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Kenya N. Rahmaan
When I began fighting for child support reform, I was unfamiliar with other battles happening within the family court arena. It didn’t take long to become familiar with terms like father’s rights and parental alienation. I reached out to a few established organizations in my early days, hoping to join forces and fight together for justice against the corrupt governmental systems. I’d always and still feel that there is power in numbers, especially when going against Uncle Sam and its draconian guidelines stripping parents of their rights on so many levels. I formed alliances with some and not so much with others.
I didn’t understand initially why the separation, but I was naive to what was happening behind the scenes of the traditional institution reserved for fathers fighting for equal rights for their children. It was different than the fight for child support reform. I quickly learned there was an invisible divider between fathers who felt they were fighting for visitation and didn’t mind paying child support and the ‘others.’ Let me explain. The rest were those who I’d hope to reach through advocacy, those whom the government had deemed ‘absent’ and had forced to pay court-ordered child support.
The divider allowed the first group to continuously share misleading information about the fatherless ‘crisis’ allegedly plaguing the United States. And surprisingly, unbeknownst to the second group, they are the leading cause of the crisis. They are usually absent and NEVER want to pay child support. Of course, the second part is generally discussed behind closed doors or in the internet age, in closed groups and chats. But every now and then, there’s a leak or a whistleblower, and viola, what was blurry suddenly becomes crystal clear.
Consider the fatherless statistics always shared, posted, reshared, and reposted. A favorite among said organizations is PragerU, short for Prager University, which according to its website, is not an accredited academic institution, but it does promote ‘American’ values. And PragerU likes publishing biased and misleading stats that insinuate that the welfare state is the cause of the destruction of the Black family. That statement is a favorite talking point among the first group. One of the many memes asks if people knew that, according to Dennis Prager (2019)
in 1960, before the welfare state’s expansion, 22% of Black children were raised with only one parent. By 1985, after the welfare state’s expansion, 67% of Black children were raised with either one parent or no parent
And this has been the basis of thousands, if not millions, of disparaging comments aimed at Black fathers, mothers, and children for years. A glance at the comments on any of the posts created from this statistic alone is enough to make most people cringe. Suppose you peel away the political attacks blaming the Democrats for everything wrong with America. You’d quickly identify the remaining thoughts are nothing more than racists comfortably spewing hate because the comments are disguised as a ‘father’s rights’ problem and not a racial attack on Black people. Some may disagree, and to those, I would invite them to find a couple of these posts and cruise the comment sections.
There are also the comparisons to fathers gaining visitation rights to their children with the ever-so-popular whites and colored-only drinking fountain photo taken during the Civil Rights Era. I have commented and made my own posts about this absurd comparison, and I feel compelled to do so again for this article. https://bit.ly/3LxcGtQ I have always believed that parents must have equal rights when it pertains to their children. Fathers should share the same amount of time with their children as mothers when living separately. Parental alienation is child abuse, and alienators should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
Fathers should not have to go broke fighting, much less fight at all, for equal access to their children. I have spoken, written, and posted, saying everything supporting my feelings about equality within the family court system. Unless there are proven cases of abuse/violence, every situation should be 50/50 shared parenting with $0 in child support. Former President Barack Obama signed Executive Order 1353, which would have mandated shared parenting be included in every new child support order. After GOP pushback, the mandate is now a mere ‘goal’ for states. https://youtu.be/nDL91CqjF5s
And with that being said and with everything that fathers go through within the family court system, it does not and will never compare to Black people living through segregation in these United States. Drinking from a ‘Whites Only’ instead of a ‘Colored’ water fountain resulted in dire consequences for the Black American who dared disobey the rules. Most are familiar with the horrible recounts of how Black men were castrated and forced to eat their genitals before mobs of angry white men lynched them for ignoring, let’s say, a water fountain sign. But there were so many other acts of violence that we often overlook when we talk about the Civil Rights Era.
For instance, as a veteran and a Black American, I find it appalling that soldiers returning from battle were discriminated against as if they hadn’t risked their lives for all American freedom. World War II Veteran Hosea Williams was one of those brave souls who dared dream that fighting for his country would result in less fighting at home if and when he returned alive from the war. Sadly, he was not so fortunate. Even with the prestige of a Purple Heart, Williams was not ‘good’ enough to drink from the ‘White’s Only’ water fountain in Americus, Georgia. According to Equal Justice Initiative (2017), while he was wearing his uniform, Mr. Williams was brutally assaulted by a mob of white men at the bus station that left him for dead.
While there are several instances where fathers are faced with violence and even death by their own hands or by others, there are rare instances that compare to mob beatings because of segregation. Comparing a father fighting to see his children with being beaten to near-death or, worse, killed for drinking from a water fountain is at best grossly overstated and highly disrespectful. And yet, this is a picture and an idea that is widely shared, and I feel if it’s going to be shared, let’s share everything.
Everyone in this country should be treated equally until there’s a reason for them to have that privilege revoked. To make myself clear, I think there’s a special place in hell for pedophiles and child murderers. Still, I chose to talk about Black veterans during the Civil Rights Era because of the sacrifice that every soldier makes and illustrate the extreme abuse and violence they endured once their feet touched US soil. Of course, Black soldiers were treated no better on foreign soil either by their white counterparts, but that would be for another article.
My point is that equal rights for fathers is a battle for parental equality, and it stands on its own. Fathers demanding rights that are their birthright do not need to be compared to or contrasted with other civil rights movements. Enough people are supporting The Movement, and the reason for The Movement is pure in that nothing else is needed to bring power or motivation to the cause. In the Civil Rights Era, segregation, lynching, discrimination, etc., are issues still occurring today. Some argue that we live in post-racist times. But unless you have been a victim of racism, you cannot say whether racism is a thing of the past. It is difficult to fight in solidarity when a group section belittles your struggle for justice and equality daily.
References:
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p id=”a0″>Equal Justice Initiative. (2017, January 1). Targeting black veterans: Lynching in America. https://eji.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/lynching-in-america-targeting-black-veterans-web.pdf
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p id=”a1″>Prager, D. (2019, August 20). Dennis Prager – The welfare state incentivizes fatherless Facebook. https://bit.ly/3LxcGtQ
