Saturday afternoon you are at the barber shop.
As you are awaiting your turn when you notice what appears to be a father and son sitting a couple of seats away. The young boy look about 12 years old and is flipping through a magazine. He comes across a picture of a male model and says “he’s hot”. The father looks at the boy and slaps him in the mouth and says…
“Don’t you ever say no faggot gay shit like that again. You hear me?”
Everything goes quiet.
As the boy begins to cry, his farther takes him outside, continues to chastise him and slaps the boy again. This time drawing blood.
What Would You Do?
I would do nothing. It’s not my place to tell a father how to raise his son. I wouldn’t want someone to tell me how to raise my children either.
However, I think something needs to be said about this particular event. At around 12 years old, a child is generally socialized into an idea of what’s ok to say, and what’s not ok to say. Given that this is a blog for gay, black masculine men, I will assume that the characters in this scenario are black..
I think that the child would have been socialized at a very young age to not say those things, even if he thought them.. and while it’s unfortunate that he is in a family like that… there’s essentially nothing I can do for him
So…this child is bleeding due to the abuse of his father and you’d just sit there like, “I guess he gon’ learn today! Isn’t any of my business.” Woooowww.
Although this scenario is a little far fetched, the father is inflicting emotional and physical damage to a CHILD regardless of the reasoning behind the father disciplining his son. If the father’s bold enough to beat up his child in public what do you think he’d do at home behind closed doors? Not all discipline has to be dispersed physically and so violently. The dad could just speak his disdain, but instead he took it to a whole ‘nother level. You can’t beat the gay out of someone. Your idle concern could cost the boy his life, by the father’s hands or his own.
Call the police!!!