A Valentine For Black Men From a Black Woman

Statistics suggest they are "endangered." Oprah, Geraldo and endless TV specials describe them as "at risk." Movies that deal with them positively portray them as afterthoughts and background music; the rest say they're thieves and abusers, the architects and victims of the drug culture. Their own women, it seems, have turned on them, shouting their failings from the rooftops and the pages of best sellers.

 Even under all that weight, even with so many expectations of awfulness, black men manage to amaze.  I mean, really. Look at Michael Jordan, turning empty air into his personal trampoline. Or Denzel Washington, blending gorgeousness, talent and an almost shimmering sexiness--while retaining his image as a rock-steady family man. Check out Nelson Mandela, whose amazing grace as he strode into a chaotic future made the outrage of being deprived of 27 vital years seem ennobling.

This is a valentine for black men, from one black woman speaking for a whole lot more. And not just because men of African descent could use a few valentines after so much bad press. It's for their being so good at so many disparate things. For surviving so much. For being bigger and better than the hype could ever suggest.

I've been crazy about black men since the days when I jumped into my father's arms as he arrived home after laying bricks across town. I've loved black boys since my brothers teased and tortured and then took up for me. Since my high school freshman year, when Ricky Jenkins, emboldened by the darkness at a blue-lights-in-the-basement party, sneaked up and gave me my first real kiss. Since the day in 1970 when Gary Sewell--teased by his big brother for having a 8-by-10 photo of me on his dresser--said, "Look, man, I love her, even if it isn't cool."

I mean really. Black guys know how to get to me. Like my 4-year-old son, who grins at me when I tuck him in bed and sings, "You're the best little mommy in the whole wide world." And his big brother, who only recently has accepted that marrying me might not be a great idea. Like the guy on a Detroit street some five years ago who glanced at my stupendously, humongously pregnant self and whispered, "I bet you're gonna have a pretty baby."

It's for all the unheralded black scientists, inventors, doctors, philosophers, poets, geologists, architects, writers and everyday fellas that have improved, and continue to improve, all our lives.

It's for rap singer Big Daddy Kane for "getting the job done." For Kurt Schmoke for showing that brothers can be nerdy-looking with glasses and Rhodes scholar credentials and can ferociously take popular governors to task. For pioneers like Thurgood on the bench, the Cos on TV, Guion in space, Colin in the military, Sidney on screen and Dough in the governor's mansion (though I sure wish Wilder would grow back that sexy mustache).

It's for Reed V. Tuckson, not for being handsome and dignified and gentlemanly enough to refrain from bad-mouthing Marion Barry. But for being dedicated enough to providing health care for working folks that--when the city couldn't pay the doctors to work nights at the Congress Heights Neighborhood Health Clinic--he got staffers from the D.C. Commission on Public Health to join him in volunteering their time once a week.

For James "Buster" Douglass, for being macho enough to KO a champ who's a fearsome force of nature-- and sensitive enough to sob when he dedicated the win to his recently deceased mom. "God bless her heart," he said.

For John Thompson, for looking like a giant teddy bear while insisting that his Georgetown ballplayers study and stay away from druggies, and then standing up to the NCAA when somebody had to do it.

It's for the Older Brothers--my father and grandfathers and all the ones whose names I'll never know, the ones whom I see walking down inner-city streets, stopping at neighborhood spots for coffee and camaraderie. For the gray old guys who wear hats beautifully no matter what's "in style," who remember that women are more attracted to a sweet smile than a slick remark. Whose difficult lives have taken only the barest edge off their handsomeness. For intoning, "How do you do, Miss Britt," in a "Hey, how ya doin'" age.

It's for the Younger Brothers, too, who wear backward baseball caps, overweight sneakers and balloon-leg trousers and still manage to look too cute. For my boyfriend--for all the sweethearts and husbands and lovers who take their ladies to dinner and send them flowers and tell them their secrets and resoundingly disprove what a white friend once revealed to me: "My father told me that black men can't feel romantic love," she said, eyes downcast. "Carnal lust, yes. Real love, no."

For the brothers and cousins and pals who kept me loving black men, when one of their number was telling me lies, driving me crazy.

And, hey, let's be real--it's for looking so good. For having skin the colors of earth and spice, of every shade of the night. For having that kinkycurlynappywavy oh-so-lively stuff on their heads. For walking that black man--can I get a witness?--walk.

It's for Spike Lee and Amiri Baraka for being so angry, and Morgan Freeman for being so elegantly laid-back. It's for Muhammad Ali for still being the greatest after all these years.

It's for being everything you black men are: wonderful and horrible, fine and foolish, noble and outrageous. For your talent for grabbing, embracing, slam-dunking life in the biggest way; for thumbing your noses at a world that would smash you into a teeny, tiny box.

For all you brothers who make my day, my week, my life that much richer: Happy Valentine's Day.

 --Donna Britt