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Black History is Family History, Too

By Kevin Weston/PNS

Black History Month offers Americans a chance to look at the Jesse Jackson scandal in context, by considering the question of “Black family.”

We African Americans have to remind ourselves of the legacy of our sojourn in North America. When have African male/female relationships been “normal” here? Does the “traditional” marriage model work for us — has it ever worked for us?

As people staked out righteous positions on all sides about Jackson’s behavior, I began to count backward. My great-great grandparents were not allowed to marry under the law. Do the math.

As slaves, the overwhelming majority of Africans in America were denied legal marriage. Black men and women were used to breed, creating the next generation of workers and money, all at the same time.

Families — associations based on blood and circumstances — were routinely broken up and sold for profit to God-knows-where.

For us, then, marriage has been more about what the individuals in the relationship consider marriage to be, not what the state or religion demands.

After the Civil War, most of our time was spent trying to find and build our lost and broken families, and along the way we created new ones.

Jesse Jackson is a handsome man, intelligent, industrious, strong and charismatic. In other words, more than a century ago he probably would have been considered good breeding stock. That his baby’s mama realized that today should be no surprise — she does have a Ph.D.

Preachers were the first rap stars in our community, the only cats the master would allow to speak to a big group. These privileged people never had a problem finding companionship — not then and certainly not now.

Many knock him for being a Baptist minister but not living up to the moral standard of the Bible. But, hell, anybody who has grown up in the church can tell you sex scandals involving preachers and church officials are as common as the fans with a white Jesus on one side, and Jackson’s mentor Martin Luther King Jr. on the other.

We don’t know what agreement Jesse and his wife of over 30 years have made to fit these circumstances. Ultimately, it’s for Jesse, God and his extended family to deal with. It’s no one else’s business.

“Traditional” marriage is a concept that has never worked for us, and will not work for us if we are trying to beat the scourges of AIDS, miseducation, and inner city violence. We need non-traditional solutions and marriage/family arrangements.

I spent a day as a spectator in an Oakland courtroom, and every case involved domestic violence. All the victims and all the accused were African American. Invariably, the conflict involved another man or woman — and the idea that one person owns, and therefore should control, the other.

We need to be free with each other, not controlled by each other.

A lot of young black men and women are challenging the concept of traditional marriage even as they themselves are involved in committed relationships.

“A friend of mine has two wives — one his age (over 50) and one 24,” says a professional, single — but committed — woman, with no kids, in her 20s.

“With so many brothers being locked up, on drugs, indigent, or ignorant, good black men are hard to come by — we might end up having to share.”

Our challenges as a community suggest building more community, not separating into inefficient nuclear families.

We have to be as flexible as our ancestors in dealing with our relationships. And open to the possibility of picking the right kind of relationship for our collective circumstances.

Traditional marriage should be replaced by community-wide responsibility where no one owns another person, but everyone has an obligation to serve the children. Jesse Jackson and his “family” have accepted that responsibility.