By now we all know James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, is dead. According to David Letterman this is significant because it means that now the hardest working man in show business is Regis Philbin. I’d argue Nick Cannon, but whatever. For black folk it’s significant for too many reasons to get into, especially since this article is not in praise of one of the greatest entertainers of our time. You can find that kind of article anywhere. This is concerning his five year old son, a little boy that was left out of his 73 year old father’s will. Now we can make the excuse that it’s just like black folk to be sloppy in handling their business and leave it at that, but that would be wrong, stereotypical, and as ignorant as it gets. If I’m not mistaken the almost 100 year old (I’m rounding) husband of Anna Nicole Smith was a billionaire and he didn’t even have a coherent plan on how to dole out his estate among his family and his then 26 year old wife, and he was as white as they come. So look at it for what it is and that’s another dad failing to protect his child’s future because of his questionable feelings about his “baby mama.”
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2 comments:
The African American Dad's blog is one I check on the regular. He's so "real" and that baby boy of his . . . well, there really are no words (smile).
As far as James Brown is concerned, I'd like to think his leaving the little boy out of the will wasn't a deliberate oversight. He probably just never got around to updating the durn thing. That's not to excuse his behavior, but I'm just saying . . . I also have serious doubts about the older kids stepping up and "doing the right thing," especially since there still may be some lingering questions about the child's paternity.
For a man who made a hit out a song entitled "Papa Don't Take No Mess" he sure did leave one heck of a big one behind (smile).
I think it was deliberate. And James needs to suffer a few decades in Purgatory for that before being allowed into Funky Soul Heaven.
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