Black Future Month

Oh my God. If you want to study the antithesis of Black History Month, spend five hours in DC Superior Court like I did yesterday. I now know why the police academy didn't work out for me. God gave me a heart defect because He knew that I would shoot some of those niggas. And see, with it being February I try to avoid that kind of talk. We can save Black on Black crime for the other eleven months. But nooooo, not today folks. I spent five hours watching what basically amounted to a documentary of how I don't want my daughter to turn out.

The highlight of the day comes from a family court trial that I sat in on. Basically this dude was trying to get joint custody of his kids. The kids already lived with him but his ex kept popping up in the middle of the night to take them to her house and threatening to call the cops because I guess he wasn't on the birth certificate.

Anyway, the details don't really matter. What stood out was when the judge asked about the kids. One in high school, one in junior high and one in elementary. Two are on honor roll and one is not. The judge asked about the non-honor student. "Your honor, my kid has a blood clot in his brain and it causes seizures so he misses a lot of school, but I still try to work with him." I had a hallmark moment inside, like "awww, what a good dad."

Then the judge asked why he wanted joint custody and not sole. "She's their mom. If anything ever happens, she needs to be able to sign paperwork too. They're her kids too and they need her in their life." Again, I'm like..."awwww."

So then the judge asks, who currently lives in the home. This is where it all changed.  "It's me, my three kids and my wife. I got married a year ago, your honor." The judge asked if anyone else lived in the house. "Yes, your honor...her five kids live with us as well."

Hold up.
What the hell?

Did this nigga just say that him, his three kids, his wife and her FIVE kids live in this APARTMENT? Now I omitted a part. The judge asked about occupations. The dude works for the city and the lady works at Ross. That's right...Ross. The judge asked about child support from the mom and the dude declined. Know why? Cuz she works at Dollar Tree. What the hell!

A job is a job, EXCEPT when you have eight damn kids living in an apartment. My heart was torn. Part of me was like, "FINALLY a brother doing something positive, taking care of his kids and has a steady job." The other side of me was like, "What's wrong with this nigga. It's ten people living in your house...I'm sorry, APARTMENT. You need to be robbing banks or something."

I salute the man for being positive but DAMN...is this what Black History Month has come to. We can't get any more Booker T Washingtons? We gotta get Jamal the Sanitation Worker with a family of ten in a two bedroom apartment? Damn!