
Love, Law and Black Fatherhood
Season 39 Episode 23 | 26m 46sVideo has Closed Captions
Despite their vital role, Black fathers are often overshadowed by unjust systems and stereotypes.
Historically, Black fathers have been overshadowed by unjust systems and stereotypes despite their vital role in families. Guest J. Dwayne Garnett, founder and CEO of the nonprofit Love Is a Parable, advocates for more inclusive resources. Host Kenia Thompson is joined by Garnett and attorney Nastasia Watkins of the Watkins Law Firm to discuss solutions.

Love, Law and Black Fatherhood
Season 39 Episode 23 | 26m 46sVideo has Closed Captions
Historically, Black fathers have been overshadowed by unjust systems and stereotypes despite their vital role in families. Guest J. Dwayne Garnett, founder and CEO of the nonprofit Love Is a Parable, advocates for more inclusive resources. Host Kenia Thompson is joined by Garnett and attorney Nastasia Watkins of the Watkins Law Firm to discuss solutions.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship- Just ahead on "Black Issues Forum," Black fathers are pillars of strength, love, and guidance within their families, but they've also faced many challenges, from unfair stereotypes to the systems that fail them.
We're asking, "What does this mean for Black fathers, and more importantly, what does it mean for their children?"
Coming up next, stay with us.
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[energetic music] ♪ - Welcome to "Black Issues Forum."
I'm Kenia Thompson.
One of the biggest challenges Black fathers face in custody cases is bias, both implicit and systemic.
Today, we're going to explore the emotional, legal, and societal aspects of Black fatherhood and the impact an unjust system can have on families and children.
We'll have a family law attorney join us in just a little bit, but I'd like to first introduce our first guest to the show, J. Dwayne Garnett.
He's a father of two, and the founder and love advocate at Love Is A Parable, a nonprofit organization that transforms lives through value-based education, fostering personal acceptance and empowering individuals, organizations, and communities to overcome challenges and achieve lasting impact.
Welcome to the show.
- Thank you for having me.
- Yes.
You know, I don't know how much we've touched on this topic before, and I think it's a great time.
It's always a great time to talk about the importance Black fathers play, their role in families and with their children.
And so I kind of want to first start off by you sharing what was the impetus of this conversation and share a little bit of your story.
- I guess the best way to describe it, [laughs] if we were to give it some type of header, it would be Unnecessary.
I feel like when I went through the process of not only separating from my family or my spouse and I separating, but redefining what family looks like.
It was the added pressure of unnecessary hoops that I had to jump through- - As a Black father.
- [laughs] Look, as a man and as a Black father, which are layers.
And you talked about the bias before.
That bias actually has a name.
It's misandry, and it's something that happens quite often, and it comes as subtle forms of biasness.
For instance, children are better off with their mothers.
Or, well, it's okay for women to be emotional, you know?
- But not okay for men to be emotional.
- It's not okay for men to be emotional.
It's not a safe space for men to thrive, but those things influence the outcome from dealing with unnecessary filings, over-explaining, over-justifying, almost going into a character of dumbing yourself down to almost be robotic to the point where anything that's said about you, you don't display any of that, which robs you of being yourself.
And unfortunately, I had to deal with that for three years, of robbing myself, of being who I am organically, because I now had to go up not just against a person that I vowed to be with forever, but a system that I knew absolutely nothing about, and that's the judicial system and the system, the court of public opinion.
I didn't know that I would have to wrestle those three things all at the same time while trying to be a productive, active, and relevant father in my children's lives.
- So what were some of those things that you encountered?
[J. Dwayne sighs] - The way that abuse is used.
It was the first time going through that process I heard my ex-spouse used the words abuse.
She and I never used those words before.
It was the first time that it was introduced into our family ecosystem, if you will, where now our children were being exposed to these terms and they were used, you know, the shape of it, often it looks like- - [Kenia] Right.
- You know, a man.
And when we talk about domestic violence.
Domestic violence, we identify with a victim and that victim is usually- - [Kenia] A woman.
- A woman.
- [Kenia] Yeah.
- And so changing what those things were, really saying like, "No, I didn't do this, I didn't do that," but without passion because you can look like you did those very things.
That was unnecessary.
- [Kenia] Yeah.
Dealing with CPS investigations.
- [Kenia] Right.
- Unnecessary.
- And it's almost ridiculous to assume that someone wouldn't have passion defending themselves in a situation like that.
[J. Dwayne sighs] - And that's what I learned very quickly.
- [Kenia] Yeah.
- Once you start going through a process of not only separating, because I was dealing with a couple of things, not just dealing with the divorce, I was also dealing with the custody and I was dealing with CPS investigations, right?
Well, when you get into this legal system, self-advocacy goes out of the door.
You have to learn to just answer the question and let the law advocate for you based off of their interpretation, which can be very scary.
- Yeah.
So as a result, you have created a movement.
- [J. Dwayne] Yes.
- Share with us what this movement looks like.
- You talked about it earlier.
Because of the organization that I founded, Love Is A Parable, we deal with values.
Well, I didn't know misandry would be a value that I would have to contend with, so I decided to do something.
I have what many would consider a successful case or a successful outcome, but I don't consider it successful, because at the end of the day, the children lost a mother out of the home and I lost my partner that I planned to be with for the rest of my life.
But it was considered a successful one, and when I realized all the things I went through, and then there were men who reached out to me in secret who were on the other side of services.
So I want to be clear.
The services that are in place, I do think that they're necessary.
I just think that we're missing the continuum of services that fathers may need.
And we were the fathers who had custody of our children, in our children's life, haven't been incarcerated or previously incarcerated, not struggling with any type of connection with our kids because they're in the house.
Where do we go?
How do we navigate through the legal system?
And I said, "Well, let's do something about it."
And I started a petition on change.org to enhance support services for fathers in North Carolina with the hope of starting at home first, and then expanding nationally to improve the services, but also changing the identity of what services look like for fathers.
- And how's that going?
I know that you've already garnered the signature of former Governor Roy Cooper and other folks.
So what is that looking like?
- Interestingly enough, I did get some interest from some media.
Wake County has been great with responding right away.
They responded right away and we only have about 250 signatures.
We're trying to get to at least 1,000 to be taken seriously.
But it's interesting, people are still not signing, but they're reaching out.
[laughs] - Maybe there's a fear of signing.
- There is a fear associated with it and a stigma of also saying we're warring against, meaning the services that are provided, are we saying people are not doing a good job?
Are we saying people are not doing enough?
No, we're not saying that.
- [Kenia] Right.
There is just another lens.
And unfortunately, this shares the same thing with father struggles.
This is not saying mothers don't do a great job.
This is not saying that the services that are provided for mothers are not necessary.
What we're saying is, can we have some services too?
Can we get some support too?
Can fathers be seen as humans?
- Yeah.
And that was going to be my next question is talk about the isolation because that seems like, you feel isolated even in the effort to spread this awareness, to get the support, and it's still perpetuating the fact that as a father and then as a Black man.
You're still not getting the support that you need.
- Yeah, I will say the biggest lesson I learned, I didn't know the societal covering marriage provided.
- Mm.
- When I was married, I was a good man.
[J. Dwayne laughs] - As soon as I went through - Okay.
- this divorce, I'm horrible.
I don't know what I'm doing anymore.
- Right.
- Like people are telling you, like, "You don't know what you're doing," like, "Let me help you let you do this."
Like, I don't need help with these children.
I need help navigating through this system.
Can you help me this way?
- Right.
- But it's amazing how now, no matter how much education, no matter how much experience, no matter how many times people have seen me with my children, I am now, because I am not, you know, with a partner, I'm incompetent.
It's like we expect men to be incompetent.
We expect men to be emotionless.
And those things are not true.
We are human and we...
There's a holistic approach to how you deal with us as a whole too.
We know how to do hair.
We know how to dress.
We go through that and we... And also, the expectation that we can fix a divorce.
- [Kenia] Right.
- Yes, it take two to get married, - Right.
- but it only takes one to divorce.
And if a person doesn't want to be in that union anymore, it's nothing you can do to stop it.
- Yeah.
Well, you know, one of the, you kind of alluded to it, societal impressions or expectations of what marriage should look like or what a divorce should look like, or what parenting should look like, media has shaped a lot of that, - Mm-hmm.
- right, when we think about what's been ingrained in us since birth.
Since before we were even conceived, it's been there.
And I wanna show this package that's coming up because media has played a really large role in the false perceptions of Black fathers.
From inaccurate portrayals to statistical misinterpretations, these images of an absent father in the house has taken root in public consciousness.
So I want to share this YouTube video from AJ+ to talk more about it.
- The news media loves asking where all the Black fathers are, and that whole idea has been linked to everything from poverty and crime to even police violence against Black communities.
- Why are these police shootings occurring?
Well, it's because there is an absent Black father or it's because Black families are on welfare.
- But this idea that Black fathers aren't present in their kids' lives is actually false.
- To be a parent is to have children that you love and try and support, and Black fathers experience that the same way that anyone else would.
Why would you even think there was a difference?
[mellow music] - Just because the trope of the absent Black father is so pervasive doesn't mean it's true.
Now, yes, according to a Centers for Disease Control report, in 2013, 72% of non-Hispanic Black women who gave birth were unmarried.
But being an unmarried mother doesn't automatically mean that the father isn't involved.
And in fact, that's exactly what that CDC report found.
When compared to white or Hispanic fathers, Black fathers were actually more likely to be involved in their children's lives in almost every way.
They were even more likely to have bathed, diapered, or dressed their kids, eaten a meal with them, played with them, helped them with homework, and taken them to and from activities.
And a lot of that held true even when Black fathers didn't live with their children.
But if we go solely off of what we see in the news media... - Where's your dad?
- Don't really know.
[soft mellow music] - Tell me about that.
- He just not around.
- You wouldn't really see Black fathers in that way.
Communications professor Travis Dixon studies the prevalence of stereotypes in mass media and the impact of these stereotypes on audiences.
He wrote this report, "A Dangerous Distortion of Our Families," and in it, he found that almost all news and opinion media implicitly or explicitly encourages pretty egregious assumptions about Black fathers.
Black fathers were shown spending time with their kids only half as often as white fathers, contrary to, well, the actual facts.
- We found that black mothers, white mothers, white fathers interacted with their kids about 26% of the time in these videos and photos that occurred in the news media, half as often we found that happening for black fathers, only about 14% of the time were black fathers actually interacting with their kids on camera in photos.
- Dixon also found that news commentary singled out black fathers 60% of the time compared to white fathers only 20% of the time.
So where does this toxic idea about black fathers even come from?
Well, one theory takes it back to a 1965 report titled, "The Negro Family, The Case for National Action."
The report became one of the most contentious political documents in 20th Century America.
Democrat and Assistant Secretary of Labor, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, put the report together to make the argument for how the Lyndon B. Johnson administration had to do more for racial equality than simply pass the Voting Rights Act.
Moynihan argued that to really fight racial inequality, the government had to understand the state of black communities and why they were the way they were.
But Moynihan ended up focusing on one thing, the black family.
According to him, the fundamental reason for growing economic inequality between white and black Americans was a crumbling family structure in black communities.
And at the foundation of the so-called crumbling black family structure was the absent black father.
Moynihan looked at non-marital birth rates and rates of fathers living separately from their children and made a whole bunch of assumptions about parents' relationship statuses and parental involvement.
The report didn't take into account factors like the legacy of slavery, generational wealth, or even economic migration in which men left their homes so that they could provide for their families.
The Moynihan report ultimately created three camps, the liberal camp, which saw the report as a foundation for policy change, the conservative camp, which saw the report as a justification for the argument that black communities were responsible for their own issues.
And then the left wing camp that saw the report as blaming the victim, ignoring structural racism and actually reinforcing racism.
So what's the solution?
Well, here's what Dixon and Wallace had to say.
- The main way that the media perpetuates stereotypes and racist tropes is accidentally, I think the people who are in the decision making rooms and the content making rooms are carrying these biases with them without knowing they're carrying them with them because there's no one around to challenge them.
So I think that ultimately greater diversity at all levels of decision making in the media and content process is probably our best chance of dealing with this.
- As an African American father myself, as a father of twin sons, I take pride in that role and I know many, many other black fathers who take pride in being involved with their kids regardless of the marital situation with the mother.
And so I really would like the media to show some of those stories as well.
- Ultimately, I'm raising my kids to be a part of the solution rather than a part of the problem.
You know, that's really all I can do.
- Well, in addition to what media has portrayed and the stereotyping that we've seen, our legal system hasn't always been on the side of black fathers either.
When it comes to custody cases, we want to bring in our attorney Natasia Watkins of the Watkins Law Firm.
She's a dedicated family law lawyer who has spent years advocating for fairness and equity in custody disputes.
She brings a wealth of knowledge and insight into the systemic challenges fathers face and the paths and solutions that they can have.
Welcome to the show.
- Thank you for having me.
- Of course.
So we've heard Jade Wayne's story and I kind of wanna get your perspective of what he's gone through, and then is that kind of normal in what you've seen over the years?
- Unfortunately, it is quite normal.
There is...
There has been a presumption that mothers are better caretakers for their children and that children are better off being primarily with their mothers.
The standard, unfortunately, while unwritten is that fathers get every other weekend.
But what we do know as Black families, as families in general, is that children need both of their parents.
While mothers may have traditionally been the primary caretakers, things have changed and that should change as well.
So while that is the norm, it's not what should be happening.
- And would you say, you know, we saw that clip and we watched how media has a perspective, and I actually kind of truncated a little bit.
It did go on to talk about slavery and racism and all the systemic things that have contributed to the perception of a Black man.
Do you think that that has permeated the legal system as well?
- Absolutely, and the statistics will show that as well.
If you look at Black families are more likely than other families to be investigated by Child Protective Services.
Black children are more likely than any other group to be taken from their homes by Child Protective Services.
If you were to go and to sit in court, specifically in Durham County Abuse, Neglect, Dependency Court or Child Support Court, you will see primarily Black families while Durham is not a county that has primarily Black people, so that, even though the history spills over into our court system.
And so Black fathers are up against that, even in custody court because it all comes together in that legal system.
- Yeah.
J. Dwayne, when you shared you had to have CPS come to your house, how was that feeling?
To have somebody come to evaluate your parenting and if you were worthy.
- Initially It was horrible.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- I'm say several different reasons because the natural thing is, how dare you [chuckles] question the way that I parent?
But also the realization that it introduced a new dynamic to your children that forever changed it.
Like the authority that I have as a father has now been compromised because if I don't like what dad says or what dad does, there is somebody else that I can go to.
And so the initial CPS investigation was kind of rough, but it ended up being, talking about saving grace, it ended up being a saving grace because they also ended up seeing my ex, the children's mother, for what she was.
Unfortunately, it still stopped because there is some level of grace where it should have been like, hmm.
If it was the other way around, meaning if I falsely filed, the book may have been thrown at me and I feel like making those type of reports, there should be some type of series offense done.
And even though the realization of that happened and there were ways that they had resolved it, it didn't go to the extent that I know as a black male it would have went.
And even to her point about custody, even though North Carolina is considered a state that is non impartial, custody still within the state for fathers is about 27.9%.
So that is still something that happens.
So when you throw in the mix CPS and you throw in dealing with that, this is also why divorced men actually commit suicide three times higher.
- Wow.
- Than divorced women.
- Wow.
- It is expected that every day 10 men, 10 divorced men will commit suicide.
- Oh wow.
- And we want to add these type of stresses in the mix.
- Attorney Watkins, I know that you were not his attorney, but how do you walk a man through these kind of events that are happening during such a critical time?
- What I usually do is try to focus on the positive, that has worked out well for me.
But just letting them know that it's not personal.
It may feel personal, but it's not.
It's a systemic issue, and then just focus on the facts.
So while the system may be saying that you're not a good father, you are, and here's why.
You're going to the school, you're going to the activities, your children love you, you have lots of pictures with your children.
You are more than just a pocket book.
You're more than just the financial provider.
You are a pillar in their lives.
So use that, talk about that in court and convince this judge that these children need you.
So that's usually what I do to help them get through the process.
- Yeah, and like we mentioned before, J. Dwayne has created a petition, but we know a lot of this has to change on the policy side.
Are you aware of anything that's moving in that direction of kinda changing that landscape?
- I wish there was so, and I was talking to J. Dwayne in the back about this, but there was at one point a tender years doctrine, so it was actually on the books that when children are elementary school age, that they should be with their mother.
While it's not still on the books, it's seeping through into our judicial system.
There was a proposed bill that joint custody would be the presumptive best thing for the children.
However, that has not become a statute.
It is just something that is kind of in limbo at this point.
so if that could become a new presumption, I think that would be pivotal for fathers, so you're not starting at every other week and you're starting at 50/50.
- Right.
- So if that could be on the books, that would be tremendously helpful.
- And when we talked beforehand, you said that you saw courts leaning more towards 50/50 resolves.
- I believe so, and we're primarily in Durham County, and I think Durham County has been pivotal in that, and they have been very progressive, and starting with the 50/50, and then you have to convince the court otherwise, not just the mother is always gonna be the primary caretaker, and how can you convince me to change that?
- Right, right.
Jada Wayne, you know, you're not the only one obviously going through this.
If you have a father watching and they're like, I'm going through something very similar, and they have no idea where to start, how did you find the resources to get the ball rolling to advocate for yourself?
- That's so funny.
As cliche as this may sound, I did lean into my faith.
[Jada laughs] I prayed first, 'cause I was like, what am I dealing with?
Because everything that I was dealing with literally went against my core values and my faith.
I don't believe in divorce, and I'm one who's dealing with it.
I don't believe in exposing family secrets.
I believe that a man is supposed to protect and provide, so the very first thing I did was pray and dig deep.
I reached out to five men that I just knew and I said, "Hey, I don't know what I'm about to go through, but I feel like I'm gonna need you."
I used those five men to reach out and say, "Who would you recommend as an attorney?
Who would you recommend as this?"
And we started a system, and I said, "What we're gonna do is just document what it is that we need, 'cause I don't know if I'm changing, but I'm gonna need you to help me change."
Then I got my therapist, who I already had since I was 19.
I used my mentor, a therapist, mentor, spiritual advisor, had them on deck.
and I feel like you need those things, because your normal will change gradually, and you don't know that your normal is changing because you're dealing with a stressor of embarrassment first.
- [Kenia] Right.
- Because automatically, you feel like, "How can I fix this?
What did I do?
What is this blemish?
Why does it make me look bad?"
And you need people who are gonna call not only that out, but also be that quick shoulder and hug that you needed.
So the support system started right away, even when I didn't feel anything but, wow, this is just going on, and that same support system, in my case, everything dealing with marriage as a whole lasted about three years.
- [Kenia] Wow.
- So they were there for approximately three years, and I have to give a shout out to my attorney, Rashonda Rogers, who was the truth, - [Kenia] Yeah.
- who was just phenomenal all the way through, but also saw the person.
- Yeah, that's important.
- Because law is governed in a way to point to people, but we're dealing with systems and cultures.
It's not always a person, and when you're talking about systemic things, the people who started it are long gone.
We can't sue them.
- Right.
- And so now we're all living and we play a role in that, and she was able to pull me out of that culture element and find me.
And helped me navigate through that place.
Raushanah Rodgers was amazing.
She's the truth.
- That's great.
And we always need, right, an advocate on the law that knows the law, understands the law.
- Yes.
- If we have a father who feels like they've been wronged, what is that first step to kind of revisiting a case that they feel has been unjustly decided upon.
- So people's first thought is to go to the appellate courts for family court.
I would strongly suggest to not do that.
- [Kenia] Yeah.
- Because if you do win on your appeal, it's gonna go right back to that same judge.
Your better route would be a contempt motion to say, "Hey, the judge said to do these three things and you violated them.
So you need to be found in contempt and either fined or thrown in jail."
Another route would be a motion to modify to show the court some substantial change has happened and we have to change this order.
That could be time, that could be somebody's moved, children aren't doing well in school, there's behavioral issues, but we have to change this order.
So the motion to modify is probably gonna be your best route to change what's happened in the past in a custody order.
- Yeah, if people wanna reach out to you for some sort of guidance, how can they find you?
- So my website is thewatkinslawfirm.com and my phone number is [919] 617-9313.
- Wonderful, and J. Dwayne, I'm gonna throw the petition back up on screen, folks wanna sign, they can go to?
- They can go to change.org, but the best place to start is at loveisaparable.com.
- [Kenia] Okay.
- We have now made this part of our initiatives under Brother empowerMENt.
[chuckles] - [Kenia] Yeah.
- So if they click on the Brother empowerMENt, they'll see the talk points, they'll see the petition, but they'll see things that we're doing.
And also, you have that added support as well of having someone who's actually gone through it.
- [Kenia] Yeah.
- Of what is considered a successful one.
But we wanna redefine winning.
You don't ever win in custody.
[laughs] You don't ever win.
- It's true.
This is true.
- [laughs] And we wanna redefine that, right.
- And the kids, more importantly, we're trying to make sure that they get the best that they need to be successful.
- Correct.
Exactly.
- Well, J. Dwayne Garnett, thank you so much, Attorney Watkins, I appreciate you both.
- Thank you.
- For having this conversation, for you being transparent with your story, and I pray that it all continues to work out.
- Thank you so much.
- Of course.
- Thank you.
- And we thank you for watching.
If you want more content like this, we invite you to engage with us on Instagram, using the #BlackIssuesForum.
You can also find our full episodes on pbsnc.org/blackissuesforum and on the PBS video app.
I'm Kenia Thompson.
I'll see you next time.
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