ROB ROBINSON
Hey, I want to thank you for joining us on another episode of Disruption Now. This is a special episode. The book that we're talking about is “Color Him Father” and it's about black fatherhood but particularly, black fatherhood and loss.

When we were taping this, my big sister was in the middle of struggling to overcome the flu. She was born with a chronic heart condition but she's been a fighter all her life. She's gotten past so many times when it looked like she wasn't going to make it so we always were optimistic and assumed she was going to make it past this. But this time, she didn't.

So in the midst of talking about black fatherhood, talking about families, we ended up losing my sister just a little while later. Seeing my family go through that has been hard. Going through it myself has been hard. It's really the first time I have seen death up close and personal.

I’m thankful my sister is in a better place but it's a new experience and I think it opened up my mind to how much we need to talk about these things and be vulnerable and understand that it’s a part of the process. It doesn't make you less of a man to cry. It doesn't make you less of a man to not understand.

This was a hard thing to go through in this moment for me but these men, as you're hearing the story, went through stories that were just as hard or harder and they found a way through. And they're disrupting this narrative that the black male is absent from their family. They're not. We just don't hear the stories and that's our job to really disrupt that.

So I want to give a prayer out to my sister. We’ll actually be doing her homecoming funeral this weekend.

I hope you’d enjoy the show and I hope you’d gain some insights from it and I hope you can learn or see yourself somewhere in this. Have a blessed one.

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DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
When Kia passed away, one of the challenges Kia, my daughter… I was struck by the fact that… Like anyone else, when something like that happens, some kind of trauma like that in your life, you start searching for answers. You start searching for material -- anything that you can grasp that sort of helps you begin to make sense of it. Even though I’m a psychologist, obviously, I couldn't treat myself.

ROB ROBINSON
Sure. They tell lawyers, “Don't be your own lawyer.” I’m a lawyer but it’s a bad idea. Yeah, don’t do that.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Yeah. Don’t try to save your own. It’s a bad idea.

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ROB
Welcome to Disruption Now. I’m Rob Richardson. We like to disrupt common narratives and constructs here. I think you're going to really enjoy this podcast today because it certainly does that.

We have Dr. Lawrence Drake with us who is the author of “Color Him Father.” Also one of the, I guess, people that tell their story is Michael Bennett who is also in the book.

This has been a great book, I think, to try to really disrupt the narratives that are around black males as fathers, that black males are absent as fathers. That's something you hear all the time in the media. It’s not something you're going to hear on Disruption Now. One, [it sells - 03:18] all the time and two, it's not true.

We're going to talk about that today and really talk about it from the experience of what it means to be a black man who has invested in his child's life, what it's actually like to go through tragedy, what it's like to also not be perfect.

Look, I think all three of us here have been divorced before, have had our own challenges. At Disruption, we like to have real conversations about our community because I don't think we can really go about changing constructs or changing our community until we actually have honest input, honest conversations. So that's what brings us here today.

And I’ll tell you, “Color Him Father” really was a transformative book for me. It is a hard book to read but it's a great book. And I think it's a necessary book for everyone -- I think for white families, too, but especially black families because we can talk about trying to change the narrative to try to get America to change the narrative.

But change starts with us. It starts internally. It starts with our community. This book really helps to do that and is a really in-depth look at what it means to be a father, what it means to be a black male, what it means to be vulnerable. I think you're going to really enjoy this discussion and I highly encourage you to get the book. -- Gentlemen, welcome here. It's good to have you.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Good to be here. Thank you.
MICHAEL BENNETT
Good to be here. Thank you.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Thank you, Rob.

MICHAEL
Good to see you this afternoon.

ROB
Yeah. Always good to be back in D.C. I saw this book, Dr. Lawrence, and as I explained earlier, I saw it as more than the stories. The stories were hard as I told Michael. They were hard to get through but they were necessary. But I saw it as more than the stories that were obviously emotional. They were obviously tragic. I saw this as kind of a blueprint to disrupt the narratives about what it means to be a black male father in America. That's what I saw this as.

Take us through why you wrote this book and why you wrote it in the way you did in terms of not only telling your story but telling stories of other black male fathers who had similar stories to yourself. What brought that to your mind and why did you do that?

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
When Kia passed away, one of the challenges Kia, my daughter… I was struck by the fact that… Like anyone else, when something like that happens, some kind of trauma like that in your life, you start searching for answers. You start searching for material -- anything that you can grasp that sort of helps you begin to make sense of it. Even though I’m a psychologist, obviously, I couldn't treat myself.

ROB
Sure. They tell lawyers, “Don’t be your own lawyer.” I’m a lawyer but it’s a bad idea. Yeah, don’t do that.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Yeah, don’t try to save your own. It’s a bad idea. It’s not good. It’s not good.

So I started looking and there was really nothing for me that spoke to me as a father and more specifically, as a black father. But the irony of it all is I knew 10 other black men who had also lost their children.

My first inclination was actually to approach the book from a scholarly perspective to actually do qualitative interviews with families and really talk about loss because one of the other stereo-typical but yet actual factual antidotes about the black family is that we don't seek mental health counseling.

ROB
Yeah, and we're going to talk about that in detail so hold that thought before you go down that rabbit hole. But I definitely agree.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Okay. And because of that, I thought, “Well, okay, if I do that then it's going to be exposed to a journal and these scholars and the academics will read the journal but nobody else will.”

ROB
Right.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
And I said, “Well that's not going to work.” Plus, I can't really speak in a real-time honest and authentic voice as a black father when I’m operating as a scholar. Just a framework in which you do research and the academic community is not the same.

ROB
Well I think it's one of the challenges of people who communicate and think just because you have great information that it will be related to the human brain.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Correct.

ROB
It's about converting hearts and minds, not minds and hearts.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Exactly.

ROB
So if you don't tell the story in a way that connects, your point never gets through. So that's a good point.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Right. So after that, I realized that I knew these men -- 10 of them. And they were all my friends. They were all people I knew. Some of them I had known for as long as 50 years.

I said, “Look, if I’m going to write this book, it needs to accomplish at least three things. One is it needs to celebrate our children. I don't want my daughter nor the children of the other men who contributed to the book to feel that this was just an exercise and talking about what happened. But it's really an exercise in celebrating our children, making sure that the footprint that they had left in this world was going to be here in perpetuity.
ROB
Is that why you talk about Kia in present tense? I know it’s something you do in the book. You mentioned her as present right now.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Yes.

ROB
The reason for that is to celebrate her life and make sure that folks know the impact she has continually?

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Yes. And Michael and I have a very similar view. People will ask us… They asked me how many children I have and I say I have five. Even though that Kia is not physically here, she's still my oldest and she's one of the five. And the point is, is that I want people to understand that she's present. So that's one.

Second reason was I wanted to talk about dispelling this myth about black fatherhood in real time -- this idea that black fathers are not present, that they're not attentive to their children. And of course, we even had some most recent research that Pew did that really talks about the fact that black fathers, even if they're not with the mothers, are more present than their white counterparts.

ROB
Yeah.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Then thirdly, I wanted to be able to speak to this idea that young men who were not fathers yet, that they could see in us themselves and they could see that, “Okay, if he's going through that and this is what he's been through, should I have to ever face a tragedy like that? How would I handle it? But more importantly, how do I need to think about myself” -- because since 1619, black fathers have been excluded from the family purposely and I want them to understand that fact.

So those three objectives really were the impetus and more importantly, the foundation for writing the book.

ROB
So Michael, how did you… Obviously, you know each other. But how did you get yourself to write this book given what you went through? I mean it's hard. I’m sure it's still hard to talk about.

MICHAEL
Yeah.

ROB
How did you get yourself there and why did you do it?

MICHAEL
Well I guess… and I want to comment on Larry’s point about our daughters being present. Kia transitioned about two months before Christa did. And I didn't know that Kia was transitioning then and I don’t think Larry knew where we were with regards to Christa.

And I am adamant about the fact that Christa is here. She simply transitioned. And it's not just because she's in my memory, she's actually with me and having an impact. Her legacy is here of which… I have a five-year-old granddaughter that is Christa's daughter.

ROB
And that's such an interesting story. You talked about this more. But I remember this point in the book where you knew it was coming towards the end and then your daughter popped the question and said, “Look, I’m going to give you joint custody with your ex-wife.”

MICHAEL
Yeah, exactly.

ROB
Of course, you have no choice. But you got to--

MICHAEL
Well, you know, I said, “That’s a really odd thing to do.” She said, “Well yeah.” I said, “We got divorced. My ex-wife and I are going to have joint custody of our granddaughter?” She said, “Dad, work it out.”

ROB
“You got nothing to say.”

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
It won’t work.

MICHAEL
But for me, it was the most profound conversation that Larry and I started out with on the book because I really was… And I always teased him about it. I was an afterthought. -- We're not going to get into that today, Larry.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
No, we’re not saying that.

ROB
Well you were the second one mentioned. You’re the first one after him.

MICHAEL
Christa is a singer and actor. Her profession was musical theater. Her very first professional play when she was in college was a play called, “Once on This Island.” It was on Broadway and it won a Tony for Best Musical Revival in 2018. So I said, “I’ve got to see this.”

Christa actually won -- I guess “won” is the right word -- the lead when she was 19 years old. She went to audition just for a bit part and she was so thrilled to be able to win the lead with all these professional actors there in Chicago.

But at any rate, I was in New York and waiting for my wife to finish getting dressed to walk across the street to go see “Once on This Island” and my cell phone rang. Larry and I don't talk a lot by cell phone. So I saw the number, it says from Atlanta. “Who is this?”

So anyway, I answered and it's Larry and he started telling me about the book project and if I would be interested/willing to participate. He said he had, I think, three conversations with other people who said, “You've got to get Michael Bennett in this book.”

And I’m waiting to go across the street to see my daughter's first professional production… And the answer was, “Of course.” I have to do that. I mean it was just profound.

And Christa attended the play with me. And I won’t do a spoiler with regard to her story in the book but it was--

And Larry had absolutely no idea where I was, no idea what was happening, and so that conversation, at that time, was really clear to me that this was something that I had to do and that Christa wanted me to do and so we did.

I have to say it was some of the toughest and best times that I had writing that chapter. I probably went through 15 drafts… versions. I started trying to do it during the day and I just couldn't. So I would do the drafts, the writing and the rewriting… I started about 10 o'clock at night and I would generally work on it most of the night because of the laughter and the tears and everything else. It was beyond therapeutic. It actually established just another level of relationship.

ROB
Yep. Something that kind of stuck out to me in the book… And you both had this whether it was intentional or not. I saw it in your stories. I saw it in all the stories was this fact of this struggle. I see it now, myself as a father, a balance between pushing your kids and then figuring out where they actually are and where they need to be based upon their unique personalities versus pushing them to where you want them to be for your own ego satisfaction. At least I can say that's what I drew out of this.

I thought about Kia, her making that winning shot when you talked about her in the book. She makes a winning shot and she said “I don’t want to do this anymore.” And I can think of myself as a coach. I was, “What do you mean?” [Laughter] I mean the first thing I’d say, “What do you mean?”

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Exactly.

ROB
I’m in basketball. I’m a basketball coach. I’m like, “No. You're going to go back and…” I’m just telling you what I was thinking. I’m being very honest.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
No, no, no. I had the exact same reaction to the point.

ROB
And I want you to talk about that. I can tell that Christa had challenges figuring out what she wanted to do. Sometimes, a motivation. You probably thought she was going to be XYZ. “Christa had the hold of the path. What was she going to do?” It is not what you had in mind.

And I’m asking this for the other parents, people listening and I’m asking for myself. How do you find that right balance because you want to make sure your kids are… Okay, they take care of themselves then they're going to have the right motivation, they have the right mindset, versus letting them be their own unique personality. I find that kind of hard. Looking back now that you've had this whole experience, what do you draw from that to give advice to folks -- both of you. I'd like to hear it for myself and for everyone else.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
I’ll let Michael go first then I’ll give you my two cents.

MICHAEL
I tell you, one of the things I learned in this process was that everybody's got their own path and we have to be really careful not to see someone else's life, even your child, through your filter. The reality is everything that you see and your whole perspective in life is driven by your own filter -- your experiences and how you see and what you think is good and not good. You know, everybody deserves the right to travel their path.

ROB
Yeah.

MICHAEL
One of the things that I end up doing with Christa at that time… Three children that I had to do. So by time I got to Christa, she was number three. I had a little experience with that wall in my head.

You really have to try and see their life as best you can through their filter and be there to support and to guide as best you can but not to try to create the path for them. So that's one of the things, that if you take a look, particularly at Kia’s story -- and I think Christa's story, too, and maybe some through at all -- is you've got to be careful to make sure that you acknowledge and support their path. And that's hard to do.

ROB
That's very hard to do. I’m asking, “How do you do that in…” I agree with what you're saying in theory--

MICHAEL
But in practice, for me, it was about biting my tongue a lot. I remember Christa's mom and I end up divorcing right at her senior year. I took all the kids to school and I continued to take her to school. I let her talk while we were in the car and I would not respond to anything. So she would tell me all kinds of stuff and I’d sometimes tell her mother if I thought she was getting a little too close to the edge. But at the end of the day, you really have to give them an opportunity to be themselves.

The other thing that I will add to that, and I’ll shut up, is that in order for you to do that and in order for them to feel comfortable traveling their path with you or traveling their path in front of you, you've got to give them a bird's-eye view into who you are. You've got to let them see the real person because your children are going to put you on a [indiscernible - 19:20] and what they see is the result of all of that garbage that you've been through -- or that we've been through, I’ll say. And they don't know that you went through the same kind of things that they did.

And it's important for them to get to know you. I spent a lot of time trying to make sure, even prior to the divorce. But when the relationship started to really deteriorate… so that they knew me and that they didn't have any misconceptions about who I was. At that point, they're able to tell you and show you who they are.

ROB
Oh wow.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
I think I would just add to that. In the book, I talk about this idea of rage and vulnerability. And this idea of rage is something that we don't allow the kids to see except when they're not doing what we tell them to do.

ROB
Yeah, exactly.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Right?

ROB
That's a good point.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
But then on the vulnerability’s side, we don't show them our foremost. We don't show them our mistakes.

ROB
No. It's something that we feel like that's not being a man especially a black man to be even stronger and we have to present this united front where a man never shows vulnerability; a man never cries.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
And that's a dangerous thing because I think that… The one thing that is clear to me more now than ever is this idea of how much courage it takes to be vulnerable for us; that we actually have to have more courage to be vulnerable. I think we have to teach our children this.

I think what happened towards the last leg of Kia's journey is that we have a lot of conversation about my vulnerabilities. “I know you think your dad can do anything but your dad is really…” She said, “Well I don't think you're perfect, dad.” And I said, “You know that.” I said, “But I really want you to understand how difficult it is for me.”

I talked about in the book this one moment just after she had the surgery. She was back in her room and she had these tubes coming out of her. I was standing there at her bedside holding her hand and she said, “Dad, can you believe? I’m alive. I made it. I made it through.” And I said, “Yeah, honey, of course.” I said, “You're going to conquer this thing.” But she saw something in my face that I had no idea was there. It was that I was scared. I was just terrified at all these tubes that were coming out of her body.

And she said to me, “Dad, why are you looking at me like that?” I mean because she picked it up. I had no clue that that's what I was giving off. And I said, “I guess I just hate to see all these tubes coming out of my little girl.” And when she raised up out of that bed, all of about 97 pounds, and pulled me close to her--

And I could feel her ribs. That's how skinny she had become at this point. She was hugging me as hard as her strength will allow. That was a teachable moment for me because that said that she was saying to me, “Dad, it's okay for you to be vulnerable with me in this moment. It's okay. And you don't need to feel bad that you feel bad. Know that I’m here for you, too.”

And Michael B. has had moments like that with Christa. All of the fathers throughout the book I’ve had those moments. They're remarkable moments. They're moments that you never forget. If you noticed, most of us can tell you the day and almost the time in which they left and transitioned to the other place… to the other side, physically, because those things are indelibly emblazoned in your mind as well as different things on that journey.

But I would say that, to answer your question, really, being able to have the courage to be vulnerable is the number one way in which the agency of our children gets released because they have to feel like they have agency, that they're in control of their own destiny. We're just guides. And the older that I get and the older my children get, the more I realize that. The more I realize that it's not my job to raise them.

I did some of that very early on and the older they get, they take more authority over and they want more agency so then you just become a guide. It's like taking a journey and you're the guide and not the person telling them what to study while they were on the journey. That's a very different way to parent but it is a way that I think we allow ourselves and our children to grow and become who they truly want to be.

ROB
This brings up a lot of great points about mental health when you think about like that. As you said, a lot of black men are in between that balance of rage and vulnerability, rarely going to the vulnerability, and that's creating more issues and more vulnerability, frankly.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Yeah.

ROB
How do we go about that that's a community, to think about how we tackle that really and how would you, knowing your experience now… because you've gone through an, obviously, life-changing, both of you, traumatic experience?

I would ask the question this way: If you can go back to your younger self -- this will help us, too -- knowing what you know now about vulnerability, what would you say to yourself then?

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Wow.

MICHAEL
Can I answer that first?

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Yeah. Go ahead, Michael.

MICHAEL
I’ll let you think.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Yeah.

MICHAEL
I would say to myself, “Give yourself a break. You don't have all the answers,” listening to Larry talk about Kia. And one of the things that Christa and I experienced particularly… Christa had osteosarcoma. It was about three and a half-year turning. Particularly in that second half of the journey, I had to be real clear. I didn't have all the answers about things. And it was enough to be there. It was enough to be present.

I did a recording that was played at Christa's service. I thanked God for allowing me to be her father and I also thanked God for allowing me to do or to think I was doing what I really loved. The thing that I loved more than anything -- and I mean more than anything -- in life is being a father. That is the single biggest joy in my life.

God allowed me to believe that I was Christa's protector and her teacher. The reality is God was her protector and God was her teacher and it was just an illusion for me that made me feel good. And it doesn't mean that you don't continue to try to do those things.

But if you recognize that you don't really have the power to do so much of that anyway and you're simply acting as a vessel for God and God is doing both those things in other ways other than just through you then you can relax and just simply do the best that you can because the reality is--

I tell my kids all the time, my job was like the guy who was trying to get this big pane of glass for one side of the room to the other. My hands are greasy and dirty and all that. My job is to get that glass from one side of the room to the other and don't drop the glass.

ROB
Right.

MICHAEL
But by the time you get to the other side of the room, it's going to be messy and nasty and dirty and all kinds of stuff. But don't drop the glass.
ROB
Right.

MICHAEL
And God is the one that cleans up the glass on the other side.

Christa said to me in the last week as she was in the hospital… And we never saw anything as the “last.” But last week she was in the hospital, on that Wednesday… She transitioned on Saturday. On that Wednesday, I came in and I said, “Baby, I want to do something but I don't know what to do. God said, “Just be there.”” She said, “Well, dad, if God told you just to stay, well then just stay. Just be here and that's enough.”

ROB
Right.

MICHAEL
Anyway, I talked more than I wanted to.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
No. Listen, I agree.

MICHAEL
It’s just about “Just be there.” Give yourself a break. You don't have to solve the problems. You don't have to be everything to everybody but you got to show up.

ROB
And it’s hard for men, and again, black men who have also been successful in some ways. You've overcome all of these barriers, all these constructs, and you feel like, “Okay, I have to do this. I have to do all this. This is what I’m supposed to do. I have to figure out a way to solve this.” And when you can't, you feel, I imagine -- I’m just telling about how I would feel -- extremely depressed and defeated.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Yeah.

MICHAEL
And a lot of black men who know they don't have so much capability and they believe that they're supposed to walk in with all the answers, they don't even bother walking in.

ROB
Yeah. That’s a problem, too.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
A lot of times, that sets a genesis of why people do give up because they recognize their frailties but they exaggerate them to such a degree. They miss what they can do because they think they can't do. That's a pressure that we put on ourselves as men and as black men, particularly.

ROB
Absolutely.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Going to the heart of your question... You know, I was homeless when I was 16. I think that if I had to sort of replay in my mind what I would do differently in this experience that I had is that I think I would have really appreciated--

Michael said, “Look, the greatest thing was being a dad.” I love being a dad but I really didn't recognize the amazing power of being a dad.

ROB
And it's kind of hard, too, right?

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Yeah.

ROB
A saying that said… I forgot who said it. But he said, “The days are long but the years are short.”

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
That’s right.

ROB
All of a sudden, you go through these days where you're grinding it out, grinding it out, trying to do what you can to provide to the family, to provide more income, whatever it is, so on and so forth, you go through the day stressful, you can come home, kids are yelling, whatever, wife gets in your nerve, so on and so forth, real-life issues, it felt like long days. And all of a sudden, you look up and you have a moment like you did…

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Right. It’s over.

ROB
…and you, more than others, time is up, right?

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Yeah. I think that I would have sooner… when I was climbing the corporate [gauntlet - 30:13] and trying to do all the things that I believed my family wanted to do -- provide a life for them and give them the kind of… If I knew then what I ended up knowing at the time in which Kia transitioned, I would have been even a better dad.
I mean my kids will tell you that I’m a great dad in their opinion but when I evaluate my own fatherhood, gosh, there were some things that I could have done definitely. Not that I live with regrets. It’s just that--

ROB
It’s about lessons -- lessons you can learn for yourself and lessons you can pass on others.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
That’s right.

ROB
That's what I took from this book. I was like, “I can improve as a father a lot” because we fall into these same traps day-to-day -- all of us do if we’re not careful.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
It is reflective. And by the way, know that all of the fathers including Michael would say this but we don't want anybody, any other man, to be part of this club. We don't want to welcome any new members.

ROB
I hear you.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
If it was only us 10, we would be fine. And only seven could participate in the book. I don't know--

ROB
But inevitably there will be.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Yes, there will be. And here's the point -- the three men that didn't participate in the book, two of them, we got to the point of actually being able to interview them and they said, “I cannot do this. I cannot talk about this. I have not been able to talk about it since they died and I can't talk about it now. I want to but I can't.”

And the other father, the third person in that triad, he was ready to talk about it. He had lost his daughter in October. So right after Christa, he lost Danielle. He was ready to talk about it and then in January, when we had our pre-meeting, his wife died.

ROB
Wow, that’s a lot.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
So I said to him, “Listen, I can't even allow you to participate in this book because guess what, you are not in the frame of mind where you're going to be able to get through this because this is hard work.”

Michael and I, we had a conversation when we were on the early part of the book tour in LA. We both came to that particular evening saying, “I don't know if I can get through this evening because every time we do it, it’s hard.”

ROB
I’m sure.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
But the only reason that we do it and the reason that we want to do things like your podcast -- and we're so grateful that you've given us a platform to do this -- is because we believe that there are people out there that need to understand how to navigate, not only the journey loss but the loss that black men feel every day -- loss of job, loss of dignity, loss of respect, loss of feeling out of control -- not out of control emotionally but not having control over their destiny.

ROB
Yeah, absolutely.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
So we talk about “loss” in a broader sense and we take that message of loss of our children to the fact that, yes, you can celebrate a child if you've lost them--

ROB
And I certainly want to get to David Nokes’ story because I think that goes to a lot of it.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Yes.

ROB
Finish your point because I’m… And we'll get there later but I have a couple follow-ups. Go ahead.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
David’s story is a compelling one for all of us, and I know David 55 years. But the reality is, is that we believe, all of us… And there are some of us in the “Collective,” which is what we call ourselves, that have never been able to participate in any of the parts of the book tour because we've gotten all from them that they have to give.

ROB
Yeah, it makes sense.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
They have nothing left.

ROB
As you said, “The path is the path. The process is the process.” People have a different path or different process for how they go through grieving. The important thing is to acknowledge that you need to grieve though and be vulnerable.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Right.

ROB
And the fact that some of your participants even went through this is amazing because a lot of people can’t do it. I’m not sure if I could, too, and I consider myself a pretty strong person.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Right.

ROB
A couple of follow-up questions to what you guys said. How do you advise someone who is dealing with this issue? You've talked about folks that are even in your circle that have even done this that are still struggling. There are people that are on a different part of that spectrum who might be in deep depression. I’m sure you both know or have some feeling of where they're at because you, I imagine, had been there. And from what I read, you had to move past there and take yourself past there when you have days that are challenging when a memory comes up or something sparks, I’m sure.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
I still cry every day.

ROB
That’s the first question -- “How do you deal with that and what is your advice to others who are dealing with a similar issue?”

Second question, kind of related, particularly for Michael. Both of you are men of faith as I am. I think both of you have said this has strengthened your relationship with God, strengthened your relationship with Jesus.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Yeah.

ROB
My question is, “How, given the result…” Be really honest. How, given the result that… You know, you prayed and prayed and you were faithful, you followed the path, and things didn't turn out how you would have given everything to make sure that they did? Those two questions. Take either, whatever you like. I think those are two questions I have.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
I’ll take the second one -- and Michael, you take the first one. So given the result--

ROB
I want you to answer both. Don't worry. We got time. Answer both. We got enough -- 30 minutes.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
We got one person in our collective who lost both his children -- Lovell Thornton. Lovell is a strong man of faith. Initially, he was mad at God. He said so.

ROB
Yeah, that’s understandable.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Right? But I think for him, just like us… I was never mad at God about Kia because what I realized is the journey of a person of faith is one of rocky roads. It is fraught with disappointment. And even though you may pray for something, that doesn't mean it's going to happen. It only means that you are demonstrating that you believe enough in your faith and the foundation of your faith that if anybody can handle it, God can.

ROB
Right.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
But it may not be in his purview. And by the way because He is God and you're not then therefore you don't know the outcome. So the only thing you can do is--

ROB
And you can't see the whole picture.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
You cannot.

ROB
You only have a partial view.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
A snippet.

ROB
A really small one.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Yeah, a very, very small one. And it's selfish because… By the way because He can see everything, if you believe that, then you believe that He sees the entire puzzle of how this piece called “Kia” fits into that puzzle.

ROB
Right.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
So you don't have the luxury of that. The second part of that was--

ROB
And I’ll also say, just looking that, often, I think the way we can see it as people is that sometimes life only makes sense looking back.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Right.

ROB
And you can see it. Sometimes, you're like, “Why in the world didn't I get that job?” And then you're like, “Oh my god. Thank God, I didn’t get that job.” But you can't tell until sometimes 20 years later. Then of course, God is returning--

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
It was real time for me. I was a candidate to be the president of the university the year that Kia was diagnosed. We were going through the process. The final decision came down in April. Kia was diagnosed in February.

In April, I was one of two men left standing for the job. Everything pointed to the fact I was going to get the job -- everything -- and then I didn't get the job. You know, I called them all kinds of names under my breath because I was like, “How could you do that? How could that happen?” Even though Kia had been diagnosed, I had no concept that she would not make it through. My brain would not accept the fact that she wasn’t going to be here.

ROB
Absolutely. A lot makes sense.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
That would have just been I was going to get the job and I was going to move her to wherever I was going and she was going to be with me and her son and we were going to make it happen.
But then realizing that when she passed away in July, it made a lot of sense to me why I didn't get the job in April because I was in no condition in July and forward to run a university or run anything for that matter. I had to piece myself back together. There was a time I just shut myself off from everything because I just could not accept that I was not going to talk to my daughter again on this side.

So what I would say is, is that I think coming to the realization the role of who God really is, is despite the outcome, it's your realization that you live in the spirit realm. You're here, physically. But God is a spirit and therefore, you can't see that. You can't control that. You can't do anything about that because the kinds of things that affect the spirit world are not visible to our eyes.

ROB
Is that also how you coped with your faith and your spirituality? It’s how you went through coming out of depression?

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
It is. It is. It's how I said to myself. “Okay, God, you're going to have to help me understand this.” Now mind you, it took a toll on my body. I got shingles.

ROB
Oh wow.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
I had a heart attack. There were a number of physical things that happened to me after she passed away.

ROB
Sure. It makes sense.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Some of it while I was writing the book. And the point is, is that I learned a great deal about myself. So as a man, when I think about what advice I’d give to people, I would say you must find a foundation, a place where you can find strength.

I use a metaphor often about having a cup like we have here. Oftentimes, you give so much that the cup is empty. And if you don't have things that refill that cup, it will continue to be dry.

My faith… and I know this about Michael B. and most of the men in the collective, is that they have found their faith to be a reservoir replenishment, a way in which to refill that cup. So you have to find something. If it's not God, you need to find something.

ROB
You need to find a community. You need to find something that gives you an anchor of strength that you can lean on.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
That’s right. The second thing you must do is recognize that celebrating your children is a good antidote for focusing on and being connected to them forever -- celebrating them as opposed to mourning them.

ROB
Mm, “Celebrating as opposed to mourning.”

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Right. What I said in the beginning of the book -- and we actually do a promo that we did for the website -- is we said, “This book is not about mourning.” And you said earlier on it's hard to get through. It's only hard to get through for many people because they approach it from a place of sadness.

ROB
Sure.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
We didn't approach it from a place of sadness. That didn't mean that we weren't sad along the way.

ROB
That makes sense.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
But we approached it from--

ROB
There’s certainly hope in the book, too. Once you get past the… and you can get past [inaudible - 41:41].

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
The gravity of what happened…

ROB
It’s gravity, yeah.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
…is what sort of shakes you, right?

ROB
Yeah. Some of the stories I’m reading, it just… I can't remember which father it was but somebody died earlier. I said, “Wait. Somebody else is about to die?” That's what I was looking at. You feel that. You feel it coming.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Ralph’s daughter, Marla… Marla used to babysit Kia. And Marla has been gone 25 years. She died in a plane crash. But what happened was, is that Marla's fiancé…

ROB
Yeah, I heard this -- about Rufus.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
…Rufus... And Rufus was about to be ordained. She was going to his ordination in Pittsburgh from Chicago when she was in law school. And then a year and a half later, he dies. And the point is you go, “Wow…” And he told Ralph, he said, “Man, I just don't know if I could live without Marla” and sure enough, he didn't.

ROB
Wow. Michael, we've had conversations offline, talking about faith and faith not being tied to the outcome.

MICHAEL
Yeah.

ROB
Talk about that.

MICHAEL
I was going to comment on that. One of the things that I learned from Christa in the process is she's the one that was… She had really telling conversations like with her doctor one time. They were giving her all kinds of information about why they did or didn't want to do additional treatments, and she was on a breathing mask at this time. One doctor said to her, “Well I understand.” She said, “No, you don't. I’m on this side of the mask. You're on the other side of the mask. I understand.”

So Christa, being on that side of the mask, when she continued to have hope and to have faith, to her last breath, which I was holding her when she took her last breath, that taught me something.

And what it taught me was you can't get too caught up or tied to the outcome of your prayer. Your job is just to pray and then be faithful and God will always be faithful. So whatever the outcome of your prayer is, is what you have to accept. And it doesn't mean that you don't--

I prayed until my daughter took her last breath that she would live. She hoped until she took her last breath that she would live -- but she didn't. And my faith grew because I started to understand that faithfulness is not about the outcome of your prayer. God is not a God that you just simply give your wish list to and He brings you gifts.

ROB
He’s not Santa Claus.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
He’s not Santa Claus.

ROB
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

MICHAEL
I didn’t want to go there.

ROB
Santa Claus that we made up to make ourselves feel better. -- Yeah, go ahead.

MICHAEL
So you got to be careful--

ROB
Sorry kids if you’re listening. -- Go ahead.

MICHAEL
So you got to be careful not to get too tied to the outcome of your prayer. And if you don't and you recognize that… And just to use the book in context, everybody in the book love their children. “I would take a bunch of bullets for any of my children.”

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Absolutely.

ROB
Right.

MICHAEL
If I had the capability to feel that kind of love and willingness to sacrifice for my child, I cannot even imagine how much God loves me.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Exactly.

MICHAEL
The faithfulness of God is perfect. So I have to be careful even when sometimes God can't get me what I prayed for because it is not in my best interest.

ROB
Right.

MICHAEL
And while it is hard to accept the fact that Christa's moving through this life over a 28-year period -- it was not what I wanted but it falls in God's plan for the benefit of everybody including her -- then I’m okay because it allows you to be faithful and it allows you to pray.

ROB
And we talked about this, too, Michael. The fact is if your relationship with God or if anyone for that matter… because if your relationship is just about an outcome, it's not even a real relationship. It's a transaction.

MICHAEL
Absolutely.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Right.

ROB
It’s like, “I give you the prayers to get the outcomes.”

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
It’s quid pro quo.

ROB
Quid pro quo, right?

MICHAEL
“Quid pro quo” -- there you go.

ROB
It’s not a relationship, right?

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
That’s what it is. That’s not a relationship. Relationships are binary.

MICHAEL
Well the relationships are covenants. We live in a culture that is very contractual. “You do this and I do that. And if you don't do, contractually, commit yourself to do it then there's a penalty.” Well there is no penalty in a covenant. Relationships work that are covenants. They don't work when they’re contractual. So that's the thing that I think that I’m doing--

ROB
And that goes to our kids, too. -- I just came up with this. -- “If I give you this, I provide for you, then you should do what I want you to do in your career, in your pursuits--“

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Which is really problematic.

MICHAEL
Really problematic. I want to tell this one story [indiscernible - 07:19] and Maria, and my son, Michael, will probably be mad at this. I told Maria, “You get a car based on the scholarships you get in college.” She got some scholarships. She multiplied those scholarships [indiscernible] said, “Dad, I want to be in [indiscernible].” “No, no, no, baby.” [Laughter] That scholarship--

ROB
Hey, she played--

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
She is her father’s child.

ROB
Yeah, she is. She got it.

MICHAEL
I said, “I’m buying a car that is the equivalent of one year scholarship.” So we had all that. My son on the other hand struggled through college a little bit. And I had to give him some stories and let him know that, “Hey, dad struggled, too.”

When I bought him a car, I said, “You didn't have to do anything to get this car. You're getting this car because I love you, period. End of story. There is nothing that I’d do for you that you have to earn. My love is free. I’m going to do what I do because I love you, period. End of story.” And that doesn't mean that you don't create relationships where your children earn things.

ROB
Right, because you got to teach them incentives and things like that.

MICHAEL
All that. All that's good. But at the end of the day, your relationship with your child or any relationship, that covenant, the foundation is love. And you do what you do because you love them. Even when you earn things and you end up giving them something based on what they do to earn it, it's still given because of love.

ROB
Yeah.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Well that's an important point. You didn't mention this yet, Rob, but I think it's a nice opportunity to mention. One of the chapters in the book is called, “Not One Without the Other.” And the reason that that particular chapter came to me was that I really wanted to emphasize the fact that the most important thing we can do for a child -- both mother and father, even if you're not together -- is the nurturing of that child, that once you have a child--

I don't care how you feel about each other. You need to make sure that your practices and the way in which you approach parenting is predicated on the love that you both have for the child. It doesn't mean that one gets to punish the other. It doesn't mean that you get to withhold the time if you happen to be the parent who is with the child.

We have a lot of conflicts in the black community about children. Children get put in the middle of these situations. The mother says, “I want to take my child and you're not going to see him or her until I say so, until you pay more child support.” That is dangerous.

ROB
That is dangerous. And I want to get to that point a little more. My mother has said this to me all the time, and being divorced and now being in a good relationship, I can definitely say it's a true statement. She said, “Who you choose as a partner or a spouse will be 90% of your pleasure or your pain. Choose wisely, son.”

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
That’s right.

MICHAEL
Wow, that’s profound.

ROB
Yeah.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
That is. That is.

MICHAEL
That’s profound, in truth.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
That is very true. Very true.

MICHAEL
That’s very profound though.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Very true. I was talking about this idea of “Not one without the other.” We hear a lot other myths that circulates in the black community that's used actually in all kinds of diagnostic and empirical data analysis is that there are so many single moms, there's no father in the house, and the reason that the children are dysfunctional is because there's no dad in the house.

ROB
That’s what we hear all the time.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Yeah. The reality of it is a lot of women choose to be single and it's not because a man left them. Many times, they often opt out from the father of their children. It's their choice. Now if they haven't found someone else that they'd like to share their lives with, that's certainly understandable but it doesn't suggest that the man always walked away from the children which is the primary thesis that we use.

ROB
And it’s, first of all, an important lesson in multiple points. One, it's the negative image and narrative that's put out, that the reason why the black community are suffering is because there's not enough black male fathers -- untrue.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
That’s correct.

ROB
Second part that I think is really important is the pressures, the constructs that are put upon black men. I think David Nokes’ story… Am I saying his name right?

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Yes.

ROB
…says it well when you… And we're not going to get into all of his story because I want people to read the book. But essentially, there are multiple layers. He had challenges with his ex-wife who put out a false narrative about him that the courts accepted as true without any evidence...

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
That's correct. That’s correct.

ROB
…and with clear evidence showing otherwise because it's so hard for people to reject a reality that's been implanted. It's hard for Americans. It's hard for white Americans. But here's the key point for us -- “It's hard for black Americans.”

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Absolutely.

ROB
It's hard for black women and black men to not buy into this negative stereotype.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
That’s right.

ROB
And I think one of the lessons that I’ve drawn from this book is that we have to make sure that we don't buy into this…

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Absolutely.

ROB
…that we begin to disrupt this because it's really hurting our communities and we already have enough to deal with.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
That's right.

ROB
We have to figure out how we change internally. We can't change anything externally before we even change anything internally.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
That's right.

ROB
That's one of the things I gathered from the book. You can tell me if I’m off on that.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
No, no, no. I think you’re right.

MICHAEL
No. I think you’re absolutely right.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
I think if you think about one of the other objectives that I tried to be foundational to our writing was the idea that young black men who are not yet fathers, what can they take away from the book, because one of the things that people often ask you is that you… You read the book and you say, “Okay. So what? You wrote the book, okay.” So a very, very sort of direct view is that, “So what's the importance of the book?”

One of the importance of the book is to say to young men, black men particularly who are not yet fathers, is that here are fathers that you can look at and look at their lives and they look like you. They don't have to look like you physically but many of them have had the same and have experienced some of the same things that you're experiencing. They’ve been poor. They’re black. They’ve been without.

ROB
They’ve been discriminated against.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
They’ve been discriminated against. They've been divorced. They've been without love.

MICHAEL
They didn’t have a father in their lives.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
They didn’t have a father in their lives. All these characteristics exists. So I don't want you to think that this book doesn't apply to you because this is you.

ROB
Yeah.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Now if you've had an experience that was different, that's great. But the reality of it is most of us, much to our chagrin, have experienced many of the characteristics that make up this collective of men.

ROB
Oh if we don't know it directly, we know someone.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
We know somebody, yes.

ROB
We know somebody. I think everybody here can attest to that. Particularly, I want to think about David Nokes’ story. One point I want to get on is the fact of what his son went through for several reasons. One, the complications with the mother in what she put on those boys because of her negative experiences -- my guess is with her father or the others or her view of black men. She put that on her children.

It sounded like she might have had her own mental challenges and issues and those were passed to her children. But society believed them and that ended up affecting his son who went to jail for... I don't think something he should have gone to jail for.

But here's the key point in that. I think the hope in that is that his son still wanted to be a father. Despite all those things happening to him, he still wanted to be a father. If he could find a way to want to be a father, more of us can also do that, too.

I say every black man’s story is in here, one way or another. Someone who's going through a time where they're literally up against the things like David’s son was, what advice and guidance would you give them at that point knowing that things have been unfair to you? How do you go forward and still have a productive view as a society and as a father?

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
So the questions--

ROB
My questions make sense?

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Yeah, it does. But it suggests also that there is one way to do it, potentially.

ROB
True.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
And what I would say is that I could give you no answer that would satisfy the various complexities that would make up the story of all of us. What I would say though, in terms of giving us at least hope toward the future, is--

I always say that we should treat every conversation as a classroom. Every conversation we have with somebody, every book we read, every time we engage, every time we hear a story, how can we actually learn and get insight from that that helps us on our journey?

And I think that the biggest Achilles’ heel sometimes for us as black men, and even us as people particularly in America where only 26% of all Americans read a couple of books a year--

ROB
Yeah. Most get it from Facebook and Instagram and they think they’re informed. We got more information but we’re less informed as a culture in my opinion. That's across the board. -- Go ahead. I had to just that nugget there.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
You’re right. It’s really to listen. It's to be a great listener and to continue to build on the knowledge that helps you navigate the world. We live in a knowledge economy now. We don't live in a tech economy or a capitalistic economy. We live in a knowledge economy.

And what that simply means is that we're not taught really how to compound learning -- not information because information is noise. We get a lot of information. But knowledge is actually something to be applied, something to be taken for and put in our daily bucket and actually work it through, see how it works out.

ROB
Right.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Well if you took the book and you said, “I got seven men who have given me some insight into what black fatherhood is from their perspective in their journey,” that's knowledge. “Now how can I apply that to my own life? What are the lessons?” You mentioned some of them at the outset of our conversation together here about what you've taken away from the book.

ROB
Yeah.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
The question is, “Can we encourage each other to look for resources?” Mental health counseling is another opportunity.

ROB
Yeah. If someone was just… Very brief because this is what you do as line of profession. They're looking for help. They're looking for guidance. Is there anywhere they can go online? Any suggestions or resources they can use? I think it's important that we give them that. Where should they go?

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Yes. In--

ROB
Beyond reading the book.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Right. If you’ve never read the book but you came… By March of this year, we're going to be launching a private portal where you can actually go in and request a consultation for free…
ROB
Okay. When that's ready, let me know. I’ll post it on.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
…from a mental health counselor because what we know is that the myth is, and actually the factual basis, many of us do not seek out mental health counseling.

ROB
No. We’re told lots that we got to be tough. We all talked about our faith. I think we--

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
“God will work it out.”

ROB
Yeah, that’s right. Just pray away.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Yeah. “God will work it out.” No, God is not going to work it out. I just want you to know, it’s not that He won’t be available to you but He's not going to work out the mental gymnastics that you're playing in your head about why this is happening to you.

ROB
Well the story that my mother… I’ll go back to what mom always said and I’ll get to the brief part of it. There's that story when someone said there was a flood coming. He said, “Well what am I supposed to do” and a car came, “Do you need a ride?” And somebody else called and said, “Do you need something else?” He went to the roof. The flood went to the roof and a helicopter came and said, “Do you need some help?” He said, “I’m waiting on God.” The person had died and said, “Well what happened?” “Fool! Did you see what I sent?”

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
“I sent you a car, I sent you a boat, I sent you a helicopter, and you still didn't know it.”

ROB
Right.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
So oftentimes, we're blinded by even the resources that are available to us. David would tell you that this was one of the most challenging but yet one of the most helpful processes that he has gone through since David Jr. passed away. But what he'd also tell you is that… I asked him one day. I said, “How do you feel about God?” He said, “I don't hate God. I’m just confused.”

ROB
All of us, honestly, have hopes of [indiscernible - 01:00:19] speaking honestly, if they haven't been there before.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Exactly.

ROB
I haven't been through your level of tragedy but I’ve been there before, too.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Yeah. What I loved about him in that regard is that he is about as authentic as you can get. I mean David is raw. He is always going to be real with you. He’s not going to sugarcoat it.

ROB
I got that from the book, too.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
He’s just not going to do that. And when I was doing the editing… because I edited all the stories. When I was doing the editing, there were things that David had in his chapter. I said…

ROB
“You got to take that out.”

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
…“We got to take that out.”

ROB
“Hey bro, we can’t say that. There are some limits. I’m glad you’re honest but we’ll edit this out.”

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
“He said it, David, because they’re not going to understand what they’re trying to say. I get it because you’re my boy...

ROB
Some people might.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
…but I want to make sure that you don’t get somebody moving too far to the other side about what you're saying.”

But the point is, is that I think having a conversation like the one we're having today is another opportunity, is how do we bring men together to have open and honest conversation because we don't trust that people won't use what we feel against us…
ROB
“Against us” -- exactly.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
…and therefore, finding a safe space in which to have this conversation. We have this collective of men. We have all laid it bare. I mean one of the most wonderful things--

ROB
Hey, can I say a point on that…

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Yeah.

ROB
…because I think, and I want you to get back to that, as we develop… One of the things I had to learn is that when you have relationships, if you're open -- first, I’m just talking about any type of relationship -- know that there's going to be people that are going to take advantage of that.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
So true.

ROB
But if your view of the world is that, “I can't do this because I will get taken advantage of” then you will miss a lot of great opportunities to develop great relationships, great knowledge, great advice because you've allowed yourself to be jaded by one, two, three, four… whatever how many experiences. That's not representative of the sample of the world.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
You're absolutely right. As a matter of fact, I’d take it even to the next level to say that you should be fearless about being able to--

MALE:
Just take real quick. Sorry. Just follow that last statement. [You’re moving fast - 01:02:36].

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Okay. Yep.

ROB
“You should be fearless” -- that's what you started off. And then we'll get ready to wrap up. But I have one final question, essentially, then we’ll wrap up -- for both of you guys.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
You should be fearless about the level of confidence you have about being authentically real -- who you are. You should always strive to get people to see who you really are because then you don't have to fake it; then you don't have to put on any airs.

ROB
We’re not going to go down this path because it would take too long. But it also requires you to know and be somewhere who you are to be there and that's the whole struggle and journey and continual challenge that I promise we need to have another podcast on. Okay.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Right. I got it. I got it. I got it. But anyway, I would say that the book really also speaks to women. It doesn't just speak to black men.

ROB
Tell me what you mean by that.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
It speaks to black women about giving them some insight into who we are because many women look at men from their lens.

ROB
Yeah, as we tend to look at women from our lens. Makes sense.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
That’s right. But the real opportunity for growth is when you can suspend your lens and actually take in new information that reshapes it. And that is the journey of learning. That is the opportunity to engage and really take into consideration there are other variables that you hadn't considered. We hope that the book--

I mean frankly, we've gotten a lot of women… even here in DC when we had the book event here in DC. One of the women stood up and she said, “So how can I help my man? We haven’t lost a child but just… How do I communicate with him?” And my answer to her was, “I want you to think about how good a listener you are because one of the most interesting things about us as black men is that we don't feel heard. We often feel like nobody's going to listen so what's the point?”

But the point is, is that when you have someone in your life who is committed to you, you’re committed to them, that actually being a great listener, being willing to hear them, hear that voice, hear that pain, those are the things that make a difference in relationships. When a man feels heard, he can actually navigate the world just a little bit easier after you've listened to him.

ROB
That's so true. I see that now which I didn't realize in a relationship, having someone who is a really great listener. That's a very profound and a very true statement.

Final question for both of you. As you look at this book, you're… You created the book and your contribution to it. I want to ask both of you, if you had a billboard or Google ad, to be more current to the times, that symbolized a statement, your belief system, whatever, based upon this book or based on your personal philosophy, what would that say and why?

MICHAEL
Let me start?

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Mm, okay.

MICHAEL
Okay. Well I think there are two things and this kind of relates to some of the other things that we talked about early. One is “Perspective.” One of the things that I think is hard to do is to get perspective.

I heard something the other day… Sterling K. Brown, I believe, his name is. The gentleman that is on…

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
“This is Us.”

MICHAEL
…”This is Us.” He commented about his father. He lost his father when he was 10 years old. He had a smile on his face and he says the last interaction before he lost his father… His father had a massive heart attack. They were taking his father out and his father winked at him and that was the last thing.

He’s raising his children. He has a son now who's 10 years old. He said, “I know exactly what I need to do up until my kids are 10 years old.” He said, “After that, I’m [indiscernible - 01:06:44].” He said, “But I had an incredible opportunity to learn from a man for 10 years.”

And I thought this guy was just happy that he had his father for 10 years. I had Christa for almost three times that long. Wow, you know. I had an incredible relationship with this wonderful young lady who happened to be a product of me for almost 30 years. Wow. How wonderful is that? And that's perspective, you know. -- That's perspective.
And now, since I heard Sterling K. Brown’s point about his 10-year relationship with his father, I feel really good about those 28 and a half years.

The other thing is that one of the things that Christa taught me during this time period -- not just while she was sick but particularly during this time period. I go back and read some of her Facebook posts or texts she sent me particularly during college -- is forgiveness; is being able to just forgive because… period.

ROB
“Just forgive because… period.”

MICHAEL
“Just forgive because.” One of the things that forgiveness does is that it forces/allows you to see pieces of people that are the good parts of those persons. One of the things that she put in a Facebook post about me when she was in college, she said, “I thank God for my daddy.” -- She always called me “Daddy” and [the two - 01:08:23] call me “Dad.” “I thank God for my daddy for teaching me to see the good in people even when it doesn't show all the time.” But most of that is really all about forgiveness.

I mentioned to Rob a little earlier early, and I think I’ve said this to you before, Larry, is I did this study on forgiveness during a really difficult time in my life. And what part of that I found was that the Lord's Prayer, very centerpiece of that, is about forgiveness. The first part of that is, “Lord, forgive me for the things I’ve done.”

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Right.

ROB
Start with self-awareness. I didn’t see that.

MICHAEL
Yeah, it’s all about self-aware. If you recognize that you're a pain in the behind, no matter how good you are, at least one person…

ROB
Probably more than one. -- Go ahead.

MICHAEL
Probably more than one. But at least one--

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
There’s actually more than one.

ROB
Yeah.

MICHAEL
…at least one, it allows you to give forgiveness to others so much easier. So living a life of forgiveness and constantly asking for forgiveness and constantly giving forgiveness, those are the things I think that this whole notion of perspective, if you're a black man and that's… And then this other notion of forgiveness including yourself.

ROB
Yeah.

MICHAEL
Including yourself. My dad was a wonderful person. I didn't know who my dad was till I was 13 years old. And my dad spent a lot of time in the latter part of his life saying to me, “I’m sorry that I wasn't there for you.” In the last week of his life, I said, “Dad, you got to forgive yourself, man. I forgive you. I’m fine. I love you. You’re a wonderful person. Nobody wakes up and says, “Let me see if I can screw up somebody's life today.” Nobody does that -- like who’s saying?

ROB
Right.

MICHAEL
So we have to be careful. We have to be careful to make sure that we practice forgiveness on a regular basis.

ROB
Yeah.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
My billboard would just say simply, “Celebrate every day.” What I really want in that context, particularly as it relates to black fathers… And I say this in a number of different ways. After reading the book, hearing about the book or being exposed to this podcast, I want you to go home and hug your kids a little bit more. I want you to celebrate them. Don't talk about what their grades were or they were not… or what they did wrong or that they didn't clean up their room properly.

One of the other most important things about black men to the woman who asked the question, I said, “Not only be a good listener but when was the last time you hugged him -- you just hugged him? You just went to him and hugged him?” There was not a whole lot of conversation. There was not a whole lot of anticipation. It wasn't sexual. It was a hug of comfort. It was a hug of safe space. Men need to feel safe no different than women need to feel safe.

ROB
Wow. That’s true.

DR. LAWRENCE DRAKE
Sometimes, we just need a hug. And by the way, we find in life very few hugs come our way. And the older we get, the fewer hugs we get. And sometimes, it happens when we're kids. I certainly know that was the case for me.

So if you don't have that, it's very difficult for you to give them. But when you become a father, you have to realize the importance of giving those hugs. But what women can do in our lives, those who love us and those who we love, they need to learn how to hug us, too.

So being a great listener is important but being able to exchange that hug, and therefore that means not hugging just your man but also hugging your children and every father.

One father told me, he said, “I read the book. I finished the book when I was at work. And I left my job and went to my kids’ school and the first thing I did was called them towards me and I just hugged them for a minute. I didn't say anything. I just hugged them because it was such a revelation to me to understand the importance of hugging my children.”

So when we see them, hug them. That's a level of vulnerability. It's important as well. So that's what my billboards would say.

ROB
Well that's great. -- Dr. Lawrence Drake, Michael Bennett. -- The book is “Color Him Father.” I recommend it for anyone. I hope you read it. Thank you so much for listening.

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