Listen, My Son
Wisdom to Help African American Fathers
By Lee Butler Published
Straight talk about what it means to be African American men.
"Let’s have a conversation. Let’s talk man-to-man and brother-to-brother. Let’s talk about how we grow into adults and what manhood means. Let’s talk brother-to-brother and man-to-man about how we relate to one another as we grow into adults. Let’s talk about what defines our maleness and our manhood. Let’s talk brother-to-brother as African American men. Let’s talk openly and honestly about what it means to be black men and American. We can no longer assume that we all know what it means to be African American men. This is a conversation that is long overdue. Let’s talk together and listen to one another. This is our time to talk instead of being talked about. It is time for us to shed the unhealthy images and opinions that we have accepted as the standards of what it means to be Black men. The benefits of our talk will transform our souls as well as benefit all the girls and women in our lives." from the book
Endorsements
"Lee H. Butler, Jr., has convened an impressive group of Black Pastoral Care scholars to address crucial questions and dynamics of Black Father-Black Son/Child relationships. They speak from their own social locations, from their own ideological and theological stances, and with their own voices. This is a major contribution to gender studies and racial hermeneutics, and a model for collaboration within a discipline. Most exciting is the ways that Butler uses his theoretical propositions for the reading of biblical texts. In this way he pushes the reader to go beyond dogmatic readings to explore the pastoral care dimensions of the narratives, which opens them up to new levels of meaning.”
--Randall C. Bailey, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Hebrew Bible, Interdenominational Theological Center, Atlanta, Georgia
In a refreshing, conversational tone, Lee Butler admonishes African American men and the Black church to break with a past that is destroying them. The book is grounded in keen theological and social psychological argument punctuated by biblical character studies and pastoral guidance. Truly a twenty-first century guide book for healing African American men!
--Marcia Y. Riggs, J. Erskine Love Professor of Christian Ethics, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia
In Listen, My Son: Wisdom for African American Fathers, Lee H. Butler Jr. introduces an invaluable tool that provides help and encouragement to African American men to engage in serious and candid conversation with other African American men about personal experiences of joy, sadness, failure and parenting ambivalence. Moreover, it provides support to African American fathers to share the thrill of challenging their sons and surrogate sons of the Black community to grow up safe, competent, and Christian. I recommend it without reservation. -- Fred A. Allen, National Director, Strengthening The Black Church For the 21st Century