Bastards out of Diaspora: On the Unfortunate Circumstance Surrounding Sean Levert's Death
Like the rest of you, my heart goes out to R&B legend Eddie Levert in the untimely loss of yet another child. But news of Sean Levert's death just two years after his brother Gerald's doesn't just remind us all of our mortality but call attention to an issue plaguing Black American communities: fiscally irresponsible fathers. For Sean Levert spent his last days in jail for non-payment of $80,000 in child support. $80,000 is a lot of money but please believe many fathers with lesser demands on their income, also don't step up to the plate. Roots affiliate Dice Raw once rhymed, "I leave niggas missing in action like the Dads in the projects," and I can personally attest to MIA fathers in the Black middle class as well. To have a father indifferent to his financial responsibilities is crippling. Lest you think this pain is relegated to childhood, imagine perusing the aisles of Papyrus or Hallmark each Father's Day or Christmas. All those cards touting a father's sacrifice, support, stability, well, they not only don't fit your situation but they remind you what you missed. Should punishment for absconding child rearing responsibilities be jail? I don't know. America is overincarcerating her people, especially her Black and Brown citizens, and locking a deadbeat dad up prevents him from marshaling any additional resources to pay his debt but I can't say that I'm totally against it. Punishment might be what's in order. If you can't turn a deadbeat dad into a provider, you sure can lock his triflin' ass up. I mean, really, what kind of person can't get enough get right to meet the needs of his children?! Too many and the situation is critical because it's not just the usual suspects, not just "the shiftless, no good men," as Photographer/Blogger Sandra Rose noted in her valuable criticisms of the criminal justice system but many otherwise sensible working men raised in 2-parent households who should know better and with that I'll cede the floor to Ed O.G.
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