Family, Legacy, and Experiences

Family

When I think of family, I think of fragmentation. My mother, Janice, lived in Pittsburgh and my father, Butch, lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I was raised in their hometown of Ambridge, a mill town about 18 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, by my maternal grandparents, Perry and Ellen Carlisle. It was a strange relational setup for me as I viewed my grandparents as parents and my aunts and uncles as big sisters and brothers. I did view Janice as my mother, but as easy as it was to call my grandmother “mom,” those words always became lodged in my throat as I tried to voice them to Janice. When I was child I called her Jan Jan, and as an adult, I called her Janice, but often I would not use any signifier to specifically address her. It was just too awkward. When I saw Butch, I addressed him as Butch, and there was no expectation of anything else unlike with Janice, who wanted to be called “mom.” I grew up pretending to be a son to Perry and Ellen Carlisle (a lot cleaner and easier to explain to people) although they viewed me as one of their several grandchildren—just the one they had to take care of because his parents could not or would not. My mother had me ten days after her 18th birthday. My father was six years older than my mother. When my grandparents found out that my mother was pregnant, a meeting was held that included Butch, his mother, my grandmother Mozelle, Janice, Perry, and Ellen Carlisle. The only question my grandparents had of Butch at the time was, “Did he plan to marry her?” Butch was not. And with that answer, he was no longer welcome by my grandparents. Butch eventually left Ambridge and created a life with the woman he did marry and fathered two additional children—my brother Sean and sister Shenita (Butch had another child, our oldest brother Damont). As far as I can remember, I was told that my grandparents raised me because Janice was not equipped to take care of me—whispers of drug abuse by my mother were present from the time I was a child. I remember asking my grandmother years later, when she was in a nursing home, and Janice was dead, what did occur? My grandmother said the plan was that Janice, who moved to Pittsburgh to go to nursing school, was always supposed to come back and get me. That never happened. What did happen was that my mother as I became older became more and more dependent on drugs (crack cocaine) and alcohol. She died at 53 years in 2004.

Legacy

I remember how my grandfather, Perry, often lamented about his good name being ran into the ground. The subjects of his lamentations were often his oldest three children to include my mother. As I sat and listening to his repeated railings, I told myself that I would not bring shame to the family name Carlisle and make it a source of pride. The irony is that Carlisle wasn’t even my grandfather’s real last name. His absentee biological father’s last name was Howard. My grandfather took the name of his stepfather, and he wore that name with pride. When I had children, I thought about legacy in a different way—not so much about my last name but my actions. I wanted them to be proud of their father--always. My wife, Amy, and I wanted our children, Arielle and Amya, to be proud of their parents and we set to create a legacy at home and in our work that would honor them and pave a way for them into adulthood. All through their lives we thought it was important to remind our now grown children that they stand on the shoulders of people who survived and carved out lives in some of the worst conditions. They understand that their immediate ancestors were not far removed from the country’s injustices. My mother drank from segregated water fountains. My grandparents grew up amid 20th Century Jim Crow. Their parents and grandparents survived the immediate backlash of Reconstruction. My children are products of survivors. Arielle and Amya have that same strength within them to survive any obstacle and thrive in any situation. I am certain they will carry on that strength and our good name.

Experiences

I can always remember the pull and tug of what it meant to be black in America. My earliest lesson was being allowed to stay up to 11 pm. for five days in 1977 as Roots aired. I got a lesson of what it meant to be Black in America and how we were viewed. I remember as a nine-year old child being drawn into the miniseries unlike anything I had experienced in my life. I remember watching Kunta Kinte being stripped of his name eventually capitulating and becoming Toby. I remember watching with horror as Kizzy was ripped from her parents even when her name meant “stay put,” and that anguish it caused her mother. I remember discussing race issues with my best friend Shawn, a white kid across the street, and us having a spirited debate as 11 and 12 years old about slavery. In his 12-year-old view, Shawn argued slavery was a good thing for blacks because we were better off in America than if we had stayed in Africa (he’s evolved of course). I debated the opposite although I don’t remember my exact points or how the discussion ended, but the premise of this polemic was based on a faulty premise that neither one of us fully understood. I remember being called a nigger during baseball practice by some white kid just riding by on his bike. I remember again later as a teenager walking through my town by myself when a group of grown men for no reasons at all started to taunt me with nigger. I remember sitting in a ninth-grade English class and my teacher making a point to highlight me as something different than the other students by saying, “You’re a minority. What do you think on this topic?” I thought little of the topic. I thought I wanted to disappear. She made me an “other.” For most Black people being “other” and knowing you’re seen differently, often in an inferior light, are messages experienced early in life. Images everywhere promoting whiteness, images everywhere trashing blackness, and encounters with white people, in formal or informal settings, have always reminded us about our place, and many of us spend a lifetime trying to unlearn some of those lessons.