Mommy Brain

(He Talk Like a White Boy: Reflections on Faith, Family, Politics, and Authenticity was provided to me free of charge by Active Christian Media, who received it from the publisher for the purpose of being reviewed.)

Joseph C. Phillips, author of He Talk Like a White Boy, is a familiar face to me. My family used to watch The Cosby Show when I was younger, and I remember Denise’s husband in his uniform. Mr. Phillips is a black actor who also happens to be politically conservative and a Christian. Because he is well-educated and refuses to play the victim or race card, he has been accused of not being “black enough” - whatever that means - by liberal African-Americans.

This book consists of essays on the topics of character, family, faith, idealism, and identity. I thoroughly enjoyed this book because it made me think - which is the best thing a book, especially a non-fiction book, can do.

I agreed with Mr. Phillips on many issues, issues that I have not spoken about for fear of sounding racist. I don’t know how a white, stay-at-home mom can talk about some of these topics with any credibility. Mr. Phillips has credibility; he knows and lives what he writes about.

But this book deals with much more than race: he tackles parenting, faith, and politics. (I can always tell how much a book impacted me by how many pages have underlined sections and notes in the margin.)

Here are some of Mr. Phillips’s words:

“The day after my high school graduation I was at my friend Jerald’s house. His older sister was commenting on the previous day’s ceremony and complimented me on my commencement address. “You gave a good speech,” she said. “You sounded really smart,” to which she added, “You sounded white.” I looked at her cross-eyed and asked, “Did you hear what you just said?”

Of course this was not the first time I heard this, nor would it be my last. The charge of sounding white had haunted me all through school and would haunt me well into my professional acting career. “Joseph, do it again and this time try to sound more black.” I have been black all my life. How can I be more black? I told this story to the publisher and wham! There was the title of the book. As I shared it with friends and family, it seemed to resonate. A great many people, it seems, share my experience and agreed that to assert a belief in black self-sufficiency is not a betrayal of the race.”

On parenting:

“I often hear that children are growing up too fast nowadays, but maybe they are just growing in direct proportion to the amount of responsibility parents are abdicating. As parents, we are the vanguard, the lions at the gate. Nothing should enter or leave our homes lest it pass by us first. As guardians of the next generation our moral messages must be clear. The respect we demand from and give to our children is the same respect they will in turn give to others.”

“Age breeds cynicism. We grow older and learn that dreams are fragile and easily broken. We discover that bad things happen to good people all of the time, and that what goes around sometimes takes a long time to come around. All of this baggage weighs us down and blinds us to the blessings of life. Children remind us that there is nothing more precious than innocence, nothing mroe beautiful than our world viewed through eyes that have not been jaded by life’s merciless twists and turns. We forget what it is like to kick a ball just to see how high it will go, or run as fast as we can because the wind feels good in our faces.

We don’t recall the quiet delight in hearing dead leaves crunch beneath our feet. We fail to remember that puddles are for splashing and mud is for squishing. I believe God wants us to know purity and to never forget how much fun it is to roll down a hill or lay down on freshly cut grass and look at the sky. Innocence is constantly reintroduced into our lives. We live out our childhood and then have children of our own; we are blessed to relive childhood with them. When our children have children, we once again see the world anew through our grandchildren’s eyes. And if we are truly fortunate, we get the chance to do it all again as great-grand parents.”

On feminism:

“I am not a social scientist and don’t have any proof, but my sense is that women used to know their power; they celebrated their femininity. I think things began to go haywire when some guy convinced women to join the sexual revolution. It had to have been a guy. Who else would come up with the idea of multiple sex partners with no strings attached? That he was able to sell this idea to women as “empowerment” makes him the biggest flim-flam artist in history. Men got easy sex while women got sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancy, and a string of unfulfilling relationships. You tell me who got the short end of that stick. Ever since that time, feminists have been convincing scores of other women that they are powerless and that femininity equals weakness.”

“Consider that birds with brains the size of peas demand that their mates demonstrate their worthiness. Far too many women today give themselves to men without consideration of that man’s worth as life partner or father of their children. The feminist at the university would say that I am blaming the victim. She might also argue that real empowerment for women is choosing to abort the child that results from such unions. I would argue that true empowerment is in exercising of greater selectivity in who a woman chooses as a sexual partner. That is real freedom of choice, real control over one’s body, real power.”

I could go on and on quoting from this book - the pages of my copy are full of pencil marks - but I won’t. I’ll just encourage you to get your own copy and mark up the pages for yourself.