For our son, Fearless Fang: The gift of you…

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
― Albert Einstein

I have this essay in my head I would love to write, inspired by Fearless Fang and Lion Cub, our teenage sons. It is about multiple intelligences. Fearless Fang is almost indifferent to books, but he is built in the oral tradition of my ancestors. He is a smart kid, he loves to play, he could be on the football field for hours and that is just fine with him. He’ll spout off ”stats” about different kinds of football plays (he literally sleeps with his football “playbook”) but tell him that he is reeling statistics, and he shuts down. I don’t think he likes to read books, but he loves the iPad. I can tell when he is on it; the sound of his liquid laughter carries the house away from its foundation as he travels the world through its glowing monitor. America’s schools prefer his brother Lion Cub, the geek who loves books and can stand the rigid sage on the stage 19th century style of instruction that still holds the world’s classrooms hostage.

I once watched Fearless Fang during “Black History Month” recite a Langston Hughes poem to the accompaniment of riffs from his guitar and I understood something – it is not about the book, it is about the ideas in the person. I wish the classroom would understand Fearless Fang. I am not knocking books, I would not be here without them, I am only saying that in the 21st century, we should consider the heresy – which is that the book is dying a long slow death. I think also that the digital world offers creative opportunities for thinkers and teachers to reach all children, especially brown children. Our son is fine. The iPad may have saved him from state sanctioned academic ethnic cleansing.

The book is powerful. It can open doors. It can slam doors shut. In the 21st century, the “book” threatens to be the most stifling word ever written. In the 21st century, in the digital age, the thinker cannot think outside the confines of the book. The thinker insists on being a writer – of books. The book will not go down without a fight. I say, read, read, read, read everything, not just books. Write, write, write, write everywhere, not just in books.

Our sons and I go to this barbershop that is owned by this dude with a college degree. The degree hangs on his wall; he is a great barber though. I imagine he took thousands of dollars in college loans simply for the privilege of hanging a certificate on the wall. Somehow one feels complete with a degree. Which is a shame. The other day the locksmith came to the house to install an electronic Bluetooth enabled lock. $125 he said it would cost us, for a basic installation. We would have to get a computer technician to program the lock with Bluetooth. We laughed harder than Unoka and sent him away, too expensive. Lion Cub took down the old lock, and with a video he found on YouTube he installed the new lock and programmed all our smartphones to open and lock the door. My Lover (ML) and I have the manual keys in case the app fails – or Lion Cub locks us out of the house. He is also our network administrator, which gives him incredible control over our lives in the house. It is a new world; patriarchy is under attack by the forces of technology. Lion Cub is going to college. If he simply knocked on doors and installed locks, in four years he would be wealthy. He is going to college. In four years we will owe what he would have earned if he had been a locksmith. It doesn’t sound right. But America is weird like that.And yes, Fearless Fang is going to college, even if it kills me. I hope he gets a football scholarship. It is what it is.

At the barbershop the dudes yell at each other about ideas. They don’t read books. I have this feeling that they hate books. All their lives they have been shepherded from stifling classroom to patronizing teachers to prison. You should see the tattoos on these guys. They don’t read books, they hate books, but they are intellectuals, they just don’t know it. I go in there for a haircut, me and my book and my iPad. Their eyes point at me and laugh, and go, “The intellectual is here!” I think they are mocking me.