I Wonder What's He Telling His Son

Recorded Oct 2025

On this episode of Father Figures, Keith is trying to figure out what it really means to father—after opening with a semi-autobiographical poem that reflects multiple father identities and a quiet moment of watching another dad “drop jewels” to his son. Through a conversation with Dr. Waldo Johnson, Vice Provost of Diversity and Inclusion and Professor of Social Work in the Crowne School at University of Chicago about social fatherhood, masculinity, and the fear of raising a Black son in a world that may one day stop seeing him as “cute,” Keith begins to uncover why community might be the key to helping fathers not figure it all out alone.

Transcript

Keith Oliver 0:00

As I eavesdrop with my eyes, peeking in on their slice of life, I wonder. What's he telling your son? Wow. A father. Wonder what it's like to be one. Shit. Wish I had one. Buckle up, son. Check your mirrors. Driving serious business. It's not a game, son. Drive careful. Be responsible. You only get one. Life and a choice. Dad. Might never get to be called one before the sun sets on our father-son union. But he's dropping jewels. He thinks his pops is cool. I wonder if he also taught his son how to use a hammer. You know, drill, you know, metaphorically gave him the right tools. Tools he'll need for a job of being a man in a land where self-definition and positive description are foreign. Envy. I once harbored some. Because I wanted to know what he was telling his son. Because there was once a time where I thought I wouldn't have one. When speaking with someone who is considered an expert in their field, it makes sense to be nervous. Because you don't want to say something that is incorrect or that could be perceived as dumb for a lack of better words. Part of the radical transparency that Father Figure seeks to create is being honest in the moment. And in this moment, I can say that I was nervous about this conversation. I was nervous until I found out that this conversation was exactly what I needed. About two weeks ago, Naem's daycare was sending pictures as they always do. And he was pulling his pants down in the picture. And my first thought was, oh, how cute. And my second thought, which was not so cute, was what happens when they stop seeing my son as cute. And so this conversation is right on time. Dr. Waldo Johnson has spent 20 plus years studying black men and families, the systemic effects of racism on black fatherhood, and its description, the challenges of fathers who are unwed or not cohabitating with the mothers of their children, and the Black Fatherhood absence myth. Father Figures was born out of this idea of sharing my story to create a fertile space for other fathers to plant, water, and nurture their stories in a public way that would not only humanize us, but make our stories more accessible to the other men who needed them. By far the hardest question to answer at that point in my life. Being the drama teacher and trying to pretend I wasn't feeling deeply was no easy task. From the time I arrived at the school, I played surrogate father and father figure and big brother to so many students. Upon reading Dr. Johnson's work, I now have a better term for it: social father. I love all of my former students, especially the ones who allowed me to feel like a father when I didn't know if I'd ever be one to my own child. Dr. Johnson, welcome to Father Figures. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. I first want to thank you not just for agreeing to speak with me today, but also for your dedication to this work. One of my goals is to take research, resources, and more and make them accessible to fathers trying to figure out this role in real time. And so the first thing that I want to ask you before we dive into all the things that you just heard is what led you to this work?

Dr. Waldo Johnson 4:42

So there's a professional side response to that as well as uh personal. I guess I'll start with the professional one because uh the professional side of this story actually caused me to think more about this issue personally. As I shared with you uh earlier, I'm uh a native of Georgia, South Georgia. And some years ago I moved to Chicago to uh work for Alpha Phi Alpha. I was employed as their first national program director. And one of my responsibilities was to come up with a menu of community service programs that chapters across the globe could engage in. We our chapters were historically involved in scholarship programs and often having Boy Scout troops and things of that sort. But we were looking for other kinds of programs that might be of interest. And it happened that one of the Chicago-based alumni chapters, Alder Delta Lambda chapter, had just created a program that was focused on developing leadership skills among high school males. And the idea was to do it through the lens of teen pregnancy prevention. And so I came to learn more about this program, which was appropriating Project Alpha. And it had become a program that was supported by the local Marsha Dimes chapter. So as I was taking on my new responsibilities and I shared information with the leadership of the fraternity about this program, thinking this would be a great program for alphas to do. Because, first of all, the notion was that teen pregnancy, we would often think about teen pregnancy as a medical issue, you know, because it's about someone having kids, you know, often the teen mom having a child and stuff. And while it does have a medical component, it's really a societal issue. You know, so it's much more than just a medical issue. And so if we were to think about this from a leadership development perspective, it didn't mean that everybody involved in this program had to have some kind of medical or public health training. I convinced the leadership that this could become a national program, you know, of the fraternity. So the idea was to take these high school males. And it was really important that the participants in the program be in school, even though we knew that there were a lot of people who, once they become teen parents, they are much more likely to drop out of school. But if the idea is to create a program that's focused on peer leadership development, then you need youth who are operating in a structured environment in the way that school actually is. And so the idea then was to think about, okay, how then do we want to position this? And so with this, what we're trying to do is to train a uh a group of high school males over a weekend to talk to them about the human development part of parenting, you know, but also to talk to them about their values, you know, to have them to look very closely at the things that they value, what's really important to them, what's not so important to them, and to look at that in the context of the future. Right now they're in high school, but and when asking, what is it that you hope to do, you know, once you finish high school, you know, and people talk about a range of things from pursuing various college and vocational training endeavors, then we had to then shift to begin to ask the question then how do you think your plans to become a carpenter, for example, will be impacted if you become a teen father at 16? And so the program then was created in a way where it focused on teaching them about human biology and particularly about male bodies. Because girls, when they reach puberty, they may no longer go to a pediatrician, but they're much more likely to go to a gynecologist. Boys in schools that at the point when they stop seeing a pediatrician, often, if they're not playing sports, they're not engaging with medical or public health professionals. And so they often don't know and understand all of the kinds of things that's going on with their body, the growth, the development.

Keith Oliver 10:07

And so therefore, they don't even think about the repercussions of using their body, not even irresponsibly, but just ignorantly. Absolutely.

Dr. Waldo Johnson 10:16

Absolutely. So the program was designed to get them to begin to think about theirs. So we we take uh 20 to 30 youth on this weekend retreat where they are learning about all of these things. But then the last component of it is then they go back to their respective high schools and they begin to train their peers in the things that they've learned. So that's where the leadership portion comes into play. But it becomes really important that even in identifying the participants, we're getting people who have the ability to be able to influence others. So this program, which was really about preventing fatherhood among urban adolescent black males, was really my first foray to really beginning to think about fatherhood. But as I was, you know, engaged in the program and thinking about it, I also began to kind of reflect back on my own experiences with my dad. You know, and I'd always had a great deal of admiration for my father, you know. And just thinking about all of the ways in which my father had been very important in my life, I also began to kind of think about as we encounter more and more youth who really did not have their biological fathers involved with them at that particular time. And so one of the things we did to allow for youth, because after the first year of the program, we thought it was pretty good, but we wanted to find more ways to engage them, you know, with parents. Rather than say, uh, we'll have this program for you and your father, because many of the kids that were not necessarily engaged with their dads. We asked the youth, you know that, in order that they participate, they had to identify and bring along with them the most important male, adult male in their lives. And what was really interesting, the kids that had who were in close relationships, living in the same household with their dads and stuff, came and participated, you know, in the program. But we had a lot who did not. It was very interesting to see who, when given the option of picking the most important adult male, who they picked. Because there were instances where there were young men growing up in the household with their fathers, but the fathers were not the person they picked to be there. It might have been a coach, you know, it might have been an uncle, you know, or something along that line. But what that allowed for is for no youth to feel like they couldn't be a part of this because if the father became the core eligibility requirement, then we knew that there would be a lot of youth. You would be disqualified.

Keith Oliver 13:16

Right. That's interesting for two reasons. So one of the reasons it's uh interesting is because it makes me think about the social father. And so I think I have a better understanding of it, but can you explain what a social father is in the Night Time?

Dr. Waldo Johnson 13:31

Well, in the broader sense of it, it's someone who happens not to be the biological parent of that child. Because there is no real restriction in terms of what social fathers often do and can do with kids, except that they don't have a biological connection. So a social father might be a mentor or a coach like some of these young men selected. But it could be a grandfather, it could be an uncle, it could be a next-door neighbor, it could be a longtime family friend, you know, but it is, it could be the husband of the youth's mother, you know, and so he may not have adopted the kid and he is performing father roles, but he's just not, there's not this biological connection, you know. And so part of the ways in which we can think about this, we can think about it in the context of roles that they perform as opposed to the connection, whether it's a biological connection or just a social connection.

Keith Oliver 14:40

So, as you heard in my uh reading, and I don't know if you were able to discern, but I think it was pretty clear, one of the challenges that my wife and I had was uh fertility because I am a cancer survivor. Uh and so while I was a social father for many at the high school that I worked at for four years, when I received the news of infertility, something felt off. And so I'm wondering how important do you believe social fathers are? And I guess what I'm looking for in this moment trying to figure out why did the biology seem to weigh so heavily on me, even though I had already been fathering.

Dr. Waldo Johnson 15:31

Right. Well, that's a part of that is the social about it. It's in many ways the ways in which we are often socialized to kind of think about this. And in some ways, the kind of hierarchical uh um uh uh appropriation or connections that we give to, you know, in terms of thinking about the importance and the structure of families. I mean, I find it really interesting given, for example, that among African-American families, that there's a disproportionate rate of out-of-wedlock parenting that occurs in proportion to the numbers of African-American. This is not to say there is not out-of-wedlock births among other groups, but given our numbers is a much higher rate that that in and of itself, when we think about it in contrast to what might be considered normal family development, where you date, then marry, then have children, is out of sync. But at the same time, you can have people who might choose this kind of out-of-sink way of family development, but still somehow in the back of their mind think that if it's not biological, that somehow it's less than. What I also picked up from your introduction, you know, and I began to think about as you made reference to all of the ways in which you were engaging with these students and serving in this social father role. I think it's fair to say that your having been a social father prepared you in ways that someone who perhaps had not had that would not have been as prepared once your biological prodigy came about. And so I think social fathers are really important because, for a variety of reasons, a lot of fathers are not and cannot be present and engaged with their children in the way that even they ideally would like to be. And so there's there has always been this notion of social fatherhood. We didn't always have the language, but then this is very much a part of what I believe is how community is structured within the African-American or the black community.

Keith Oliver 18:26

I appreciate that point because one of the things that I think about when we talk about the structuring of families in the African-American community, but then also the community effect of African Americans and like how, you know, there's a point in time where anybody could say something to your child or check your child as long as it was within respect. One of the things that I think about, you know, having become more educated since that time, is that I sincerely believe that part of my challenge when receiving the news of infertility was who gets to define what masculinity and fatherhood are within the American context. And so I, as plainly as I could can put it, I was like, this is white supremacy's fault. Not that I'm in this position, but that I feel inadequate in this way because prior to that news, I felt like a utility knife. Like I was so many things to so many kids. And that, you know, while it may have not caused contention, but there were moments where my wife thought I was, you know, maybe doing too much because I was spending our money on these kids that I wasn't bringing home. But I felt no shortage of value or usefulness to these students who did not have, because a lot of them did not have their biological fathers present. And so stepping in and making these students feel seen, valued, and loved was so important to me until a time when I thought that won't be me. And, you know, almost a decade after that news, I now think about the value systems that prescribe this ideology that I had taken on that didn't make sense for me to begin with.

Dr. Waldo Johnson 20:19

Well, and that's probably true. I mean, it may be, I think it is accurate to say that a lot of this is about the larger uh narrative in terms of how we often think about uh fatherhood and parenting, uh, you know, structures. And and a lot of that is, you know, is structured by the dominant uh race in this country. But I would argue that's that that taking on that perspective is also something that you find in the black community as well. Sure. There are ways in which distinctions sometimes can be made about the degree to which someone is a father, you know, and and there have been instances where people who were not the biological parent of children, but for the most part did everything else that was needed in order to kind of socialize and help that kid to grow and thrive in development and develop. There are instances where they are not always kind of viewed in the same way as people who are the biological parent, but that biological parent may have actually contributed far less toward that child's development. And so it is just something that's out there that can very easily cause you to have doubts about who you are and the value of what.

Keith Oliver 22:00

You're doing and the legitimacy that's what you're doing as a as a man.

Dr. Waldo Johnson 22:04

Sure. You know.

Keith Oliver 22:05

And so to that point, how can redefining masculinity free up men who may deal with infertility challenges, such as myself, or who may wear the burden of not being able to provide monetarily, like some of your research suggests? How can we redefine masculinity to free men up so that they can father in broader and more healing ways? Because I because I would say that what I experience and the inability to sometimes provide financially, it creates a stress that could create harm for the families that we're trying to raise.

Dr. Waldo Johnson 22:45

Well, I think one of the ways we can do that is be much more as black men being much more intentional about the ways in which we are in community with one another. You know, a few years ago I was doing some research with black men at a what was a mental health clinic a few blocks from here. And um in order to get black men to come to this clinic, and this was a clinic that was funded by Cook County, on Thursday evenings uh from 5.30 to 7.30, actually after the clinic it's typically closed, the clinic would reopen and all of the workers, the the medical staff, the physicians, nurses, social workers, everyone working during those two hours were black males. And so uh then black men would be invited to come, you know, and they may come through two different portals. People who really needed health services. Sometimes there were men who were, you know, starting new jobs, they had to have a physical, but they didn't have health insurance, so they could come and get a physical free. But then once they got there and got the physical, they learned that in this clinic on Thursday nights, they could also get free haircuts. They could join discussion groups about what is the challenges of being a black man or being a father. Uh, they could get help with their resumes. There were a variety of non-health things that were going on because the con the way the clinic was conceptualized is yes, black men have a lot of health concerns, but they have a lot of social concerns. And we won't be able to get everybody who needs the health concerns to come into the clinic for the health concerns if we don't attend to some of the social things they need. And then once they're there, they'll say, oh, they feel comfortable. And vice versa. There's some people who come for the social stuff, not knowing that they could get the health services.

Keith Oliver 25:10

And so it's kind of like uh it sounds like Maslow's hierarchy. Like you they they wouldn't be concerned with their health because they're thinking about the food they have to provide, the place they're gonna have to sleep, and you know, these things which ultimately end up affecting your health.

Dr. Waldo Johnson 25:27

Absolutely. Absolutely. And what and so at one point we were doing a project trying to uh make the men more aware of the threat of colorectal cancer. And so I was leading this focus groups with men trying to get them to talk about cancer. And after a few weeks, I was just like feeling like nothing's happening. You know, I couldn't get them to talk very much. And so then it occurred to me that in our families often, women are the people who will talk about their health. Women will join in conversation with other women who are not even medical providers and stuff, and talk about their health issues because they view it as being empowering to know in some ways that they're not going through this alone.

Keith Oliver 26:23

Yeah.

Dr. Waldo Johnson 26:23

That there are other people doing it. Maybe people can give them tips about how they are managing and things that sort of. But as males, and this is where the masculinity part comes in, we often are not wired to do that. We hold in those kinds of things. We're also fearful that if we tell another male too much about our vulnerabilities, then they might take advantage of us in ways that women are much more trusting of other women in terms of that. So, in order to get the guys to start talking about cancer, I had to begin to ask questions about the women in their lives who had had cancer. And they would talk about the grandmother, they would talk about the mother, you know, sometimes sisters and stuff, and they talk about the breast cancer and all of the forms of cancer. So now we got this conversation going about cancer. I realized though, I can't jump from talking about the women in their lives and then start talking about them. So then my next step is so now tell me about the males in your life, not you, but the males. And I couldn't get them to talk about prostate or colorectal cancer because that's much more sensitive kind of thing. But I could get them to talk about lung cancer, that men and their family. I could get them to talk about other forms of cancer, and we use that as a pathway to get them to begin talking about their own experiences with cancer.

Keith Oliver 28:06

So that's interesting, and that brings me to uh one of the other things that I wanted to talk about to you about because I that it sounds like it has, you know, the the aspect of masculinity, but then also there it sounds like you know there may be a trauma that is associated with it. And so how do we assist black men and specifically fathers, how do we create spaces for them to not normalize trauma, but normalize processing and dealing with it so that we don't pass it down to our children, our sons and our daughters, and I think especially our sons.

Dr. Waldo Johnson 28:53

Yeah. Right. And so even though I think that as I began to observe that many of these guys were coming back week after week, you know, it was more than just on some level to get the haircut or to get the food that was being served and stuff, particularly when they agreed to join the discussion and the focus groups, that over time, as they became more familiar with one another, they began to let their guard. But it was important that they recognize over time that they were in a space where what they said was not going to be shared with people outside of the group. That within the group, you know, we had some operating principles that didn't allow for people to attack other people for their perspectives, that we had to all be open to hearing something that might represent something very different from where uh those individuals, you know, might be. And so we can, I think we can help uh black men and particularly black fathers to work in ways where they can engage with their sons and daughters in ways that they can make them aware of some of the challenges that they are likely to experience, but not so much to the point that those youth become frightened or, or as you say, traumatized by the possibility of that. And some later work that I did in that study around father-son communication, we were interested in exactly that. How is it that fathers could talk to their adolescent sons about some of the challenges that their sons would be experiencing right now? And that required conversation between the two because what often the fathers experience, even if they're growing up in the same neighborhood where the dad grew up, it's a very different world out there. Social media, a variety of things that are pose far more challenges. So, how then do we have these conversations? And what I was interested in hearing, the dads tell me what they do to help their sons. So we were trying to look at fathers who were trying to keep their sons safe from the violence that goes on in the neighborhood, you know, which might be perpetrated by their peers or folks. I was also trying to understand how the fathers prepare their sons to engage with authorities like police, but also how their sons navigate when they are in neighborhoods that are not their neighborhoods where they reside in. So when you're coming into a neighborhood and people don't really know you, there are ways in which some people might view you as a threat.

Keith Oliver 32:13

Yeah.

Dr. Waldo Johnson 32:13

But at the same time, they're really being more threatening to you than you really are to them because they are There's a fear factor for them. By your mere presence.

Keith Oliver 32:23

Yeah, and from the story that I told about my son Naeem at the beginning of the episode, that's where that question resonated for me. And that's why today became so important. Because, like I said, my son's not even two yet, and the level of fear that came over me, it felt irrational to a degree, but then I thought about Tamir Rice. And I thought about um the topic of one of your papers and Mike Brown, and that thought about Trayvon Martin, and I lived in Florida, and so it's like 10 years isn't that huge uh of an age gap. You know, two and twelve really they're they're both still children. And so that came over me, and I'm like, when do I have this conversation? How do I have this conversation? He doesn't even know how to write his own name yet.

Dr. Waldo Johnson 33:15

Well, and I've over the years been in conversations with uh with fathers and even parents, dads and moms who, for example, are raising kids in suburban communities that often are the majority not black communities. And I've heard numerous stories about parents, you know, talking about when their sons become preteen age, how sometimes neighbors who have known them from being toddlers suddenly see them very differently in threatening ways. And how then do they navigate those kinds of, you know, environment? And one of the questions is how do you have conversations with your kid when they begin to experience that? And I think in the same way that parents and particularly fathers often feel like they have to talk to their sons about how to how to have interactions with law enforcement that don't end up being disastrous for their sons. There's a kind of responsibility that maybe people have to have when they are raising their kids in neighborhoods where the majority of the people in the neighborhood don't look like their kids. And when suddenly those nice little boys suddenly become men or resemble men, and we, as you reference, Tamir Rice, you know, from all indication, you know, was not a man even in his physical appearance.

Keith Oliver 35:07

He was a kid, you know, but you know, he was he was viewed as threatening for someone to the point that they thought sought thought it justifiable to call the police or the to call the police on him and then the police, when they arrive, they don't even engage with him before opening fire.

Dr. Waldo Johnson 35:34

Right. And I remember the having a conversation with a colleague of mine who was talking about her son, who at the time was 11 years old. He was a large kid, and sh and he wanted one of these guns. Yeah. That and she was struggling with whether or not to get it for him.

Keith Oliver 35:57

To get it for him. And that's the thing, one of the things that really troubles me, because Naeem is larger. Naeem in the past three weeks has been mistaken for a two and a half year old, a three-year-old, and a four-year-old. He wears 4T at 22 months old. And so I have, you know, those feelings in weight because it's like, I know he's gonna be bigger. And so, you know, how do I deal with these things? And I think you've provided some.

Dr. Waldo Johnson 36:25

Yeah, and I would say, I would say generally at this moment, still relatively safe. He's still holler. I don't know how you can mistake him for anything other than a a toddler, even if he's larger for his size.

Keith Oliver 36:41

I think I'm just thinking so far down the line, and I think, you know, based on the time that we live in and how even going back to Trayvon and Tamir and Mike Brown, police were operating in a certain way with a certain lack of respect for human decency then, but then when we look at this current administration, it seems like if there was a timeline, it is rapidly uh changing.

Dr. Waldo Johnson 37:10

It's been refueled. I mean, I mean, and what's different now is some of the kinds of things that we were seeing and experiencing that was happening more at the local level, it's being uh suggested, if not articulated, at the at the national level. Sure. Which then does create a sense of fear, you know, about how is it that we prepare our youth, you know, who are just going often going about their lives trying to be young people, you know, so that they are not hyper-vigilant, yeah, you know, or over-surveiled.

Keith Oliver 37:49

Yeah, because, you know, us as the fathers who have our own experiences with police and racism, we come to the conversations with our children with an with a hyper-vigilance. And so not wanting to create anxious children then becomes the task. Like, how do I explain this to you without worrying you about something that you may or may not experience, but you still have to be prepared if you experience it, right? And so with the talk of social fathers, how can community-based parenting and social fathers, how can they become an extra layer of protection in that intervention?

Dr. Waldo Johnson 38:31

Right. Well, I mean, you know, one might raise the question is is the utility of social fathers something that benefits the community? And I would argue yes. I mean, because if there can be kind of rules of engagement that are broadly shared across you in a community. And going back to something you said earlier during the days, and I know this was the case when I was growing up, that if I were was caught doing something I should not be doing, any adult could correct me. Now, they couldn't spank me or do anything like that, but they could raise the question does your mother or your parent know that you're doing this? And growing up in a small community, many people knew one another. And so somebody might say, you know, I know your parents, and I know they don't know that you're doing this, and that could be enough to cause me to stop. You know, it's a very different environment now, and adults are not always comfortable uh trying to correct the misbehavior of young people for fear that the parents might take offense.

Keith Oliver 39:58

Yeah.

Dr. Waldo Johnson 39:58

And so this whole notion about a village rearing you has its clear limitations in terms of what one might do. But to the extent that we're able to create kind of community hubs in some ways where these ideas about what you do in certain situations are broadly shared, then people feel a lot more comfortable. And when youth hear a message being given to them by someone in their neighbor by another adult in their neighborhood, but it is similar to what their parents would say, they're probably much more likely to heed that and not, you know, push back and stuff. Because what we found in that study was that dads really made distinctions about how they wanted their kids to respond when their threats abolis are large toward them. And there was a distinction in terms of what they might do if they are encountering, you know, some uh problems with their with other youth in their neighborhood. There might be instances where they might not necessarily confront them, but they wouldn't necessarily run away. They would try to I I recall several fathers talking about how you try to talk your way out of something, whereas the fathers were almost unanimous in saying when they were encountering law enforcement, that the dads would say comply with the police officer. Yeah. But and even if they want to take you to the station, go willingly, but remind them that you are a minor and that you they need to call your parent. Yeah. And so in those instances, what dads were essentially saying, you can't match wits with the police officer, particularly if they have a gun or something. So my instruction to you is not necessarily to try to do that, to be compliant, remind them that they need to call the parent, and then the dad would be the one to come and negotiate.

Keith Oliver 42:24

So what I heard was clear, decisive communication, you know, without being rooted in the what-ifs, because you know, my experience uh uh of course informs how I share these things with my child, but it was just a matter of because that what you described was how my dad described handling neighborhood situations. And oddly enough, my father never, I guess he never felt like he had to have the police conversation with me, because that was a conversation that I never had, never had, was never had with my mom had it with me. My dad never had that conversation, but the one he did have with me was trying to de-escalate, and then as I was telling you before, he is a Georgia boy. So he said if that didn't work, and if they was bigger, then you pick up some and you knock them upside the head.

Dr. Waldo Johnson 43:11

And so I heard fathers say a variety of things. Yeah. If you uh said that even when you are in neighborhoods, maybe not the neighborhood that you live in, but neighborhoods that you frequent, uh, you should know all of the entry and exit points, know where the alleys are, no, you know, and stuff. So if you have to run, if you have to, if you see something coming, you know how to get away from it before you're actually on this kind of collision.

Keith Oliver 43:39

So And I guess that's that is the gift and the curse of hypervigilance to know these things. Because you know, everyday people, if we go into a movie theater, they tell you to find your exits on the airport, on the on the airplane, they tell you no to know where the ex to know where your exits are. But that to be a parenting. strategy and talking point is just so indica in indicate I can't say the word at the moment, but it is so telling of the of the differences in America.

Dr. Waldo Johnson 44:13

Well, and the other thing that when I heard this, my thinking was this is very interesting and it's very good to know that fathers have kind of thought through that you might have the same situation, but that depending on who the other actor is, there may be a different strategy. But it also assumes that the young person who may be under stress at that moment can make the kind of decision to know that because this is a police officer, I'm not trying to negotiate with this police officer. I need to just follow what the police officer says as opposed to if it's someone from the neighborhood that I might be able to negotiate. So it does also require that that the youth is able to kind of make a judgment in the middle of something that might be escalating and causing some level of distress. Because sometimes when we're in those kinds of environments we can't always think straight. Sure. And we might we might adapt a strategy that is for another kind of situation mistakenly and the outcome may not be what we ideally would want. Yes.

Keith Oliver 45:30

Got you. I wanted to ask you a question because it was something you talked about how, and this is going back a little bit but you talked about how fathers when they came to this community space and from this time to this time there were only black people on only black males on staff and so how that kind of allowed them over time to open up how do fathers translate that experience into their homes because there still very much exists a space where patriarchy isn't only perpetuated by males at times. Sometimes the the women in our lives hold us to these standards of a you know white male dominated society like you have to show up a certain way you have to provide a certain way you have to be a certain amount of stoic like when it comes to us we need you to be emotionally available when it comes to you too much and we start to question your ability to lead in a certain capacity.

Dr. Waldo Johnson 46:32

Well we felt in the design of the clinic that many of the men who we envisioned would be coming for for services, you know, were people that had various kinds of interactions that were often not favorable in their lives. Sometimes they were family-based sometimes it was in the community sometimes it was you know having a checkered work history you know some of these individuals had mental health problems that they absolutely needed assistance with but even those problems could be managed if in fact they had some kind of routinized approach to care. And so we felt that while that might be an idealized situation where you go into a clinic and every single person is a black male who looks like you, as a social worker, I'm very much of the opinion that you start with people where they are not where you want them to be but where they are. And if the idea is to try to make these men comfortable then to try to then think about what kind of environment would they be more comfortable in. Because say for example for those who either came in for some kind of a medical or health treatment if it was something that had to do with what they might view as much more private concerns, they would be less likely to feel comfortable sharing having that kind of conversation with a female even if she's a nurse or even if she's a doctor but the possibility that they would feel a bit more comfortable having conversations maybe about colorectal cancer or prostate cancer or testicular cancer is probably a very difficult kind of conversation for for a lot of black males and black men anyway. But if we try to think about what might be the best kinds of scenarios under which those kinds of conversations can occur, then we think about how it is we want to prepare them and to get familiar with this by trying to make it as idealized as possible.

Keith Oliver 49:02

Sure so what I'm hearing is a level of comfort but then also some grace and so re uh phrasing my question how do we what do black men need at home to feel that level of comfort because it's one thing to get that information from a doctor and you know be able to have that conversation but you know like in my instance my news of infertility was delivered by my wife so I had no choice but to be vulnerable and expressive in front of her like the moment she shared the inf the news with me I couldn't hide the emotion as much as I wanted to because for me it was the second time in my life only second to my grandmother passing that I felt heartbreak. And so you know the space at home how do the women in our lives whether it be mothers girlfriends partners wives how do they create a space that not only gives us grace for not being someone who is of optimal health all the time optimal finance optimal mental health how do they create a space where we feel comfortable sharing these things with them I'm not an expert in that particular area but my thinking about this would be that the creation of that space would not be the responsibility of either the the wife or the husband but together you know because all women are not alike and all men are not alike.

Dr. Waldo Johnson 50:41

And there might be some women who might have a lot of reservation about talking about things that might be they may have been socialized to view as more private or even to have certain kinds of private conversations even with their husbands in ways that they might do without any thought with their best friend or this or their sister or something along that line. So but a part of what that means is that both individuals have to be vulnerable with one another and at the point when we then become vulnerable with one another sometimes what we worry about if our vulnerability will always be respected in ways that someone doesn't violate it or take advantage of, you know, and stuff but that again is about you know communication a part of your ability as parents to be able to support your children is that you've got to be in many ways on the same wavelength as well. You don't have to think about everything exactly alike but you can't have too many instances where mom is saying this and dad is saying something that is in the position. So as parents there has to be a willingness to share and to be vulnerable.

Keith Oliver 52:17

Yeah and I asked that question you know getting back to the perspective of fathering because I think the ways in which we can share and feel safe with sharing with our partner also help to cultivate the space in which we can be open and feel accessible to our children and so this has been a a great conversation and is there something that you want to leave with our guest or maybe there's something that I didn't ask that you were like I was hoping that he'd asked me that question.

Dr. Waldo Johnson 52:54

I mean there are a lot of questions that we might have explored and and we'd be here two nights later still talking about this and stuff. So so ideally there'll be future opportunities to have that conversation. I mean if if there's something you know I would leave with you know I just kind of affirm that being a father is a very challenging thing. And it is particularly I think it's particularly challenging for black men because when we think about the expectations of fatherhood and and you alluded to this several times we often think about fathers as protectors, as providers, as as teachers or moral guide, you know, and stuff and so that's a heavy weight you know in terms of being able to successfully assume all of those responsibilities. And when we think about the history of blacks in this country you know spending a sizable amount of those years as enslaved chattel even once slavery was abolished and there was an attempt to create a way which we could then provide the kind of access to services and supports for formerly enslaved blacks in the ways that whites there there has always been resistance to that. And when we look at some of the policies and some of the actions that are occurring right now where you can't talk about race and there's attempt to kind of erase you know black history and and achievement and stuff we are still experiencing some of those challenges. And so being a father you know can be extremely difficult. But at the same time it's important I think for fathers to try to create the kinds of environments with their families and particularly their children so that the children do feel safe and protected. And that can be a delicate balance you know given that in many instances we are living in neighborhoods and communities that pose all kinds of threats you know you know right now here in Chicago you know in addition to some of the violence that might be going on in neighborhoods by some of the residents in neighborhoods there are there's also the threat of of national policing in terms of ICE agents and stuff. And some people say well that's not necessarily something that black people need to worry about but I would beg to differ that that poses a threat to safety for all people because these individuals are not trained in the way that local police are trained to handle conflict and things of that sort. It's very challenging. And so in instances where there are community supports there are programs out there what dads can be a part of I really encourage them to try to find out about those programs if they're even able to if they're in spaces where such programs don't exist but if they're able to even come together in unity and create uh bonding relationships with one another where they can learn from one another that's also a way such that they don't feel like they're out there trying to figure it all out you know on their own. It's it's critically important for the survival of our communities that we be able to provide safe and healthy environments for uh for the youth in our communities.

Keith Oliver 57:42

Thank you so much for that and one of the things that I think is central to my thought process these days increasingly so uh becoming a father is this idea of community but what I heard you point out were I guess ingredients in that if if you will which were in intention uh consistency and familiarity which I guess goes in with consistency like the more that you're around people who share your experience who share you know an identity marker that comes a sense of safety and then there comes conversation out of that there comes a sharing of not only values but sometimes tips and ways to navigate and figure out fatherhood in real time thank you so much Dr. Johnson it has been a pleasure and this has been Father Figures thank you