Dealing With Double Layers of Grief and Joy on Father's Day

I thought I would reflect on Father’s Day, not with my standard fare of global social and political analysis, but on a personal note for a change.

Father’s Day has a special significance to me, in a month filled with life’s milestones. After all, my birthday is in June, as is my father’s birthday, my parents’ anniversary, and the anniversary of my father’s death. My father, Al, died two years ago this month. And my older son, Ezra Malik, died nine months before my father, born sleeping after 34 weeks in his mother’s belly, taken away from us by a placental abruption. The placenta tore from the uterus, cutting off Ezra’s oxygen supply in utero. Never in my most hopeless and helpless state did I ever envision mourning the death of my father and my son - much less months apart from each other.

As for my father, he lived a long life of 82 years. In many ways we were different. I was born and raised in New York, and lived around the country and the world before settling in Philadelphia. Albert Love was born and raised in Augusta, Georgia, in a segregated South. His mother was black and his father was Irish, as he reminded us. He fought in the Korean War and came back with medals. He was a union man who worked a printing press in Manhattan so that I could attend Harvard. And he was active in his church and with the local VFW post. He didn’t fully understand my world and the opportunities available to me - and I can only imagine the difficulties he must have faced in his life - but I came to appreciate him. And I regret that he spent his final days in a nearby veteran’s nursing home, dying suddenly a few weeks after complications from surgery, and away from home, rather than with his family beside him.

While my father lived a full life, my son Ezra never had a chance to live life. I met Ezra in the hospital, where fathers typically meet their newborns. The big difference was that my son was born the day after he died, and only a few weeks short of his due date. I helped my wife as she went into induced labor at the hospital, knowing our son was already lifeless, no heartbeat, as that final ultrasound ultimately had told us. To make matters worse, during our living nightmare spent in the maternity ward, a new father in the elevator asked me if I was a new father as well.

Meeting my son for the first time, holding him and kissing him, with his full head of hair and flat feet, was unlike any experience before or since. I was overjoyed to see Ezra, but overcome with a debilitating and painful grief, the kind of pain you can feel in your bones, in your soul. Reality is suspended, yet you are compelled to experience a reality like no other, the loss of a child.

His mother and I read him a bedtime story before we buried him. Ezra Malik was wrapped in shrouds over his alligator pajamas, covered in his blanket to keep him warm, and buried in a Jewish cemetery in the ways of his mother’s people. Ezra is Hebrew for helper. Malik means King in Arabic (Melech in the Hebrew). His name reflected his parents’ commitment to social justice. To think of all of the hopes and dreams that would never be. I can’t help but believe that somewhere in that spirit world, Ezra’s grandfather, Al, is taking care of the boy, in between all those extended trash-talking sessions, and even an occasional moment of wisdom, from the old black folks from down South and the old Jewish folks from the old country.

Late the following year, just a day before New Year’s Eve, Ezra’s younger brother, Micah Amir, was born. Micah was named in remembrance of his brother (M for Malik) and his grandfather (A for Albert). Micah means “resembling God” in Hebrew, and Amir means “prince” in Arabic and Hebrew. This prince has given me nothing but unspeakable joy from the moment I first met him, and I am proud to be his father. But sometimes, I dream of having both of my sons with me, playing with them at the same time. Other times, I imagine Micah sitting on my father’s lap, the two of them belly laughing as only they can. The boy reminds me so much of the grandfather he never got a chance to meet, with his sense of humor and warmth towards others, and the obvious physical resemblances.

My sense of grief two years ago was quite different from now. At that time, the pain was overwhelming much of the time, as if I had been hit by a train, or had run into a brick wall. Tears and crying came without notice, or triggered by a song on the radio. And I dreaded Father’s Day like the plague. These days, grief tends to hide in the background, from a distance, and visits on occasion. And when grief returns, it reminds me of my humanity, of the things and people in my life that are important to me.

Father’s Day will always be a bittersweet day of reflection for me. And every June, I imagine I will find myself engaged in this delicate balancing act, this cruel negotiation between the joy of being a father today, and the sense of loss over what used to be and what could have been.

This Jobs Crisis Is Obama's Kryptonite

Many commentators and observers, including this writer, argued for a far more aggressive and comprehensive strategy from the White House for getting America out of its economic morass. Obama's team chose a half-hearted, half-assed stimulus package, and the result is what we see today. Don't get me wrong, the stimulus helped. But it is running out, and you can see the effects that the empty well is having on state and local governments as they proceed to cut education and essential social services and programs.

Unemployment is high, twice as high for blacks, and the jobs aren't coming. 80 percent of recent college graduates are moving back home. And there is talk of a double-dip recession on the way, as housing prices are falling, with a faltering real estate market threatening to pull us back down in the hole. The President's abysmal failure of a foreclosure relief plan is blamed, in part, for the economic woes.

A new Washington Post-ABC poll reveals that President Obama has lost his post-Bin Laden bump in popularity. And more importantly, by a 2-to-1 margin, Americans believe the country is seriously on the wrong track. Nine in 10 rate the economy negatively, and six in 10 say the economy is not on the road to recovery. About six in 10 give Obama negative marks on the economy and the deficit. This comes on the heels of the departure of Austan Goolsbee -- one of Obama's progressive-leaning economic advisors -- who was frustrated that the President abandoned more stimulus investment to spur the economy, opting instead to pursue the folly of attacking deficits.

Polls at this early stage in the game don't mean a whole lot, but it is worth noting that Obama leads 5 of 6 Republican contenders, and is in a dead heat with Mitt Romney. I believe that Obama could handily beat any empty suit the GOP throws his way. Given the proclivities of the Republican primary electorate, I'll bet that Romney's status as frontrunner will be short lived. I will bet on Sarah Palin or someone of her ilk. Howard Dean said himself that Sarah Palin could defeat Obama in the general election, particularly with unemployment as it is.

Now, do I really think that Palin is presidential material? Not for a moment. Her latest gaffe -- actually a botchery of the historical account of Paul Revere's ride, in which she claimed Revere warned the British -- shows how ignorant and flighty the woman truly is. That is precisely why she could win. I don't trust the American electorate, especially when times are tough. Too many Americans drink the stupid juice when the economy is in the tank, and pull the lever against their own economic interests. Or, demoralized and disenchanted, they just stay home and don't vote at all. The results of the 2010 midterm elections provide all the evidence you need of that proposition. Voters cast their ballots for some of the most regressive governors, state legislators and members of Congress one can imagine.

The country is hurting, but instead we get voter ID legislation, decimation of labor rights, criminalization of abortion, Vouchercare, and laws banning sagging pants. We knew they would do something like this, even though they didn't explicitly say they would. The Republican track record on overreach speaks for itself. And the lackluster Democrats did their best to bring a GOP victory last year, eager as they are to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Although Palin and the other Republican hopefuls hardly seem viable candidates at first glance, consider Ronald Reagan. People laughed at the prospect of an actor becoming president. His opponent, the incumbent, was smart and capable, and didn't drag the country into war. But Jimmy Carter was done in by stagflation and the Iran hostage crisis, not to mention an intra-party challenge from Ted Kennedy, and two opponents in the general election.

If the economy continues to suffer enough, as it appears it will, Obama should take heed. Americans will elect the factually challenged, knowledge deficient and intellectually starved if given half a chance, which is why Obama needs to get serious about jobs, jobs, jobs. Regardless of how much he can accomplish on that front between now and Election Day 2012, he needs to get started yesterday. And it is time for him to ignore the Republicans. They have two goals in mind: First, to wreck the economy for 2012, and second, to establish a nation fully owned and operated by religious fanatics, the greedy and the unstable. They are making good on both of these promises.

That's the short term situation. Obama must find some jobs or he'll be out of one. Now, here's the long term problem, which leads us back to the short term: America is a feudal capitalist state with the highest inequality in the industrialized world. The inequality has widened over three decades, and is now at chronic proportions -- the highest since the Great Depression. The elites have decided to ride this one out, not through economic growth, because all they have to do, they've decided, is to squeeze as much as they can from the rest of us sharecroppers. And they're doing a superb job of it. Favorable tax policies and deregulation ensure that they get more and more, and the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision allowed them to buy the political system outright. So, a bribery-based political system -- concerned only with the next election cycle -- serves the interests of a crony capitalist system that cares only about the next quarterly profit statement.

Say what you will about China, but at least they never pretended to operate under any pretense of democracy. However, China does look one hundred years into the future, when America can barely look past the latest episode of Celebrity Apprentice. And as China silently colonizes Africa and wrests the leadership in renewable energy, the U.S. has no industrial policy other than military contractors. We can't even build a national high-speed rail system because the superstitious among us brand it as socialist big government welfare spending.

These are the problems that President Obama must face, because hell, world leaders are paid to do that. He can solve this whole thing tomorrow is he just calls for a new New Deal program already. But will he have the courage? Time will tell, but the President, like this sad nation, is short on time.

18 Years Later, Will Justice Come for Stephen Lawrence?

A reader recently asked me if I think justice will finally come to Stephen Lawrence. This came after news that two men, David Norris and Gary Dobson, will face trial for his 1993 murder.

Who is Stephen Lawrence, you ask? If you're from the U.S., chances are that you've never heard of him, although there was a PBS docudrama about the case some years ago. He was a black teenager from south-east London, an honors student and an aspiring architect who was studying physics. On the evening of April 22, 1993, Lawrence and his friend Duwayne Brooks were waiting at a bus stop when a racist white mob descended upon them. One of the attackers yelled "what, what n****r?" The group of five or six men quickly crossed the road and stabbed Lawrence twice in his upper torso to a depth of five inches, severing two auxiliary arteries. In this horrific incident that lasted no more than 15-20 seconds, Lawrence fled 130 yards and then bled to death.

According to the pathologist's report, "It is surprising that he managed to get 130 yards with all the injuries he had, but also the fact that the deep penetrating wound of the right side caused the upper lobe to partially collapse his lung. It is therefore a testimony to Stephen's physical fitness that he was able to run the distance he did before collapsing". Due to the heavy layers of clothing he was wearing, Laurence was drenched in blood.

Stephen's body was flown to Jamaica, where he was buried. Dobson was tried for the murder but was acquitted.

A damning inquiry conducted by Sir William Macpherson blamed "professional incompetence, institutional racism and a failure of leadership" for the blunders in the investigation of Stephen Lawrence's murder. The 1999 report also concluded that from the very top of the ranks, London's Metropolitan Police Service was riddled by "pernicious and institutional racism" in the investigation of this crime, the racial disparity in "stop and search figures," the underreporting of racial crimes, and the failure of police training in racial sensitivity.

Duwayne Brooks, who was also a victim, was treated by the police as a witness. "We are driven to the conclusion that Mr. Brooks was stereotyped as a young black man exhibiting unpleasant hostility and agitation, who could not be expected to help, and whose condition and status simply did not need further examination or understanding," according to the Macpherson report. "We believe that Mr. Brooks' colour and such stereotyping played their part in the collective failure of those involved to treat him properly and according to his needs."

Macpherson made 70 recommendations in the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, including reforms of the police force, the justice system, the schools and the civil service, making the use of racial language in private a criminal offense, and the aggressive recruitment of black and Asian police officers. Perhaps one of the most significant recommendations, now the law, is the abolition of the centuries-old double jeopardy rule, which prevented a person from being tried twice for the same crime.

And now, after years of allegations of official corruption and the withholding of evidence, David Norris and Gary Dobson -- whose 1996 acquittal was quashed by an appeals court -- now stand trial for an 18-year-old murder.

I first heard about the Lawrence case in 1998, when I was in London working with Amnesty International. Subsequently, I produced some news segments on the killing and its aftermath as a producer for Democracy Now! in New York. For Britons, the Stephen Lawrence case was a watershed moment in race relations in that country, and a turning point on the problems of hate crimes and racial violence, and the issue of police corruption and misconduct. In that regard, the significance of this incident was not unlike that of the 1960s riots throughout America's urban centers, the Rodney King beating in Los Angeles, the police torture of Abner Louima, or the fatal police shooting of Amadou Diallo and Sean Bell in New York.

And still today, some black observers, including Stephen's mother Doreen Lawrence, say that little has changed in the way black Britons are treated by the police. Five years after the Macpherson report, an investigation into diversity and the policies, procedures and employment practices in the Metropolitan police called for change. Meanwhile, today the London police still maintain a white male culture. Hate crimes against minority groups continue. Parliament could pass legislation that would dismantle the Independent Police Complaints Commission, the regulatory body established after Lawrence's death that brought transparency and structure to the handling of complaints against the police. And a British prison system eager to emulate the U.S. -- that is, the "land of the free" with its pernicious war on terror and its prison-industrial-complex -- incarcerates black, Asian and increasingly Muslim men at a disproportionate rate.

So, will the family of Stephen Lawrence finally find justice in a London courtroom? I don't have the answer, but we can only hope. In any case, there's much work to do, in Britain and here in America.