Open Letter to My Youngest Son, the 13-year-old
In case you search for yourself on the Internet, you’ll probably need this: Azizi Wilhite Hamilton. You had enough self-centeredness at the age of 10 to meet the police. Do you remember how that happened? For you to suddenly not have the critical-thinking skills to contact your father using your phone (which might have been taken from you again) or using the Internet (the most amazing technology in white history just sitting there on your friend’s phone or at your local library) is not my problem.
In case you have confused yourself with the “help” of others, it goes like this son: had you not lied to me on Christmas Day about whether you ate or not, none of the things you are allegedly angry at me about would have happened. Speaking of lying, I use the word allegedly because your mother is suggesting that this is your emotional state. None of you would imagine that, when you called me twice, I was standing in line at the only open grocery store in Marina del Rey with my phone in my car because I thought it would take a few minutes. Apparently, because of this single incident, your condescending mother has “revoked the privilege” of me seeing you. It is crystal-clear to me that the leading reason why I have been able to visit you over the last 13 years is because your mother was concerned about being taken to court and somehow ending up in the “public eye” over a family law case.
When I wrote to her explicitly that I am not going to take you to court as a teenager, suddenly, magically, I have not seen you for six months. Your mother—who still might describe herself as a “black” woman—is clearly taking advantage of our disagreement and will use stereotypes about poor Black fatherhood to let third parties assume that what she is doing must be right. You see how strange that is? You see how unbelievable that can be in a certain kind of simplified world? My son, do you know what the subconscious is?
Should I tell you about the time my father tried to visit me but my mother called the police on him before he got there? Why should I bother, son? Unlike me at your age, you know very, very well that women are not perfect. After my mother attempted to falsify police records, my father had a chance to speak to me face to face that he was not going to visit me ever again. He was not going to let this vindictive, childish woman put him in handcuffs in spite of winning visitation rights legally.
By not taking action, my father taught me the lessons that I am trying to teach you today—without the benefit of meeting you face to face. Lesson number one: do not trust the police when you are not the police. Lesson number two: take responsibility for dealing with irrational, emotional people. Lesson three: trust your children (and God) that the truth will be uncovered not to make new villains but to increase the capacity to love.
I am not taking action to “force” your mother to “make” you visit me because I am taking responsibility for knowing (in the Biblical sense of the word) your mother in the first place. Because of your age, son, you would eventually/likely have to testify in the court because of an egotistic power struggle between me and your mother. I do not want to put you through that, son. (And the lesson from my father shows me that, even when you win in court, there are ways to retaliate.) Should your mother ‘pressure’ you to say things about me that are “slightly” untrue, you will have to live with that for the rest of your life.
What you have done to the honor of your father at present is already quite enough for a future-you to live with… Anyway, my son. You are not contacting me. I am not going to cold-call your mother’s house and pepper her with emails “hysterically” in an effort to contact you. And I am definitely not going to contact you because you think I need to “apologize” to you for anything I did after you lied to me on Christmas Day 2015. And do not ever try to concoct some sob story about how I treat your sister better than you because of the money I spend on her. Don’t conveniently forget (for a bunch of therapists your mother may hire) that your sister only has me for financial support while you have a total of two—or maybe two and half—adults available to financially support you. And don’t forget all of those years your sister spent watching you play games on the computer.
One important point of me visiting you was for you to know who your father is. So now you know who your father is. In light of the politics of the 20th and 21st centuries, you may spend a few years trying to un-know your father and finally obey your ego-bound mother and replace him with a new, lighter-skinned, doctorate-holding, effeminate one. You know, son, this turn of events would not be a surprise to me. We’ve joked about this before—and the point of you being born is for you to be a better man than me. So actually be a better man or at least fake it to make it—don’t end up in the family handcuffs. I never did—and I never will over some bullshit.
I take full responsibility for these outcomes. This open letter to you is part of that ability to respond.
Me love you, son.
J’ah jireh… Nkume… MJU NTR…