Oh! Your Father’s in Jail.

I asked her where my father was, and she said, “Oh! Your father’s in jail. He’s been locked up for about three years now.”

At least a million children have heard that.  For such a dysfunction it's become the norm.  This is the number one issue of the ghetto.  It's the root, not money, not location but the lack of guidance of a man.  There are no men around.  Millions incarcerated for minor drug offenses and learned bad behaviors. Left behind are the weak men. The ones that hustle, get on welfare, SSI and are behind in child support.  This is what the million children that hear "Your father's in jail" are left with.

You do have a small percentage of hard working men, that go to work everyday, commit to their wives and take care of their children.  Real men.  I didn't see none of that shit growing up.  The only men I saw were all hustlers in some way, shape or form.  No nine to fivers.

Growing up, I structured my masculinity, if that's what you want to call it, on watching Black Exploitation movies.  If you think about it, when a young child is watching those kind of movies, the child imitates that kind of behavior. Behavior where womanizing, hustling, killing and every other word in their vocabulary is muthafucker is glorified.  I wanted to be that muthafucker.

So now we have Black Exploitation movies, weak men and TV raising our children.  No wonder the jails are full.

How many of you have been told that your father is in jail?  How many women out there have told your children that their father is in jail?


Read more: Ghetto Bastard: A Memoir (Volume 1) and Ghetto Bastard 2 (Volume 2) and at ghettobastard.com