has been the picture of health. I am not even sure I've heard him cough. If he comes down with anything from this jaunt through the elements, Kenyatta will make worm's food of me. As if I needed confirmation of this, when we arrive in Chelsea, our host squeezes Samori's drenched pullover, then looks at me and keenly notes, "You're dead."

Thankfully, I make it back into Brooklyn before Kenyatta gets home from work. By the time she walks in, Samori is sound asleep, with no cough to speak of. Only his damp clothes, hanging on a door like discarded snakeskin, give a clue to our ordeal. But either out of fatigue or forbearance--it matters not which--she decides to save the haranguing for another day. And there will be another day. Indeed, for the black dude attempting to be June Cleaver--a man standing at the nexus of two undervalued experiences--this is his lot. Everywhere he looks there is another burden, be it the glare of his partner, or the blind eye of a cabbie. But in his own mind at least, he is a hero.

You see, for black men like me, fatherhood is a mission, a chance to atone for all the legions of errant black fathers. The black stay-at-home dad in particular gains purpose from all of this, and...

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