Those of you following our site already know that April 20, 2012 has been set for the Founding Fathers March on Washington at Senate Park on the West Lawn of the Capitol. Designed to promote parenting equality and court reform, it was announced in November, 2011, see related details at www.leonkoziol.com. This week we sent final notices to various supporters and groups known to us. We intend to publish their involvement, if any, so that you might learn whether your group or contributions are producing results. Please share this message with others.
Now, in our final countdown, we feature short stories from callers and e-mailers as promised in a recent post. We call them the “Parenting Papers”. They are intended to stimulate attendance at next month’s event because our court victims apparently believe that it’s someone else’s job to protest for them- and of course reform will not occur with this kind of lame attitude. These stories are based on real events. However, names and content have been edited to protect the sources. Our third story of this series, Day 26, is entitled: “Willie the Wusse”.
Willie Wusse loved attention. In high school he was the basketball star and football quarterback. Never quite good enough for professional sports, however, Willie eventually settled into jobs as a phys-ed teacher and bouncer at a popular local club. He never liked the idea of a long term romance, but he loved his twin boys of a five year relationship. That ended not long ago when his woman decided that a man was needed who would not disrespect her as often as Willie had.
Despite a flexible childrearing arrangement, it was only a matter of time when tensions would flare up over lovers and parenting substitutes. As one of the sisters explained, “Girl, you can’t let your man go around havin’ a good time with money that needs to go to yer kids, and what they doin’ with that nasty bee anyway, makin’ like the children are hers?” Of course, the instigator knew nothing about Willie’s new girlfriend. She was simply parroting the gossip of unhappy people jealous of others who don’t live down to their levels.
But the real irony of it all was that Willie had given his ex everything that she demanded, full control of the children, and just enough money so that he could move on with his own life. The new woman was actually paying most of his bills so that the boys could have a place to “visit” as “the law” decreed it. The last thing Willie needed was a custody battle to get the “respect” he deserved as a good father. He wisely understood that money spent on lawyers was wasted because he faced multiple prejudices in America’s domestic relations courts.
For starters, Willie was black and male, and everyone knew that parenting added yet another roadblock to justice. Before he had a chance to present anything, he was stereotyped as the proverbial dead beat dad. His burden of proof was artificially elevated in this manner because of conditions acquired at birth. No half-baked lawyer was going to advise him of this as long as there was a fee to be taken. So why take a chance of losing his cool and getting a rap for some crime caused by a jealous woman exploiting a racist and sexist court system?
To put it bluntly, Willie was doing his best to live the life that society had in mind for him. And when Obama came out every Father’s Day preaching about African-American fathers who needed to step up to the plate, Willie knew that his president’s Harvard education hadn’t done him much good, not on this subject anyway. Willie had it in mind to make his plight known to the NAACP, or to join in a protest on Washington, but for all his show, Willie was quite the wusse when it came to standing up for his God-given rights.
Recently Willie showed it all off to the brothers at the gym.“Protest?” he laughed,“you gotta be kidding me, I got no time for it. That’s some body else’s job”. In fact all the boys thought the same, that’s why lawyers reaped the benefits, such that Willie’s great grandfather might have turned over in his grave. You see, the elder Willie protested with the likes of Martin Luther King Jr. when no one had money and lives were always at risk. So when Willie Wusse got six months instead of the usual 90 days on a first time child support offense, no one was there to hear his gripes. In Willie’s words, “that was some body else’s job.”
