The Good Fathers

Many black male filmgoers are overjoyed at "The Pursuit Of Happyness", the latest movie featuring Will Smith that opens today. In the movie, Mr. Smith - who was nominated for a best actor Golden Globe yesterday - isn't a superhero saving the world, but a man totally devoted to his son, an image that many black fathers say is seen too infrequently in U.S. media (hat tip: BlackElectorate.com). "The Pursuit Of Happyness" is based on the true story of Chris Gardner, a San Francisco homeless man who overcame a plethora of obstacles to find success for himself and his son.

The portrayal of black American men in the media has long been the subject of intense discussions: in scholarly journals, among the men themselves, and in the same news that's frequently lambasted for showing American black men mainly in stereotypically negative roles such as criminals and deadbeat dads. The talk took on new life this year with the release of books such as the Urban Institute's Black Males Left Behind, which cited statistics indicating that many black men, unlike black women, in America were falling below basic education, employment and livable-income levels. And Bill Cosby's 2004 indictment of some black fathers, whom he berated as men who "dropped the sperm cell" and then moved on, still drives much of the discussion on black parenthood.

Such negative representations enrage fatherhood advocates, who note that good black American fathers exist in far larger numbers than poor ones. "The good images are hard to find," said Kofi Asante, director of the Philadelphia Comprehensive Center for Fathers, a resource center. "Most of what we see are shows of brute force with mack daddies or drug dealers. We are scholars, we are musicians, we are teachers....We are in every position that's vital to the American existence, and more of that needs to be shown." Christopher Bracey, an associate professor of law and African and African American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, says the film appears to have struck a chord, prompting numerous Internet discussions about stereotypes, fatherhood, and black male experiences.

Many black fathers are saying that "The Pursuit Of Happyness", with its big star and acknowledgment of hardworking family men, comes at a good time. When lawyers Stephana I. Colbert and Valerie I. Harrison of Philadelphia solicited submissions for their book Color Him Father: Stories of Love and Rediscovery of Black Men, they were inundated with positive stories. "The hard part was in paring them down to 35," Colbert said of the book published in May. "All of us took away positive experiences from our fathers. The important piece was we didn't believe this was the exception." A similar idea was behind the June launch of Proud Poppa, a North Plainfield, N.J.-based magazine with a mission to "celebrate, elevate and replicate fatherhood success principles in the black community."