June 28, 2022 • 46 mins
Gam is joined by Rodney and Dondré Whitfield to discuss Dondré’s book Male vs. Man: How to Honor Women, Teach Children, and Elevate Men to Change the World as he shares what the difference between male and man is.
Guest Information:
@alldondre Dondré’s Instagram
@DondreWhitfield Dondré’s Twitter
Purchase Dondré’s book Male vs Man
@iamrodneynorris Rodney’s Instagram
Host Information:
@gammynorris Gammy's Instagram
@gammynorris_ Gammy's Twitter
@gammynorris Gammy's Facebook
@gammynorris Gammy’s TikTok
#PositivelyGam
Listening and loving the show? Please be sure to rate and review.
Have a question or topic you want us to discuss on Positively Gam? Email us at:
positivelygam@redtabletalk.com
POSITIVELY GAM is produced by Red Table Talk Podcasts. EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS Fallon Jethroe, Adrienne Banfield Norris, and Jada Pinkett Smith. CO-EXECUTIVE PRODUCER Sim Hoti. ASSOCIATE PRODUCER Irene Bischofberger. EDITOR AND AUDIO MIXER Calvin Bailiff. THEME SONG by dbeatz. POSITIVELY GAM is in partnership with iHeartRadio.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
What's up, everybody. I'm Gammy Rodney and this is positively
gam what's happening? Bit oh man, this puppy is more
than a notion. She is. But guess who found her
and guess who encouraged me to get her? You I did?
I did. I'll take the hit on that. Yeah, but
(00:24):
she is a sweetie pie. But that's getting up at
four in the morning and trying to house train is
a bit much. It is much. But she is doing
really really well. From day one, she's been doing really
really well. I mean, we got her when she was
two months, so I don't know what kind of training
she had before. But she's had very limited accidents in
(00:48):
the home. But I'm constantly taking her out, like I
take her outside every two hours, and I have my
eyes on her every second because I'm not trying to
have our home messed up. Okay, but I love her.
Did get her from the we did. She's a rescue.
She's a rescue. I'm really happy that we were able
(01:09):
to give her a home. Yeah, I'm very excited. You
wanted to get there. I wanted to get a King
Charles Spaniel, all those fancy name dogs. They'll get good homes.
But Ronnie, you and I recently finished a great book
by DeAndre Whitfield called Male Versus Man, How to honor women,
(01:29):
teach children, and elevate men to change the world. And
this was such an important read. It is I encourage everyone.
You know, you don't have to be a man to
read this book. Absolutely not. I could so totally relate
to it, and I'm just really excited to talk to
DeAndre about it. We are so excited to have DeAndre
(01:58):
Whitfield joined us one positively gam He's an actor, a
three time Emmy and n double a CP Image Award nominee,
and has published his first book called Male Versus Man.
Welcome don Dre, Welcome, Thank you. But you know, before
you even get started, I cannot move forward without mentioning
(02:21):
your beautiful wife, Sally Richardson with you. I don't know
people know that you are married to this beautiful woman.
And you know we have a very deep connection because
Sally was Jada's nemesis in Low Down, Dirty Shape. She
also played Willow's mom and Will's wife respectively. And I
(02:45):
am legend right. She's done so much. She's now she's
part of the Gilded Agent I'm so proud and happy
for her. So I have to say that I couldn't
go on without talking about your wife at you know,
I was going to talk about her because you know,
that's my girl. We've been you know, that's my girlfriend
of twenty four years and my wife of nineteen years. Yeah,
(03:09):
we you know, it's been such a journey for her,
being able to reinvent yourself at some very critical times,
you know, and we both have you know, been able
to successfully that's you know, I always say, you know,
you direct characters behind the camera and I direct character,
and so we literally have carved out different spaces for ourselves,
(03:34):
but they still do, you know, managed to intertwine in
some really great ways, and I'm just so proud of her. Typically,
you know, I don't you know, watching you know, our
white brothers and sisters in the of the eighteen hundreds
is not typically something that I you know, clamored to
to watch. But when when they and this is credit
(03:57):
to them also being able to have diverse voices behind
the camera, which is exactly what we need in order
to be able to tell stories accurately. So shout out
to HBO and to Gilded Age for putting her in
place like that and really not just for the sake
of using her as a pawn, but really using her
(04:19):
voice and her vision. Absolutely, absolutely so, and I'm enjoying it.
So okay, So congrats on your first book. What compels
you to it? I mean, it's so good, and it's
so good we were both blown away. It was that
just stops. You have to forgive me, because you know
(04:42):
that stops me in my tracks. And the reason why,
and I talked about this in the book. When I
was in the fourth grade, I had a teacher tell
me that I was not a good writer. Yeah, talk
about that. And as you know, the things that that
children here, particularly from adults that are supposed to help
them build their life, could either wind up speaking life
(05:07):
or death into that child's existence. And so from the
fourth grade on until about a very few short years ago,
I carried around this story about myself that I was
not a good writer, despite the fact that I had
great evidence that pointed to the contrary. My wife used
(05:31):
to always tell me, baby, you gotta start writing. You're
like you know, she would make a speech and you know,
she would say, baby, I need something here, and I
get can you and then write that up. She goes,
this is crazy. You did that in five minutes. That's crazy,
or somebody would you know, would ask, hey, you know,
I need to have you know this written up. But
I'm not quite sure how. Language has always been a
(05:53):
gift of mind. But because of that teacher, I never
fully grasp a hold of the fact that I had
a voice with my pen. What made you write this book?
My father was in and out of jail my entire life,
(06:13):
particularly the formative years of my adolescence. Right. I grew
up in Brooklyn. I grew up fighting every day. You know,
when you grow up light skinned with curly hair, that
was a while ago, But when you grow up in
that environment, that's invitation to a fight every single day
because every day they're like, oh, you think you're cute,
and I'm like, no, I just came outside to play
(06:35):
some basketball. If you gotta beef with somebody, you gotta
beef with my parents, not me. So every single day,
not having your father and I talked about this in
the book, and it's been very controversial in our community.
As black folks, I said boldly, and I stand by it.
(06:55):
A woman cannot teach you how to be a man.
And that is not a controversial statement. That is a fact.
I have a seventeen year old daughter. I cannot teach
her how to be a woman. You know why, because
I'm not one. That's my wife's job. I can teach
my daughter how to be in relationship with a man,
(07:15):
because I'm a man. My wife has to teach my
daughter how to be a woman. I can teach my
daughter how to have language with and for a man.
So my father being in and out of jail my
entire life, I never had anyone to give me languaging
of manhood. So matriculating into manhood was extremely difficult for
(07:38):
me because I didn't have that drill sergeant. I didn't
have that drill instructor to get the proper information and
instruction to be able to safely and accurately matriculate in
the manhood. So every single day of my life where
everybody thought I was a man, but I still had
(08:00):
the skill set of a male, made life very difficult
for me. And when Sally and I got married and
then I became a father, that's when I began to see, hey, man,
you're missing a lot. And every single day that I
gathered up that information in order to graduate myself into manhood.
(08:22):
I began to realize, Wow, you know what, I would
have become a greater man, much quicker had I had
this information and instruction. And in fact, my father would
have become a great man quicker if he had that
same information and instruction. And I never wanted anyone else
(08:44):
to suffer like that, and that's why I decided to
write this book. I like your analogy of a man
as a walking tree that provides coverage to his village. Yes, sir,
And the title includes the phrase mail versus man? How
did you define male versus man? So simply put it,
you know, when we're born, we are either born male
(09:06):
or female. I know that's even a contract statement to
make during the time that we live in right now,
but unfortunately those are the facts as we know them,
okays on your birth certificate at least now, I think
they're even doing there, trying to do something different now.
But on our birth certificates it either said male or female.
(09:28):
It didn't say man or woman. So, in other words,
at birth, we were assigned either male or female, or
earthly assignment was to turn ourselves into either a man
or a woman, not based on you using your body
(09:49):
part as a demonstration of your manhood or your womanhood.
But in fact, your dedication to being of service is
what actually differentiates you from being a male or a man.
So simply put, males look to be served. Men look
to be of service. So I always tell the system
(10:13):
just that I'm around. You don't have to try to
guess whether the dude that you're dating is a male
or a man. He will tell you based on his actions.
Say that againdre males look to be served while men
look to be of service. Wow, so watch this a
guy who sits around waiting for everyone to serve him.
(10:36):
I'll give you an example. My son at a much
earlier age. He just turned thirteen. By the way, I
got two teenagers now. I don't even know how to
happen anyway. My son now, because every single day he
gets the messaging of manhood from me, has come a
long way. I would put my son's manhood up against
(10:58):
guys who are in their thirties and forties right now
because he receives this messaging every single day. But when
he was very young, four or five, six, seven years old,
all day long, all he would do was yell out
for my wife, mom, can I have some grapes? Mom?
Can I have some chips? Mom? Can I have something
(11:20):
to eat? Looking to be served? Now at that age,
that is appropriate because he doesn't quite know his assignment
in life here. But unfortunately, when you don't get someone
to explain to you what your assignment is, you think
(11:40):
that it's supposed to be everyone in your environment, everyone
in your cipher, serving you, when really your assignment on
this earth as a man is to be of service
to everyone around you. So, in other words, as a man,
every woman falls under my covering. So, brother Rodney, when
(12:04):
your wife, when you're not around, and she is directly
in my cipher, she now falls under my covering. Every
child in my cipher falls under my covering, whether they're
my biological child or not, whether they are my wife
or not. As a man, if they are in my cipher,
(12:29):
it is my job to protect and to serve them.
So males look to be served while men look to
be of service. There's a gigantic difference between simply being
a male and being a man. Huge You also spoke
about creating a calm environment or being the source of
calm and chaos. How do you suggest that men accomplished
(12:52):
that you spoke of women typically coming from or acting
from a place of emotion versus and the need for
a man to respond from a place of calm. Talk
to us about that. Yeah, because let me tell you something. Look,
(13:13):
here's why a male is dangerous when he doesn't understand
his assignment our chief generator. It's called testosterone. When a
male doesn't understand his assignment and he is allowing his
testosterone to guide him through life, he's gonna create a
(13:35):
lot of babies and a lot of chaos. Mm hmm.
And those babies are gonna fall under that umbrella of
chaos and be more chaotic if a woman, look my wife,
and I say this very tongue in cheek, but there's
so much truth in it. My wife is allowed to
(13:59):
be as emotional and as crazy as she wants to be,
not me. I am the last line of defense in
this house. So if my wife is emotional one day,
and sometimes there are some very biological things that are
happening with her every month that will allow her to
(14:23):
get outside of who she may be every day to
show up as her better self. So if she's feeling
more emotional on this particular day and doesn't allow herself
to to operate in the best version of herself. There
are certain things that she can say or do that
(14:46):
may activate me to respond in kind, but I can't
do that. I am the leader of my house. Let
me say this again. I I am the leader of
my house, not because I tell anybody what to do.
I want everybody to listen to me very carefully. I
(15:09):
don't tell anybody in my house what you do. My
wife is from the South side of Chicago. My wife
is a proud black woman that is not going to work.
I don't tell anybody what to do. I show people
what to do. I am the model that my house mirrors.
(15:31):
So if my wife raises her voice, if she's acting
in a way that is a little more emotional, that
is past the better version of herself. My job is
to now model for her what I want her the mirror. So,
in other words, and I talked about this in the book,
if my life is on dead, my job is to
(15:53):
be on two. It's extremely difficult to argue with somebody
if you can't hear them, so she's a doing at him.
My job is to be here too. I think Rodney
can relate to that strongly about you know, my wife
can be like that at time. Student, It's like you said,
it's my job to model that behavior to bring her
(16:15):
back to center. Yes, sir, because guess what, that's not
actually who she is. That's what she's doing, right, Yeah, right,
that's not actually who she is. My job is to
first put out the fire. I talked about this in
the book every Man Is a Firefighter. Yeah, my job
(16:36):
is to put out fires, not set them, got it.
So my job is not to be an arsonist. My
job is to be a firefighter and put them out.
So my job is to put out her fire first
and then try to figure out what caused that fire
and then have a loving discussion about that later on
(16:57):
so that she can be brought to a level of
consciousness to maybe avoid going to that space again. That's
my job. Now. You also talked earlier about how language
can activate or deactivate, you acknowledging that words you speak
affect people, how words how the words that you use
(17:17):
affect the people that you're speaking to. So I want
you to talk to us about an experience that you
had when you overheard Sally going over some homework with
your son, Dre tell us about that and how that
made you feel. Yeah, you know, it's interesting because words.
Language is so important, and I'm so glad God could
(17:39):
not have given me or gifted me a greater gift
than the gift of language. There are two forms of language,
in my humble opinion, and I talked about this in
the book, there's protein and there's Keresin protein language is
the kind of language that we used to help build
(18:01):
people up. Kerosene language is the kind of language that
we used to burn people. Every coach that coaches anything
in life, whether it's relationships or basketball, for the most part,
every coach has the same level of knowledge about a
particular subject. What separates good coaches from great coaches is
(18:27):
their language. And when they use language protein language that
helps to build the people up that they're communicating with,
it makes for a better team. So there is no
coincidence that there are certain people and I consider myself
to be the head coach of my team, which is
my family, because I have the best language. If my
(18:51):
wife was sitting here right now, she would tell you
that I am that person in this house. She does
have great language. But she will absolutely tell you that
I am the one that gives that kind of protein
language to both her and our children that allows them
to come to the better version of themselves. Because I
(19:13):
have a level of awareness that makes me say, okay,
wait a minute. I struggle at times. So my job
is to make sure that I elevate my own sense
of language and usage of it. Two then gift it
to my family so that they can allow themselves to
come to the better versions of themselves. You also came
(19:43):
up with the five languages of pain, and that really
resonated with me personally. So what does the what was
the acronym round? Yes? Indeed, what's so interesting about that
is when we talk about all of those particular things,
the language you know of pain, it's so interesting because
(20:06):
you know, cursing, you know, being one of them. For me,
I remember growing up in in Brooklyn and cursing was
like not a first not a second language. It was
the first lague absolutely. But before you go into all
of that, don Jay, can't you explain what the acronym
stands for? What does lucas mean? So when we talk
(20:30):
about this, and there's some other things that I want
to bring into the mix of this, right, because it's
so valuable, and I'm so glad that you guys brought
it up because it's gonna be valuable to everyone. Right.
So when we talk about when we talk about lucas,
when we talk about lusting and unforgiveness and cursing and
(20:53):
all of those things they talk, we really are dealing
with all of the things that every ones that society
gives us that breaks us down as the great communicators
of life, right, lusting in our relationships. When we talk
about lusting in our relationships, Lusting can be a great
(21:16):
thing when it involves us, when it involves our partners,
But when we extend that lusting outside of our relationships
and it goes to someone else, it can greatly deteriorate
everything that happens under our roof. Right. So, as a man,
(21:39):
my job is to make sure that I grab ahold
of what my lusting is and make sure that I'm
only using that within our bedroom. Right, That's extremely important.
How about the unforgivingness? Right? How often does someone do
something to you where you say I can't forgive them
(22:05):
or just carrying resentment? Carrying resentment? Right? Though, who does
that really hurt because I did this with my own father,
which is one of the reasons why I wrote this book.
I did this with my own father from the age
of six to the age of forty six. My father
(22:25):
and I were strange from each other because I wouldn't
forgive him, because that was a part of my own
pain that I couldn't come up under. I couldn't get
up from under that. It didn't hurt my father as
much as it hurt me. So I had to learn
how to forgive him. Yeah, because right, forgiveness is for you.
(22:48):
It's not really for the other person. The forgiveness exactly
for you. It is healing for you, exactly right, Right,
So if you're talking about that kind of stuff, you're
talking about healing yourself, then let's deal with cursing. Cursing
I stopped, boy, let me tell you something. Look, that
(23:11):
is such a bad What is that? It's just a
bad I don't want to call it a habit. It's
as I go straight to cussing somebody else, we go,
we go straight to it right now. Watch, not to
shame anyone's not to shame anyone's parents, right, but all
of our parents did it parents did. My parents did not. Never.
(23:36):
I never heard my mother or my father use foul language.
I don't know where I got Okay, so in a minute, okay,
so ever, where did this come from? With you? Did
you get that? I think that I got it because
like you, I was like skinting long hair, and I
think I used the foul language to make me tough,
(24:01):
to make me up tough. Yes, you know, don't fun
right right right? Right now? Watch this? Now, watch this?
Oh my god, this is so good. You used cursing
as a device. Yes, what you did was you used
(24:23):
that in order to send a signal to everyone, first
and foremost, I'm not light skinned, I'm like you, tough,
just like you. I'm gonna prove it to you. Look
at the way I kept right, because they're shame sometimes
in our communities, there's actually shame for not speaking a
(24:45):
certain way, for not speaking with particular vernacular. Right. Then,
what you did was you actually bought into the fact,
or bought into this notion that made you more acceptable.
Yeah blacker, right, And you made that your own and
(25:09):
didn't even realize that you were attacking your own spirit
by doing it. Wow, so true, No beautiful thing has
ever been expressed using that language. Wow, that is so true.
Now watch this, I'll prove it to you. When a
(25:32):
baby is born and we hold that baby in our arms,
no one ever holds the baby going oh look at you,
you beautiful motherful, you are the greatest I've ever seen
in my life. You never did that in your life.
You know for a fact that language would violate that. There,
(25:57):
that baby's very spirit it. Yeah, yeah, right. So what
we did is in society we learn to use cursing
as a device. What about the A? What does the
A stand for? The anger? Right? Right? Anger is extremely important,
(26:17):
particularly as men. Anger is extremely important for us because
we generally will be physical first, so our sisters will
generally be emotional first. We generally will be physical first.
(26:39):
It's extremely important for us to be in control of
our anger because we can cause great damage. But you
also said that anger is a reflection of typically of hurt.
I'm really in pain. There's something, you know, third up
(27:00):
in me that I'm releasing through this anger and the
screaming and the cursing and all of that. It's real
and it's coming from a place of unresolved pain. Yeah,
that's exactly right. So if we look at that, right,
we look at lusting first as the passion of pain.
(27:22):
We look at unforgiveness as the memory of pain. We
look at cursing as the vocabulary of pain. Anger is
the emotion of pain, right. So there's no way for
me to be angry about anything unless I'm first in
pain about it. So what I have to do is,
(27:44):
once I'm angry, I have to examine what is it
that I'm in pain about, Because as a man, I
can get everybody in trouble if I'm angry. My job
is not for me to control my emotion. My job
is to control my response. So once I figure out
(28:06):
what my pain is, I can now control how I
respond to that pain. And that makes sense how a
sarcasm come in thow? So sarcasm is actually the humor
of pain. Right. I love that role because whenever we
sit there and we joke about something, somebody says something
(28:31):
and they say they make a sarcastic comment to you
that's really about that particular space of them feeling pain,
but they're using the expression of that pain with humor,
and there in lies the sarcasm. So whenever you're sarcastic
about something. Realize that what you're doing is that you're
(28:55):
trying to cloak your pain pretty bailey, so that people
don't really understand that you're actually in pain. But they
used that sarcasm as this humor and they go, oh,
he's actually pretty funny, when really I'm actually using this
particular device to hide my levels of pain. Every single
(29:20):
thing that we look at, from our lusting, to our unforgiveness,
to our cursing, to our anger, to our sarcasm, everything
is about examining our pain. Got it. So you and
(29:40):
I were talking last night and we were talking about
some of the challenges that you had so in the
in the cities of Baltimore. I was a male longer
than I would have liked to have been so very
well put, so, you know, wanted to ask you, you know,
(30:01):
what do you think are some of the challenges that
black men face these days? Oh my gosh, to becoming
a man. You know, I'm thinking that make racism, poor education,
lack of fathers in the home, lack of good mentors
in their life, culture, being hard tough, thug culture. You know,
that's way overrated. What do you think there are so many.
(30:25):
And I say this with all due respects to our sisters,
because they obviously experience a great deal of challenges in
our society, even with within our community. But now there
is such an attack on black men right now, and
(30:46):
I'm just gonna say it because I'm not gonna tiptoe
around it anymore, even our sisters. Look, I stopped doing
a television show because I didn't like the worries that
were being told about. I had a meeting where I
was told I was playing a character that was salt
(31:08):
of the earth, servant to the highest degree for his people.
And I was told before one of our seasons that
they had to this is a direct quote, they had
to dirty him up. And I said, okay, can you
tell me why he's just too good? And I will
(31:29):
never forget the flushed feeling that came over me. And
I stopped and I said, if this character were white,
do you know what his name would be? And they
all collectively shift their heads no, And I said his
name would be my dreamy. Nobody's having meetings about dirtying
(31:49):
up McDreamy. You know why, because somehow they think that
white men are capable of being that good. Yeah, nobody's
having meetings despite all of the evidence that we see
almost daily about the fact that some of our white
(32:10):
brothers art always so good, But still no one's having
meetings about dirty ng up white characters or television. Why
are we having meetings about black men being dirtied up?
Because it's just not possible for them to be that good.
(32:34):
I will never forget during some of our episodes where
he's involved with this woman, what with his sister, and
the comments online from our sisters consistently were, I don't
trust him. I don't trust him. He can't be that good.
(33:00):
Got to be wrong with him. Now, let me tell
you something that's a powerful statement. It is because what
it says is that a black man can't be that good.
Then let me tell you something, Dendre Whitfield, I am
not good, and I ain't the only one. I am
not an anomaly. I am not a unicorn. There are
(33:23):
a bunch of brothers that are out here in our communities,
in our society that are that good, that looked to
serve our sisters, our children, that served to uplift our
community and aren't looking to harm anybody. And I was
so disappointed to see your character leave and that was
(33:46):
such a huge role and such an opportunity for you
had it. That makes you feel first of all when
you got the call and then when you made the decision,
because you didn't have to make that decision, but you
made the decis vision to exit. I think that was
huge because that I hear about that with women a
(34:07):
lot with women actors, but I don't know how often
and may because I just don't know any and I
haven't been in conversation male actors who have had to
make that choice of the type of roles and how
they're willing to present themselves. Look, we have to start examining,
(34:29):
and I'm talking about black people. Yes, we have to
start examining who the freak is telling me stories about
our people, and in particular black men, because what are
the stories that are being told about black women that
they are absolutely necessary, which they are absolutely necessary in
(34:53):
our communities. Our communities would fall apart without black women.
I agree with that, But is that to say that
our communities don't fall apart and aren't falling apart when
black men aren't playing the roles if they need to
play in them. Absolutely, men are just as important as
(35:14):
black women in our community. But you realize that historically
we have been programmed to believe that we don't need
black men. I mean, it's been set up that way
from days of slavery, so you know, it's just ingrained
in us, and I kind of wanna, Oh my goodness,
there's so This is why this book is so good,
(35:36):
because there's so much that I want to talk about
that I'm just running out of time, But I gotta
go back. Yeah, we may need apart to donre, we
may neage part too, because I gotta go back to this.
I gotta go back to the statement that where you
talked about before that women can't raise males because I
(35:56):
know that they're gonna be women that that challenge that.
But I think it's so important that with regard to
fatherless homes, please speak to us about this very complex
dynamic when boys become the moth and the moth meaning
man of the house at a very young age. When
(36:21):
there's a fatherless home, there's a single you know, woman
and giving that role to her son and he doesn't
have the power or the tools to handle it, and
what that does to the relationship with his mom and
how he views relationships with women. Let me tell you
(36:45):
one of the most damaging things that a young male,
a boy ever hears in his life is you are
the man of the house. Right. You know how painful
it is to be given an assignment and not have
the skill sets, the tools to be able to complete
the task. That is exactly what happens to any boy
(37:09):
who is told that he is the man of the house.
He becomes the emotional partner to his mother. So, in
other words, the substitute boyfriend. And now she is trying
to both raise as an emotional crutch that she doesn't
(37:31):
have in a life partner. That is devastating because what
he begins to learn is that a woman speaks to
him a certain way. He actually begins to dislike this
new partner that he has. I'm gonna be honest with
(37:51):
you and tell you that I fell out of love
with black women for a time based on a relationship
that I have with my mother. And it was because
of the constant, at times chastising that happens when a
woman feels the pain of a past partner that she
(38:14):
created this child with. And I looked just like my father.
So at times when you hear you just like him.
You ain't gonna be ish just like him. And I've
forgiven my mother for though my mother had me at
a very young age. My mother was a late teen,
so she was a child herself. So I had to
(38:38):
forgive my mother for that because giving her that grace
and understanding that my mother was still a child herself
and trying to figure it out. Right. And you probably
experienced this with Jada as well, in being a young
mom and at times not fully equipped, and so you
(38:59):
couldn't show up as your best self because you didn't
have all of the tools that you needed to be
your best self yet. Right. And so what happens to
a male trying to come into manhood and in learning
how to be in partnership with them, you learn how
to argue, because you see, that's what's modeled for you. Right.
(39:23):
So love now looks like argument, dissension, anger, violence, that's
what love begins to look like. For every boy, the
first love of his life is his mother. Yeah, the
question now becomes what did the first love of your
life do to your heart? You begin to dole out
(39:47):
pain as you receive it because you associate that with love. Right,
So many of our sisters go through the same things.
They get a part a partner who reminds them of
their father. What if your father was a male, and
the choosing males not because that feels good, it feels familiar, right, right, right,
(40:14):
So you choose a partner that feels familiar, like your dad,
if your dad loved you, If your dad abuse you,
you will often choose abuse. Does that feels familiar, Not
that it feels good, It just feels familiar, and you
associate that familiarity with love. So that boy, that moth
(40:34):
feels the same way. And so we begin in this
cycle of everyone choosing all of this pain not because
it feels good, it feels familiar. So we have to
start really teaching our young ones at a very early
age this is what love feels like. It feels like
open communication. It feels communication at two not then it
(40:59):
feels the wage of love and not cursing and not
sarcasm and all of those other things that are painful
to us because they become the model that we eventually
will begin to mirror in our relationships. Yeah, and so
I want to say too that this speaks to the
importance of single women trying to find a positive role
(41:23):
model for their boys, because boys need to be fathered
and not really just children need to be fathered. And
I know that when in trying to raise Jada, I
wasn't always successful, but I tried to be very cautious
about the men that I allowed into her life. I
(41:44):
didn't let every like I was young. I was seventeen
when I had Jada, But I didn't let every time
Dick and Harry. Yeah, I didn't let every time Dick
and Harry that I decided I was interested in. I
didn't expose Jada to all those people. You have to
be cautious and and and it's your responsibility as a
parent to find that positive role model for your children.
(42:08):
And if it's you know, I was lucky I had
my father, that I had men in my family that
I could rely on. That's not the case for anybody.
But that is your job. That is your job because
you don't have to do it alone. And I think
that's really important. This is a whole another conversation. I
(42:30):
think Rodney has one more, one more question. He wants
to come. So I have daughters, So I was I
you know, I didn't have the responsibility of raising men.
But all there's certain life lessons you're trying to pass
down to your sons. If my son was sitting here
right now and I asked him, or you asked him, Dre,
(42:52):
why did God put you here? My son would tell
you plainly to be of service. Wow, my son knows
that his assignment on this earth is to be a
man that is a powerful servant. That is it. If
we drum into our sons that messaging, it will take
(43:16):
care of everything. We gotta teach them to be great men, perfect, perfect,
And thank you so much. It was a joy and
a pleasure to have it. Please everybody, please go out
and get this book. It is such so worth a read,
and it's not just for men to read. It was
so I saw myself in this book. It's powerful, it's powerful.
(43:40):
Please tell everybody where they can find you on social
media Dondre. Instagram is all Dondre A L D O
N D R E, and Twitter and Facebook is at
Ddre Whitfield. And you can buy Mail versus Man anywhere
you buy books. Yes, I was gonna say, please go
out and get through yourself a faith. Even it's perfect,
(44:02):
you will not be disappointed, I promise you. I am
looking forward to part two for so much that we
didn't know. I know we have so much more to
talk about. Thank you. Don Next up Rodney's takeaways from
(44:25):
our conversation on man versus Mail. So one of my
takeaways from Males versus Men is the importance of indoctrinating
young men into the philosophy of being of service and
(44:48):
not being served at an early age. That philosophy is
powerful and will certainly help in the transition from young
man to man. Another takeaway from may Those versus men
is that a man should always model the behavior that
he wants his home to mirror. He should always be
(45:10):
the firefighter, putting out fires and keeping a state of
calm in the process, figuring out what started the fire
in the first place, to bring about resolve in his
home and with friends and family. That wraps it up
for us. Thank you for listening to this episode of
Positively gam You can follow me on all social platforms
(45:31):
at gammy Narris. Then you can follow me at Rodney
Nara's Underscore on Instagram. Help us out by leaving a
five star review on Apple Podcasts and hitting the follow
button on I Heart Radio. Stay grateful y'all positively. Gam
is produced by red Table Talk Podcast and I Heart Radio.
Executive producers are Adrian Banfield, Naris Valan Jethro and Jada
(45:55):
Pinkett Smith. Our audio engineer is Calvin Bailiff, and our
associate producer is Irene Bischoffberger. Our theme song is produced
by d beats h
What's up, everybody. I'm Gammy Rodney and this is positively
gam what's happening? Bit oh man, this puppy is more
than a notion. She is. But guess who found her
and guess who encouraged me to get her? You I did?
I did. I'll take the hit on that. Yeah, but
(00:24):
she is a sweetie pie. But that's getting up at
four in the morning and trying to house train is
a bit much. It is much. But she is doing
really really well. From day one, she's been doing really
really well. I mean, we got her when she was
two months, so I don't know what kind of training
she had before. But she's had very limited accidents in
(00:48):
the home. But I'm constantly taking her out, like I
take her outside every two hours, and I have my
eyes on her every second because I'm not trying to
have our home messed up. Okay, but I love her.
Did get her from the we did. She's a rescue.
She's a rescue. I'm really happy that we were able
(01:09):
to give her a home. Yeah, I'm very excited. You
wanted to get there. I wanted to get a King
Charles Spaniel, all those fancy name dogs. They'll get good homes.
But Ronnie, you and I recently finished a great book
by DeAndre Whitfield called Male Versus Man, How to honor women,
(01:29):
teach children, and elevate men to change the world. And
this was such an important read. It is I encourage everyone.
You know, you don't have to be a man to
read this book. Absolutely not. I could so totally relate
to it, and I'm just really excited to talk to
DeAndre about it. We are so excited to have DeAndre
(01:58):
Whitfield joined us one positively gam He's an actor, a
three time Emmy and n double a CP Image Award nominee,
and has published his first book called Male Versus Man.
Welcome don Dre, Welcome, Thank you. But you know, before
you even get started, I cannot move forward without mentioning
(02:21):
your beautiful wife, Sally Richardson with you. I don't know
people know that you are married to this beautiful woman.
And you know we have a very deep connection because
Sally was Jada's nemesis in Low Down, Dirty Shape. She
also played Willow's mom and Will's wife respectively. And I
(02:45):
am legend right. She's done so much. She's now she's
part of the Gilded Agent I'm so proud and happy
for her. So I have to say that I couldn't
go on without talking about your wife at you know,
I was going to talk about her because you know,
that's my girl. We've been you know, that's my girlfriend
of twenty four years and my wife of nineteen years. Yeah,
(03:09):
we you know, it's been such a journey for her,
being able to reinvent yourself at some very critical times,
you know, and we both have you know, been able
to successfully that's you know, I always say, you know,
you direct characters behind the camera and I direct character,
and so we literally have carved out different spaces for ourselves,
(03:34):
but they still do, you know, managed to intertwine in
some really great ways, and I'm just so proud of her. Typically,
you know, I don't you know, watching you know, our
white brothers and sisters in the of the eighteen hundreds
is not typically something that I you know, clamored to
to watch. But when when they and this is credit
(03:57):
to them also being able to have diverse voices behind
the camera, which is exactly what we need in order
to be able to tell stories accurately. So shout out
to HBO and to Gilded Age for putting her in
place like that and really not just for the sake
of using her as a pawn, but really using her
(04:19):
voice and her vision. Absolutely, absolutely so, and I'm enjoying it.
So okay, So congrats on your first book. What compels
you to it? I mean, it's so good, and it's
so good we were both blown away. It was that
just stops. You have to forgive me, because you know
(04:42):
that stops me in my tracks. And the reason why,
and I talked about this in the book. When I
was in the fourth grade, I had a teacher tell
me that I was not a good writer. Yeah, talk
about that. And as you know, the things that that
children here, particularly from adults that are supposed to help
them build their life, could either wind up speaking life
(05:07):
or death into that child's existence. And so from the
fourth grade on until about a very few short years ago,
I carried around this story about myself that I was
not a good writer, despite the fact that I had
great evidence that pointed to the contrary. My wife used
(05:31):
to always tell me, baby, you gotta start writing. You're
like you know, she would make a speech and you know,
she would say, baby, I need something here, and I
get can you and then write that up. She goes,
this is crazy. You did that in five minutes. That's crazy,
or somebody would you know, would ask, hey, you know,
I need to have you know this written up. But
I'm not quite sure how. Language has always been a
(05:53):
gift of mind. But because of that teacher, I never
fully grasp a hold of the fact that I had
a voice with my pen. What made you write this book?
My father was in and out of jail my entire life,
(06:13):
particularly the formative years of my adolescence. Right. I grew
up in Brooklyn. I grew up fighting every day. You know,
when you grow up light skinned with curly hair, that
was a while ago, But when you grow up in
that environment, that's invitation to a fight every single day
because every day they're like, oh, you think you're cute,
and I'm like, no, I just came outside to play
(06:35):
some basketball. If you gotta beef with somebody, you gotta
beef with my parents, not me. So every single day,
not having your father and I talked about this in
the book, and it's been very controversial in our community.
As black folks, I said boldly, and I stand by it.
(06:55):
A woman cannot teach you how to be a man.
And that is not a controversial statement. That is a fact.
I have a seventeen year old daughter. I cannot teach
her how to be a woman. You know why, because
I'm not one. That's my wife's job. I can teach
my daughter how to be in relationship with a man,
(07:15):
because I'm a man. My wife has to teach my
daughter how to be a woman. I can teach my
daughter how to have language with and for a man.
So my father being in and out of jail my
entire life, I never had anyone to give me languaging
of manhood. So matriculating into manhood was extremely difficult for
(07:38):
me because I didn't have that drill sergeant. I didn't
have that drill instructor to get the proper information and
instruction to be able to safely and accurately matriculate in
the manhood. So every single day of my life where
everybody thought I was a man, but I still had
(08:00):
the skill set of a male, made life very difficult
for me. And when Sally and I got married and
then I became a father, that's when I began to see, hey, man,
you're missing a lot. And every single day that I
gathered up that information in order to graduate myself into manhood.
(08:22):
I began to realize, Wow, you know what, I would
have become a greater man, much quicker had I had
this information and instruction. And in fact, my father would
have become a great man quicker if he had that
same information and instruction. And I never wanted anyone else
(08:44):
to suffer like that, and that's why I decided to
write this book. I like your analogy of a man
as a walking tree that provides coverage to his village. Yes, sir,
And the title includes the phrase mail versus man? How
did you define male versus man? So simply put it,
you know, when we're born, we are either born male
(09:06):
or female. I know that's even a contract statement to
make during the time that we live in right now,
but unfortunately those are the facts as we know them,
okays on your birth certificate at least now, I think
they're even doing there, trying to do something different now.
But on our birth certificates it either said male or female.
(09:28):
It didn't say man or woman. So, in other words,
at birth, we were assigned either male or female, or
earthly assignment was to turn ourselves into either a man
or a woman, not based on you using your body
(09:49):
part as a demonstration of your manhood or your womanhood.
But in fact, your dedication to being of service is
what actually differentiates you from being a male or a man.
So simply put, males look to be served. Men look
to be of service. So I always tell the system
(10:13):
just that I'm around. You don't have to try to
guess whether the dude that you're dating is a male
or a man. He will tell you based on his actions.
Say that againdre males look to be served while men
look to be of service. Wow, so watch this a
guy who sits around waiting for everyone to serve him.
(10:36):
I'll give you an example. My son at a much
earlier age. He just turned thirteen. By the way, I
got two teenagers now. I don't even know how to
happen anyway. My son now, because every single day he
gets the messaging of manhood from me, has come a
long way. I would put my son's manhood up against
(10:58):
guys who are in their thirties and forties right now
because he receives this messaging every single day. But when
he was very young, four or five, six, seven years old,
all day long, all he would do was yell out
for my wife, mom, can I have some grapes? Mom?
Can I have some chips? Mom? Can I have something
(11:20):
to eat? Looking to be served? Now at that age,
that is appropriate because he doesn't quite know his assignment
in life here. But unfortunately, when you don't get someone
to explain to you what your assignment is, you think
(11:40):
that it's supposed to be everyone in your environment, everyone
in your cipher, serving you, when really your assignment on
this earth as a man is to be of service
to everyone around you. So, in other words, as a man,
every woman falls under my covering. So, brother Rodney, when
(12:04):
your wife, when you're not around, and she is directly
in my cipher, she now falls under my covering. Every
child in my cipher falls under my covering, whether they're
my biological child or not, whether they are my wife
or not. As a man, if they are in my cipher,
(12:29):
it is my job to protect and to serve them.
So males look to be served while men look to
be of service. There's a gigantic difference between simply being
a male and being a man. Huge You also spoke
about creating a calm environment or being the source of
calm and chaos. How do you suggest that men accomplished
(12:52):
that you spoke of women typically coming from or acting
from a place of emotion versus and the need for
a man to respond from a place of calm. Talk
to us about that. Yeah, because let me tell you something. Look,
(13:13):
here's why a male is dangerous when he doesn't understand
his assignment our chief generator. It's called testosterone. When a
male doesn't understand his assignment and he is allowing his
testosterone to guide him through life, he's gonna create a
(13:35):
lot of babies and a lot of chaos. Mm hmm.
And those babies are gonna fall under that umbrella of
chaos and be more chaotic if a woman, look my wife,
and I say this very tongue in cheek, but there's
so much truth in it. My wife is allowed to
(13:59):
be as emotional and as crazy as she wants to be,
not me. I am the last line of defense in
this house. So if my wife is emotional one day,
and sometimes there are some very biological things that are
happening with her every month that will allow her to
(14:23):
get outside of who she may be every day to
show up as her better self. So if she's feeling
more emotional on this particular day and doesn't allow herself
to to operate in the best version of herself. There
are certain things that she can say or do that
(14:46):
may activate me to respond in kind, but I can't
do that. I am the leader of my house. Let
me say this again. I I am the leader of
my house, not because I tell anybody what to do.
I want everybody to listen to me very carefully. I
(15:09):
don't tell anybody in my house what you do. My
wife is from the South side of Chicago. My wife
is a proud black woman that is not going to work.
I don't tell anybody what to do. I show people
what to do. I am the model that my house mirrors.
(15:31):
So if my wife raises her voice, if she's acting
in a way that is a little more emotional, that
is past the better version of herself. My job is
to now model for her what I want her the mirror. So,
in other words, and I talked about this in the book,
if my life is on dead, my job is to
(15:53):
be on two. It's extremely difficult to argue with somebody
if you can't hear them, so she's a doing at him.
My job is to be here too. I think Rodney
can relate to that strongly about you know, my wife
can be like that at time. Student, It's like you said,
it's my job to model that behavior to bring her
(16:15):
back to center. Yes, sir, because guess what, that's not
actually who she is. That's what she's doing, right, Yeah, right,
that's not actually who she is. My job is to
first put out the fire. I talked about this in
the book every Man Is a Firefighter. Yeah, my job
(16:36):
is to put out fires, not set them, got it.
So my job is not to be an arsonist. My
job is to be a firefighter and put them out.
So my job is to put out her fire first
and then try to figure out what caused that fire
and then have a loving discussion about that later on
(16:57):
so that she can be brought to a level of
consciousness to maybe avoid going to that space again. That's
my job. Now. You also talked earlier about how language
can activate or deactivate, you acknowledging that words you speak
affect people, how words how the words that you use
(17:17):
affect the people that you're speaking to. So I want
you to talk to us about an experience that you
had when you overheard Sally going over some homework with
your son, Dre tell us about that and how that
made you feel. Yeah, you know, it's interesting because words.
Language is so important, and I'm so glad God could
(17:39):
not have given me or gifted me a greater gift
than the gift of language. There are two forms of language,
in my humble opinion, and I talked about this in
the book, there's protein and there's Keresin protein language is
the kind of language that we used to help build
(18:01):
people up. Kerosene language is the kind of language that
we used to burn people. Every coach that coaches anything
in life, whether it's relationships or basketball, for the most part,
every coach has the same level of knowledge about a
particular subject. What separates good coaches from great coaches is
(18:27):
their language. And when they use language protein language that
helps to build the people up that they're communicating with,
it makes for a better team. So there is no
coincidence that there are certain people and I consider myself
to be the head coach of my team, which is
my family, because I have the best language. If my
(18:51):
wife was sitting here right now, she would tell you
that I am that person in this house. She does
have great language. But she will absolutely tell you that
I am the one that gives that kind of protein
language to both her and our children that allows them
to come to the better version of themselves. Because I
(19:13):
have a level of awareness that makes me say, okay,
wait a minute. I struggle at times. So my job
is to make sure that I elevate my own sense
of language and usage of it. Two then gift it
to my family so that they can allow themselves to
come to the better versions of themselves. You also came
(19:43):
up with the five languages of pain, and that really
resonated with me personally. So what does the what was
the acronym round? Yes? Indeed, what's so interesting about that
is when we talk about all of those particular things,
the language you know of pain, it's so interesting because
(20:06):
you know, cursing, you know, being one of them. For me,
I remember growing up in in Brooklyn and cursing was
like not a first not a second language. It was
the first lague absolutely. But before you go into all
of that, don Jay, can't you explain what the acronym
stands for? What does lucas mean? So when we talk
(20:30):
about this, and there's some other things that I want
to bring into the mix of this, right, because it's
so valuable, and I'm so glad that you guys brought
it up because it's gonna be valuable to everyone. Right.
So when we talk about when we talk about lucas,
when we talk about lusting and unforgiveness and cursing and
(20:53):
all of those things they talk, we really are dealing
with all of the things that every ones that society
gives us that breaks us down as the great communicators
of life, right, lusting in our relationships. When we talk
about lusting in our relationships, Lusting can be a great
(21:16):
thing when it involves us, when it involves our partners,
But when we extend that lusting outside of our relationships
and it goes to someone else, it can greatly deteriorate
everything that happens under our roof. Right. So, as a man,
(21:39):
my job is to make sure that I grab ahold
of what my lusting is and make sure that I'm
only using that within our bedroom. Right, That's extremely important.
How about the unforgivingness? Right? How often does someone do
something to you where you say I can't forgive them
(22:05):
or just carrying resentment? Carrying resentment? Right? Though, who does
that really hurt because I did this with my own father,
which is one of the reasons why I wrote this book.
I did this with my own father from the age
of six to the age of forty six. My father
(22:25):
and I were strange from each other because I wouldn't
forgive him, because that was a part of my own
pain that I couldn't come up under. I couldn't get
up from under that. It didn't hurt my father as
much as it hurt me. So I had to learn
how to forgive him. Yeah, because right, forgiveness is for you.
(22:48):
It's not really for the other person. The forgiveness exactly
for you. It is healing for you, exactly right, Right,
So if you're talking about that kind of stuff, you're
talking about healing yourself, then let's deal with cursing. Cursing
I stopped, boy, let me tell you something. Look, that
(23:11):
is such a bad What is that? It's just a
bad I don't want to call it a habit. It's
as I go straight to cussing somebody else, we go,
we go straight to it right now. Watch, not to
shame anyone's not to shame anyone's parents, right, but all
of our parents did it parents did. My parents did not. Never.
(23:36):
I never heard my mother or my father use foul language.
I don't know where I got Okay, so in a minute, okay,
so ever, where did this come from? With you? Did
you get that? I think that I got it because
like you, I was like skinting long hair, and I
think I used the foul language to make me tough,
(24:01):
to make me up tough. Yes, you know, don't fun
right right right? Right now? Watch this? Now, watch this?
Oh my god, this is so good. You used cursing
as a device. Yes, what you did was you used
(24:23):
that in order to send a signal to everyone, first
and foremost, I'm not light skinned, I'm like you, tough,
just like you. I'm gonna prove it to you. Look
at the way I kept right, because they're shame sometimes
in our communities, there's actually shame for not speaking a
(24:45):
certain way, for not speaking with particular vernacular. Right. Then,
what you did was you actually bought into the fact,
or bought into this notion that made you more acceptable.
Yeah blacker, right, And you made that your own and
(25:09):
didn't even realize that you were attacking your own spirit
by doing it. Wow, so true, No beautiful thing has
ever been expressed using that language. Wow, that is so true.
Now watch this, I'll prove it to you. When a
(25:32):
baby is born and we hold that baby in our arms,
no one ever holds the baby going oh look at you,
you beautiful motherful, you are the greatest I've ever seen
in my life. You never did that in your life.
You know for a fact that language would violate that. There,
(25:57):
that baby's very spirit it. Yeah, yeah, right. So what
we did is in society we learn to use cursing
as a device. What about the A? What does the
A stand for? The anger? Right? Right? Anger is extremely important,
(26:17):
particularly as men. Anger is extremely important for us because
we generally will be physical first, so our sisters will
generally be emotional first. We generally will be physical first.
(26:39):
It's extremely important for us to be in control of
our anger because we can cause great damage. But you
also said that anger is a reflection of typically of hurt.
I'm really in pain. There's something, you know, third up
(27:00):
in me that I'm releasing through this anger and the
screaming and the cursing and all of that. It's real
and it's coming from a place of unresolved pain. Yeah,
that's exactly right. So if we look at that, right,
we look at lusting first as the passion of pain.
(27:22):
We look at unforgiveness as the memory of pain. We
look at cursing as the vocabulary of pain. Anger is
the emotion of pain, right. So there's no way for
me to be angry about anything unless I'm first in
pain about it. So what I have to do is,
(27:44):
once I'm angry, I have to examine what is it
that I'm in pain about, Because as a man, I
can get everybody in trouble if I'm angry. My job
is not for me to control my emotion. My job
is to control my response. So once I figure out
(28:06):
what my pain is, I can now control how I
respond to that pain. And that makes sense how a
sarcasm come in thow? So sarcasm is actually the humor
of pain. Right. I love that role because whenever we
sit there and we joke about something, somebody says something
(28:31):
and they say they make a sarcastic comment to you
that's really about that particular space of them feeling pain,
but they're using the expression of that pain with humor,
and there in lies the sarcasm. So whenever you're sarcastic
about something. Realize that what you're doing is that you're
(28:55):
trying to cloak your pain pretty bailey, so that people
don't really understand that you're actually in pain. But they
used that sarcasm as this humor and they go, oh,
he's actually pretty funny, when really I'm actually using this
particular device to hide my levels of pain. Every single
(29:20):
thing that we look at, from our lusting, to our unforgiveness,
to our cursing, to our anger, to our sarcasm, everything
is about examining our pain. Got it. So you and
(29:40):
I were talking last night and we were talking about
some of the challenges that you had so in the
in the cities of Baltimore. I was a male longer
than I would have liked to have been so very
well put, so, you know, wanted to ask you, you know,
(30:01):
what do you think are some of the challenges that
black men face these days? Oh my gosh, to becoming
a man. You know, I'm thinking that make racism, poor education,
lack of fathers in the home, lack of good mentors
in their life, culture, being hard tough, thug culture. You know,
that's way overrated. What do you think there are so many.
(30:25):
And I say this with all due respects to our sisters,
because they obviously experience a great deal of challenges in
our society, even with within our community. But now there
is such an attack on black men right now, and
(30:46):
I'm just gonna say it because I'm not gonna tiptoe
around it anymore, even our sisters. Look, I stopped doing
a television show because I didn't like the worries that
were being told about. I had a meeting where I
was told I was playing a character that was salt
(31:08):
of the earth, servant to the highest degree for his people.
And I was told before one of our seasons that
they had to this is a direct quote, they had
to dirty him up. And I said, okay, can you
tell me why he's just too good? And I will
(31:29):
never forget the flushed feeling that came over me. And
I stopped and I said, if this character were white,
do you know what his name would be? And they
all collectively shift their heads no, And I said his
name would be my dreamy. Nobody's having meetings about dirtying
(31:49):
up McDreamy. You know why, because somehow they think that
white men are capable of being that good. Yeah, nobody's
having meetings despite all of the evidence that we see
almost daily about the fact that some of our white
(32:10):
brothers art always so good, But still no one's having
meetings about dirty ng up white characters or television. Why
are we having meetings about black men being dirtied up?
Because it's just not possible for them to be that good.
(32:34):
I will never forget during some of our episodes where
he's involved with this woman, what with his sister, and
the comments online from our sisters consistently were, I don't
trust him. I don't trust him. He can't be that good.
(33:00):
Got to be wrong with him. Now, let me tell
you something that's a powerful statement. It is because what
it says is that a black man can't be that good.
Then let me tell you something, Dendre Whitfield, I am
not good, and I ain't the only one. I am
not an anomaly. I am not a unicorn. There are
(33:23):
a bunch of brothers that are out here in our communities,
in our society that are that good, that looked to
serve our sisters, our children, that served to uplift our
community and aren't looking to harm anybody. And I was
so disappointed to see your character leave and that was
(33:46):
such a huge role and such an opportunity for you
had it. That makes you feel first of all when
you got the call and then when you made the decision,
because you didn't have to make that decision, but you
made the decis vision to exit. I think that was
huge because that I hear about that with women a
(34:07):
lot with women actors, but I don't know how often
and may because I just don't know any and I
haven't been in conversation male actors who have had to
make that choice of the type of roles and how
they're willing to present themselves. Look, we have to start examining,
(34:29):
and I'm talking about black people. Yes, we have to
start examining who the freak is telling me stories about
our people, and in particular black men, because what are
the stories that are being told about black women that
they are absolutely necessary, which they are absolutely necessary in
(34:53):
our communities. Our communities would fall apart without black women.
I agree with that, But is that to say that
our communities don't fall apart and aren't falling apart when
black men aren't playing the roles if they need to
play in them. Absolutely, men are just as important as
(35:14):
black women in our community. But you realize that historically
we have been programmed to believe that we don't need
black men. I mean, it's been set up that way
from days of slavery, so you know, it's just ingrained
in us, and I kind of wanna, Oh my goodness,
there's so This is why this book is so good,
(35:36):
because there's so much that I want to talk about
that I'm just running out of time, But I gotta
go back. Yeah, we may need apart to donre, we
may neage part too, because I gotta go back to this.
I gotta go back to the statement that where you
talked about before that women can't raise males because I
(35:56):
know that they're gonna be women that that challenge that.
But I think it's so important that with regard to
fatherless homes, please speak to us about this very complex
dynamic when boys become the moth and the moth meaning
man of the house at a very young age. When
(36:21):
there's a fatherless home, there's a single you know, woman
and giving that role to her son and he doesn't
have the power or the tools to handle it, and
what that does to the relationship with his mom and
how he views relationships with women. Let me tell you
(36:45):
one of the most damaging things that a young male,
a boy ever hears in his life is you are
the man of the house. Right. You know how painful
it is to be given an assignment and not have
the skill sets, the tools to be able to complete
the task. That is exactly what happens to any boy
(37:09):
who is told that he is the man of the house.
He becomes the emotional partner to his mother. So, in
other words, the substitute boyfriend. And now she is trying
to both raise as an emotional crutch that she doesn't
(37:31):
have in a life partner. That is devastating because what
he begins to learn is that a woman speaks to
him a certain way. He actually begins to dislike this
new partner that he has. I'm gonna be honest with
(37:51):
you and tell you that I fell out of love
with black women for a time based on a relationship
that I have with my mother. And it was because
of the constant, at times chastising that happens when a
woman feels the pain of a past partner that she
(38:14):
created this child with. And I looked just like my father.
So at times when you hear you just like him.
You ain't gonna be ish just like him. And I've
forgiven my mother for though my mother had me at
a very young age. My mother was a late teen,
so she was a child herself. So I had to
(38:38):
forgive my mother for that because giving her that grace
and understanding that my mother was still a child herself
and trying to figure it out. Right. And you probably
experienced this with Jada as well, in being a young
mom and at times not fully equipped, and so you
(38:59):
couldn't show up as your best self because you didn't
have all of the tools that you needed to be
your best self yet. Right. And so what happens to
a male trying to come into manhood and in learning
how to be in partnership with them, you learn how
to argue, because you see, that's what's modeled for you. Right.
(39:23):
So love now looks like argument, dissension, anger, violence, that's
what love begins to look like. For every boy, the
first love of his life is his mother. Yeah, the
question now becomes what did the first love of your
life do to your heart? You begin to dole out
(39:47):
pain as you receive it because you associate that with love. Right,
So many of our sisters go through the same things.
They get a part a partner who reminds them of
their father. What if your father was a male, and
the choosing males not because that feels good, it feels familiar, right, right, right,
(40:14):
So you choose a partner that feels familiar, like your dad,
if your dad loved you, If your dad abuse you,
you will often choose abuse. Does that feels familiar, Not
that it feels good, It just feels familiar, and you
associate that familiarity with love. So that boy, that moth
(40:34):
feels the same way. And so we begin in this
cycle of everyone choosing all of this pain not because
it feels good, it feels familiar. So we have to
start really teaching our young ones at a very early
age this is what love feels like. It feels like
open communication. It feels communication at two not then it
(40:59):
feels the wage of love and not cursing and not
sarcasm and all of those other things that are painful
to us because they become the model that we eventually
will begin to mirror in our relationships. Yeah, and so
I want to say too that this speaks to the
importance of single women trying to find a positive role
(41:23):
model for their boys, because boys need to be fathered
and not really just children need to be fathered. And
I know that when in trying to raise Jada, I
wasn't always successful, but I tried to be very cautious
about the men that I allowed into her life. I
(41:44):
didn't let every like I was young. I was seventeen
when I had Jada, But I didn't let every time
Dick and Harry. Yeah, I didn't let every time Dick
and Harry that I decided I was interested in. I
didn't expose Jada to all those people. You have to
be cautious and and and it's your responsibility as a
parent to find that positive role model for your children.
(42:08):
And if it's you know, I was lucky I had
my father, that I had men in my family that
I could rely on. That's not the case for anybody.
But that is your job. That is your job because
you don't have to do it alone. And I think
that's really important. This is a whole another conversation. I
(42:30):
think Rodney has one more, one more question. He wants
to come. So I have daughters, So I was I
you know, I didn't have the responsibility of raising men.
But all there's certain life lessons you're trying to pass
down to your sons. If my son was sitting here
right now and I asked him, or you asked him, Dre,
(42:52):
why did God put you here? My son would tell
you plainly to be of service. Wow, my son knows
that his assignment on this earth is to be a
man that is a powerful servant. That is it. If
we drum into our sons that messaging, it will take
(43:16):
care of everything. We gotta teach them to be great men, perfect, perfect,
And thank you so much. It was a joy and
a pleasure to have it. Please everybody, please go out
and get this book. It is such so worth a read,
and it's not just for men to read. It was
so I saw myself in this book. It's powerful, it's powerful.
(43:40):
Please tell everybody where they can find you on social
media Dondre. Instagram is all Dondre A L D O
N D R E, and Twitter and Facebook is at
Ddre Whitfield. And you can buy Mail versus Man anywhere
you buy books. Yes, I was gonna say, please go
out and get through yourself a faith. Even it's perfect,
(44:02):
you will not be disappointed, I promise you. I am
looking forward to part two for so much that we
didn't know. I know we have so much more to
talk about. Thank you. Don Next up Rodney's takeaways from
(44:25):
our conversation on man versus Mail. So one of my
takeaways from Males versus Men is the importance of indoctrinating
young men into the philosophy of being of service and
(44:48):
not being served at an early age. That philosophy is
powerful and will certainly help in the transition from young
man to man. Another takeaway from may Those versus men
is that a man should always model the behavior that
he wants his home to mirror. He should always be
(45:10):
the firefighter, putting out fires and keeping a state of
calm in the process, figuring out what started the fire
in the first place, to bring about resolve in his
home and with friends and family. That wraps it up
for us. Thank you for listening to this episode of
Positively gam You can follow me on all social platforms
(45:31):
at gammy Narris. Then you can follow me at Rodney
Nara's Underscore on Instagram. Help us out by leaving a
five star review on Apple Podcasts and hitting the follow
button on I Heart Radio. Stay grateful y'all positively. Gam
is produced by red Table Talk Podcast and I Heart Radio.
Executive producers are Adrian Banfield, Naris Valan Jethro and Jada
(45:55):
Pinkett Smith. Our audio engineer is Calvin Bailiff, and our
associate producer is Irene Bischoffberger. Our theme song is produced
by d beats h
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!