I know Clint was my one of my role models. Growing up he would come to the gym and win game after game when I was a teenager. We never quite could beat him and his boys at the open gym in Piscataway, NJ on Monday and Thursday nights. They would whip us constantly, but whenever we had a big game at the high school I would look up in the stands, see him there, and he would give me that nod or that wink saying "Go get them young fella."
As I was a pallbearer at his funeral, I sat in the front row with all the other pallbearers and I realized something. There are a lot of good men out there and I'm tired of hearing that we don't exist. And I'm tired of hearing it in the black community especially. This is something I had to say.
As I looked down the row, I saw black men that I played recreational basketball with every week. I saw a variety of guys that were the model for good men. I saw Jabar Jones, who was a real estate agent and a man of the community. I saw Steve "Tree" Yelity a man who had done so much in the field of education, I saw my man John "Sincere" Nelson a fireman in the city of Plainfield, originally from Brooklyn, who gave us a free CPR class after we loss another good man, Clint to a heart attack. I saw Asmar Fortney, a man who had graduated from college and was taking care of his fiance and child. I saw Curtis Bynes, a man who would go broke giving his money out to the community and had done it time and time again. I saw Joe Dorval, a man who always brought his son to the gym, offered a prayer before we played and held the microphone for a woman at the funeral as she was breaking down, losing her composure while trying to speak.
I looked around the funeral and saw tons of other good black men who weren't on the streets, who were taking care of business in their lives. No, I didn't see all the bells and whistles. There weren't fancy cars pulling up, they're weren't 50 CEO's in the building making $200,000 each a year. There were no Shaquille O'Neals, Kobe Bryants or Jay-Z's sitting in the audience. But there were policeman, fireman, car mechanics, teachers, youth group workers all scattered around the room.
My wife had a book club meeting the other day. All the women came over the house. They were reading Steve Harvey's book "Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Man." And as the women started to arrive I couldn't help but feel nervous because I believed in my heart that the meeting would turn into a male bashing session! I could've been wrong but in my heart that's what I believed. So, I tipped on out the door as the woman started to crowd into my home.
But after Clint's funeral the other day, I'm not sure if I would be nervous the next time, not sure if I would tip toe out the door anymore. The funeral, because of the turnout, was proof that good black men do exists and we exists in numbers. I saw it with my own eyes. I realized that I see it almost every day.
But we hear the words all the time "Where are the good black men?" You know what? I can't listen to that anymore. It's preposterous. Like Malcolm X said, we've been hoodwinked, bamboozled, led astray, run a muck. It's bullshit. Can I sit here and say that all men are good? Of course not, but the options are out there. Where are the women looking? I don't know. How are the women looking? I don't know. But I do know this, they exist. And sometimes, they may not have on a suit and tie, but their hearts and their souls may be sharp as a tack.
How do I know this you ask? Because I walked with six yesterday as we carried one and laid him to rest. You do the math.
This is dedicated to Clinton Stevenson, one of the most influential men the City of Plainfield has ever had. You better get a hand up because the jumper was money. And you better bring the double team when he was posting up, because the defender was in trouble! May his soul rest in peace.
