February 26, 2022
Now, for most cultures across the world that have not been displaced, due to cultural and traditional genocide at the hands of enslavement and subsequent colonization, such a question would be unheard-of. Sitting here pondering this question, has got me looking as far back as childhood. Trying to recollect if I had even learned what manhood entails, or what it even means, whether it was lessons from my father or my mother. As I grapple with this thought nothing comes to mind. However, I can recall learning to take care of myself, generally! whether it was cleaning, washing, or cooking, and in that specific order. These lessons were championed by my father. It must be stated, however, that all of us, as children in the environment I grew up in, learned these germane life skills, whether boy or girl, man or woman. With all that being said, I can only approach the question of “What does it Mean to be a Man?” from the way society taught it to me.
Man up! Is a phrase all boys and men alike hear growing up. That phrase is normally said in times when these boys or even men are in situations that require them to express themselves emotionally. It teaches us to suppress and repress our emotions, particularly those like empathy, compassion, and to a certain extent even love. It is said that this makes us strong. So in all fairness, we are taught these things from a space of genuine intent. Hmm! For the past month or two, the proverb that says “the road to hell is paved with good intents” keeps finding its way to the fore of many a conversation.
As this question continues to pick at my mind and spirit, at this point in my spiritual journey, all I see here are the flaws of these teaching. None of it has been of benefit to us as men. According to (Jiménez, 2021) empathy is the feelings individuals experience concerning someone else`s situations, while compassion is the emotional response to those feelings. With all that in mind “man up” really! Were all you so-called adults serious, were, or, are you seriously telling us that we do not need these foundational principles to survive as well thinking and functioning men 😔 I am seriously shaking my head right now. You are all seeing the result right? A society where too many of us men lack the basic understandings. The simplest of disagreements can lead to all-out war, in domestic situations verbal and physical abuse, a lot of times, the best-case scenario Kingston Public Hospital (KHP) or worst Dovecot Memorial Park. Do you see? All this nonsense by just suppressing and repressing two emotions. And we wonder why men are like this. And I must include that we get the traditional “Big ups” in many of the communities in the space for these neanderthals like behaviours. My heart aches.
Suddenly my mind got spirited to my past. Milton Felix Pennicott was, no, is his name. He has passed to the ancestral world but his spirit and his name live on. This stalwart of a man truly defined manliness/manhood in the best way. You see, here I am looking at the faults of society, not remembering my ancestors in their totality, I mean as a whole picture. Imagine this, me trying to fix my broken nose by looking across a valley, on someone else's face, for the solutions to my broken nose. How absurd is that! You would think, look! You have one on your face, why strain your eyes to look that far. Next up is an eye problem now I will have two problems to solve.
Many a time we look out, and beyond when the answers we seek are close. My altar is not an arm's length away that’s how symbolically close my grandfather is.
So please, bear with me as I take another look through different lenses. Kae-ka was the first name I remembered him calling me, and so I called him Kae-ka as well. Grandpa, otherwise called Mass Milton, woke up everyday before the cook crows, ties his donkeys to the cart, pad and saddle them, and with at least two five-gallon buckets of water, along with all his necessities, on his way he went to the bush, as it was popularly called then, not to be seen until the night, somewhere around the times when ghosts tell their ghostly children to be careful. He worked tirelessly, and in my mind could always provide the needs for his family except for education, the importance of which, in my mind, he did not quite understand. I have never heard him complaining about providing, if he did I must have been too young to remember. I am sticking with, he didn't. He loved us all, in his way, but like most of us, again as a man, he couldn’t express it in words. But isn’t that also an acceptable way? Aren’t we a doing people? Isn’t it a fact that actions speak louder than words? It was the same with my great grandfather Charles Walker, except he understood the importance of education, so much that he and my great grandmother Dowega Harris sent my grandmother Doris Walker to live with Aunt Ritida Walker, Charle`s sister in Bath St Thomas to attend school, as Aunt Riti could afford it.
I ask myself the question now! “What does it Mean to be a Man?”
To me, being a man requires courage, determination, emotional intelligence, in a form governed by ancestral knowledge. Being a man is to be truthful to one's self, family and community. Being able to provide for, defend, and protect the family at all costs. Being able to practically access and solve challenges that life dishes out, along with any conflict that might arise in one's surroundings.
Being a man!
Requires a man to understand that all children are his to take care of. A man should be reliable, responsible, trustworthy, honest, respectful, dignified, gallant. A man should radiate an aura that says,
Look! Here you are safe and secure, you can safely take a breather in my presence. Being a man requires empathy, which leads to understanding and compassion.
Being a man!
One must be able to command patience and must understand when to apply power and when not to. Being a man requires balance in the masculine and feminine aspects of his being. Being a man requires you to know Nyame/God.
Mepa wo kyew, meda wo ase. (Please, I give you thanks)
