16 JUNE 2006    
 

 

 

 

 


"...Black people should realise that we don't need a licence or permission to be a good parents again "
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Another View
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 "Childline" didn't exist when I was a kid - and if you ever told anybody you got licks, then you got more licks for "chatting family business outside"!
It's only now I live 200 miles away from my parents that I feel brave
enough to back-chat and say stuff like - " Huh, you only call me when someone has died or you want something"  I'm quite happy to discipline other people pickney and be called a "strict (Sunday School) teacher". 
We (siblings & I) were beaten with the "black rubber" - officially known as a fan-belt from underneath the bonnet of a car - a belt
wasn't tough enough. Have you ever been hit in the head or knuckles with a comb or hairbrush? I still have that scar today...I'm gonna stop now before you call the police on my parents...I think I've turned out to be a normal, well-balanced individual really, after all
that...!
Alison (Miss Baj)

    

DON'T BE CHILDISH ABOUT DEALING WITH KIDS

My parents brought me up, with only a little interference or assistance from the state - school, college, university - and thankfully no help from the police, borstal or HMS prison service. 
Today however we've succumbed to the easy option, where it's everyone else's job to raise our children except our own and kids, know that - the mass media has seen to that. With the help of outside influences and the breakdown of communication in the home we have ceded control of our children's future to MTV and advertising agencies run by middleclass white people. Black people are getting the shit-end of the stick, living with it and liking it. In fact we're told ghetto-living, trash talk, violence and rap is all part of our culture?

Taking the rap

I am old enough to have been smacked by my parents - ok, beaten. But Black parents have gone soft their children because we've been advised to be soft and then blame institutional racism for all our communities' ills. When my parents went soft they'd lecture and talk endlessly to my siblings and I around the dinner table - they could just about strike a balance between reasoning and blows.
Collectively they worked every hour God sent, but still made time to sit down for dinner and chats after which we'd watch television. There were no guns, violence, filthy chat, loose women or celebrity relatives in prison, and the only knives were in the kitchen. So how is violence, rap and crime part of my culture?
If we allow a society led media biased against all decent things Black to run our lives then we're heading towards almost certain destruction. 
So do I shed a tear for the parents of Alex Kamonda (pictured above), stabbed to death a week ago? No. You will reap what you sow. Alex, via his God-fearing parents should have known that, or did he think posing with a pump-action shotgun would ward-off other thugs, villains and potential killers.

Playing with fire

The biggest mistake we parents can make is in not being honest with ourselves and our children. We need to take personal responsibility for them as long as we can and not be afraid. I often tell my kids of my childhood experiences and mistakes. Some of it brings a tear to my eye when I think about it now. But back in the day, parents wouldn't hesitate to threaten to call the police, who you knew could get away with giving you a kicking in the back of a van, before whisking you off to court and borstal all before you could say 'who is the daddy'. In a twisted sort of way, it actually did the trick, especially watching some of our peers go wrong.

my mother warned me about police, thieves, gambling, credit, alcohol and women...I failed on one count

I'd speak to my parents, or at least they'd speak to me and my mum warned me about the police, thieves, gambling, credit cards, alcohol and women. I may have failed miserably on women, but I got a wonderful daughter out of the deal. 

 Responsible response

A while ago former Voice editor Mike Best suggested that police 'stop and search' usage wasn't such a bad thing. His comments may have cost him his job, but he wasn't far wrong. We need to reel our children in, by any means necessary. Don't leave it to teachers to raise your children, get to know them. Eat with them - fast food out of context is a curse on the Black family. Respect isn't about street-cred. Bling is tacky, fast cars are great but not on hire purchase, and our daughters shouldn't have to look cheap to be beautiful. It can only be our own faults if at pre-sixteen it all all goes wrong. It's not a question of sparing the belt and spoiling the child, it's about caring enough to do the right thing. Oh, and we don't need a licence or anyone's permission to do that BH
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