Possessiveness and Patriarchy in Brown Culture
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I relate so much to this topic. In the football example, I see my father. Watching football might be his only true joy in life. I attach that to him playing in Damascus as a child, which he says is the only time life was good (his childhood). I don't know much over the years, but I know his favorite team is Manchester United and that he watches Football every week, definitely on weekends. He can't miss it. He tried to make me a football player, I wasn't competitive, it became a running joke when I was a child. He really wanted me to be an athlete. I've always been physical, so I did other sports too growing up. But when I chose dance I let sports go, it wasn't for me. And yet, I'm still an athlete. I think sports have a tie to class, power and money for my father. If you're successful as an athlete, you can be secure. And respected. That's what he wants for me.. He is confused by all my choices in life.
Now the Anti-Blackness in Brown families is huge. It's the only reason I've gotten in physical fights in my life. It's the only thing that has instilled a fury in me that I couldn't control. Over the years this has manifested in multitude of ways. I've accepted I can't change him. He accepts what he views as educated African people, for instance. But he is, to his core-Anti-Black. I've ran away from home- for a multitude of reasons. I've lived with Caribbean people, and had a second education. It changed me forever. Even though I've made somewhat peace with my father, he still doesn't understand and fears for me, with Anti-Black sentiments living inside that fear in ways he can't even perceive. It's a fear that I'll break all his hard work of integration and aspiring to whiteness and class privilege. It's a possessiveness over my body and sexuality. It's all he has left to control. He didn't speak to me for months during my last relationship with an older Caribbean man. Silence is traumatizing and his favorite weapon. He couldn't look my mother in the eyes when my sister died. He wasn't even speaking to me before my sister died, he only had to speak because of her death. And that silence was over a ridiculous thing. But for him, his mission is my safety, which you could say is love but in actuality, it's control enmeshed with love. He didn't speak to his own sister for 20 years because he didn't approve of her husband. Twenty years... Yet, he won't miss his football.