My biggest fear…

As a man, a black man, a black man in a multicultural society, I find that my only goal in life is to stay out of prison, to walk down the road without being naturally intimidating, to old white women, to pretty middle aged white women, to young white males who look just about the same age as me, but through no faults of their own, my face has been plagued by years of ignorance, you see we are of the same age but yet worlds apart, we have been given the same books to read but it seems like mine is heavier than theirs, mine has less information than theirs, call me paranoid but sometimes I think someone’s purposely super-glued my pages together, please don’t confuse this with a poem the words are just coming out sweetly, just like how when we were young and we used to taste our salty tears because it tasted so good, this is more like a confession, this is a revelation of years of strong black men who have constantly let each other down, the ones who had a dream, the ones who fought hard and probably still fighting hard every single day of their lives, but this time they’re not fighting against soldiers, or governments or those who constantly doubt them and persist on reminding them how difficult of a feat life is for them, no, this time they fight against the media, drugs, alcohol, sex, education, fatherhood…love. Yes love, you see a man told me it goes back, all the way back to slavery, he blames our inability to commit, show affection and simply give a damn on the fact that because our ancestors were enslaved, the slave mentality within us still stirs, you see our mothers taught us not to love deeply, not to love for too long because we did not know when master will sell us to another plantation. Our wives decided stay strong for both her and husband, excusing his failure to keep her out of master’s bedroom. Husband’s heart used to burn deep at the thought of his wife sharing what was his with someone else just so that they could stay together, the irony, imagine every time you looked up at masters window, and you could swear you saw your wife up there, you can almost hear her moan, you convince yourself she’s only there because she loves you, its only a matter of time before you start to question this thing called love…before your heart tells you…maybe it’s wrong to love. I’m not trying to excuse the deadbeat dads but it make’s sense to me, but that’s not even the issue, the issue is something much bigger than that, it’s about my biggest fear, probably every black man’s biggest fear, it’s the thing that lingers in the back of our minds like eternity, it’s the reason we’re constantly on the edge, the reason we’re so self conscious, this fear is common amongst all black men in multicultural societies, it doesn’t matter what religion you are, what you do for living, your class or family history, you see this fear is what I believe is the root of most the black mans failure…the reason we’re constantly on edge and cannot truly be comfortable, the reason a father or a husband constantly doubts his capability to care for what’s his…maybe it’ll be easier if I break it down like this…