Above The Noise
A podcast at the intersection of faith, race, and reconciliation. People of faith should be leaders of reconciliation however historically issues of race and culture seem to get in the way of rising above differences to find common ground through reconciliation. We discuss those challenges and sometimes we may also stray onto different topics but we'll always come back to reconciliation.
Above The Noise
Episode 64: Raising Black Boys into Exceptional Men
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Four Black fathers gather around the kitchen table for an intimate, powerful discussion about raising Black boys into exceptional Black men. Their conversation weaves through personal histories—from functional alcoholism in the Caribbean to Black Panthers in Seattle—revealing how each man's upbringing shaped his approach to fatherhood.
The dialogue crackles with hard-earned wisdom as they explore the importance of Black male visibility in schools and communities. Their presence benefits not just their sons but all the children in the room. These fathers speak candidly about breaking generational cycles—forgiving their own fathers for "survival behaviors" while consciously creating different paths for their sons. They share stories of teaching their boys to navigate a world where they might need more education than their peers to maintain equal footing, balancing the harsh reality of societal bias with the promise of unlimited potential.
Faith emerges as a cornerstone of their parenting philosophy. Rather than sheltering their sons from worldly influences, they've taught them to analyze media through a biblical lens, turning potential conflicts into opportunities for deeper understanding of their values.
Whether you're raising Black boys or simply interested in understanding the unique challenges and joys of Black fatherhood, this episode offers profound insights into creating legacy, building character, and nurturing the next generation of leaders. Join us for this vulnerable, inspiring conversation about love, legacy, and the sacred responsibility of raising sons.
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A parent showing up in a school setting, semi-regular, whatever can improve that grade point average a bit, because them teachers are a little more dialed in, because they but they are dialed in for all the kids because you're in there, you're watching or you're helping out for your child, but everybody is benefiting from the fact that there's somebody in the room, and I think it's just really important for men especially black boys, to see black men.
Grantley Martelly:One of the things that I had that I noticed was my father drank a lot. I called him a functional alcoholic. He could drink and he could still go to work or whatever. So I'm drunk a few times, but that was pretty common in the Caribbean. Setting, you know, Friday nights you get off work, you don't come home straight. You setting, you know, Friday nights you get off work, you don't come home straight. You stop by the, what you guys call a bar. We call it a rum shop. So we lost a beautiful home because of alcohol. So welcome, brothers. This has been a long time since we've been talking about getting together and having this discussion together. The topic for today is raising black boys, or raising black boys into black men.
Grantley Martelly:And it's something that we've been wanting to do for a long time, and there's many reasons that we could talk about this and we're going to get into it, but one of the obvious reasons is somebody's going to say well, you know why? Raising black boys, and not just raising black, raising all boys? The first part of that is that we're all black, we all have boys, so for us for us it's a pretty obvious topic, right?
Grantley Martelly:But there's some other things more a little bit deeper than that too, than just the fact that who we are, that we are, we're all black, but there's some unique things in that we believe in raising black young men into men that we think is important in us for us to spend some time talking about. So we're just talking about in the kitchen this, literally around the kitchen table this is the kitchen club cabinet of terry and Deshaun and Andre. So let's begin with some introductions. We start with you, andre, and then work our way in. Tell us who you are, tell us a little bit about your family, so that we can get grounded and get started.
Dr. Andre Sims:Absolutely so. Andre Sims, married to Kathy Sims 35 years. Next month, will be 36 years. Our son turns 33 next month and we only have the one son. We have two kids, son and daughter, but we have the one son, I think. First of all, I would like to identify the chronology of those numbers. I've been married 35. My son is 33. I've been married 35. My son is 33.
Dr. Andre Sims:When you talk about black men and their boys, sometimes there's an assumption that there was a shotgun wedding or necessity, or whatever the case might be. This was a planned pregnancy after marriage that's where I want to start and my parents. I worked together 43 years before my father passed. My parents were never divorced. I grew up with a father in the home that was my biological father. So that's part of my family history.
Dr. Andre Sims:And then I think the last thing I'll say as an introduction is that my father graduated high school at 16 in Detroit and went to the armed services at 18, to the Air Force, and they used to have GI families at that time. And so the host family, the Sauvets, was the family that my father went to on the weekends, and he told them he wanted to learn the language. We were just having a conversation about Terry's daughter learning Japanese, and so the Sauvets at that point were four generations of physicians and they told him every time you come you're not allowed to speak English. So my father learned the language the first year of his four years in Europe and came back to Michigan and got accepted to Michigan State and knew he only had four years of the GI Bill. So he finished his four-year undergrad in three and his two-year master's in one. So that's the kind of father as a black boy for myself, the model I had coming into my adulthood.
Grantley Martelly:Thank you.
De'Sean Quinn:Deshaun. So I'm Deshaun Quinn. I like where you started. September it'll be 20 years married to Nicole Quinn and it's funny that I think about it my parents got divorced right before their 20th. I came from a home of four boys and when my parents got divorced because my father was in the home up until I was 15, I would say that that's probably one of the most critical times. A little bit of history as well. Times a little bit of history as well. Um. My mother, um brenda quinn um, was brought to seattle by her father, who was in the military um. Once he got out, he went back to john's island, south carolina, picked her up and raised her.
Dr. Andre Sims:Um, uh by his own.
De'Sean Quinn:And that is a legacy. So when the four of us were in the home, my mother was a disciplinarian, serious, but she kept us together. Four boys, and now I have two, 15 and 10. Still learning but loving every day.
Terry White:Terry, my name is Terry White and I'm going to take us to another side of the coin and I like how you started as well. So I will say that I am married to the beautiful Danae White and we have been together for 26 years. I have been divorced and remarried. Fortunately, I figured it out and that remarry was to the same woman. We have five kids. Two are boys, three are boys. I say three and a half because I helped raise my nephew, who found his way to my house quite a bit. Quite often I did not know my father growing up and it turned out the father that I thought was my father wasn't, but my father was in the military. But my father was in the military. Surprisingly, my mom ended up here in the state of Washington following her sister who was married to a man who was in the military, so that military migration is real.
Terry White:And I would say this I met my father, my biological father, at 56, when I found out he was in the military. He didn't know I existed until I showed up. I learned a lot from him historically about where I come from, which is why I sought him out. I wanted to be able to tell my kids where they came from. But not having that father figure in your life, you search out and try to find folks who are you, who you perceive are doing the things that you want to be about, and you start to mimic them. But you also learn how to pick and choose. I'm going to do that. I'm not going to do that. This is what I'll do with my boys and I think it was important, from where I came from, to acknowledge to my kids that I don't have a blueprint, so that please give me some grace as I go through this, I'm going to make some mistakes, some a lot sometimes.
Terry White:And but. But the goal here is for you to end up doing this a little better than even I did, and that I do it better than the absentee father that I had.
Grantley Martelly:Thank you, terry. I'm Grant Lee, the host of this podcast. I grew up in a home with five sisters and two brothers. My parents were not married. Actually, we were divided the eight of us between three different fathers, and I'm the seven of eight, so me and my younger sister the last two are my father and he was around some of the times and not all of the time, and it wasn't always a most pleasant experience. I really idolized my father growing up, even though he was not looking back at it not really a good example, but, like you said, you know, looking for that father figure and looking for that person that you hope will be there for you and give you direction, and he really wasn't there most of the time. I also noted in my community that it was pretty common for many homes not to have fathers in them, or fathers very often, so a lot of women raising boys and girls and doing an excellent job. My mother raised us very well. I wouldn't complain about that. And then, even when we went to church, the majority of the people at church were women, and there were some men there who were married as well, but the majority were women, and that's where I found, first of all, men who were willing to take me on and teach me things was at church, and then we had some teachers at school who were male teachers and obviously they knew the situations where we came from, and some of them took interest in us and tried to teach us things that they thought we needed to know, or they would challenge us into doing things and not doing things. That's all we needed to know. They would challenge us into doing things and not doing things.
Grantley Martelly:But I think you know, for me, I had a fortunate opportunity at the age of 17 to meet a gentleman from the United States who was passing through Barbados on his way to another island to see his daughter, and he challenged me to attend university in the United States and he became to me eventually what I consider to be my dad. So I consider him to be my dad. I have a biological father, but I have a father who taught me what it was to be a man, a stranger that I met at age 19. A stranger that I met at age 19. He became the one that then began to instill in me those godly principles and how to live and how to behave and things to do and not to do, and that challenged me. Even when we were having challenges in our marriage, he would intervene. So that's just the beginning here. We don't have to get into it. But the thing about us, then, is not only were we brought up in different homes, but we all have sons, right? I have one son, ryan, who was in the Air Force.
Grantley Martelly:Tamina and I have been married for 38 years. In two weeks, june 9th, will be 38 years. All right, so let's talk about a couple of things. What are some of the challenges that we face in our society today that make it really important for this topic to be discussed? About raising black boys into black men, I think you touched on some of them already, but let's sort of delve into them a little bit more. What are some of the challenges? Who wants to go first?
De'Sean Quinn:If I can jump in, because hopefully I don't get too deep but I didn't talk a little bit about. Like my dad, my dad was a Black Panther. Yes, he married my mom when she was 16 and he was 18. Married my mom when she was 16 and he was 18. He raised us. He was a strong personality and one we call old school right, and, I think at a younger age, just kind of quick to anger. He would go to work, be gone all day, maybe all night, but he'd always say he'd get up and go to work, he'd be there for sports. I mean, I really looked up to my dad and there were things legacy-wise I can tell that he inherited from his father, um, and not unlike your story, he he met his dad, you know, uh, when he was an adult and actually his name isn't quinn, it's jordan, and his father didn't want anything to do with him. He was.
De'Sean Quinn:He had anger issues and so when you think about and I'll just be real clear here like one of the things, that me and my three brothers did, is how are we going to raise our kids when we have kids and one of the things that we remembered was in those instances, and there were plenty. When we have kids, and one of the things that we remembered was in those instances, and there were plenty you can never forget how you felt. You wanted a protector, Somebody that you look up to, and you ask yourself the question if he loved me, then why does he allow his anger to get to a place I'm going somewhere with this and I've always had a good relationship, but we could have been a lot closer.
De'Sean Quinn:I'm sure I picked up all his health habits high blood pressure, but also it's kind of due to the anger and it was funny a couple years ago, which is amazing. I have a good relationship with my father, I love him, I love him, I honor him as much as I can. I got to thank him and acknowledge and forgive him for his survival behaviors and you learn, like generationally, the example he saw. Maybe he was just replicating that, but then, um, my father went from um graduating garfield, going to the University of Washington, becoming the first African-American cameraman at Cairo, highest-ranking African-American in the insurance business, and I say all that not I mean I'm proud of it, but the whole point is the pressures of being the first or the one in the room and that maybe that gets internalized and brought home and being the recipient of that, um, I wanted to break some generational curses by one showing my children how to deal with their anger. Um to um, living a healthier lifestyle, communicating, because that's another generational thing is you don't have to be tough.
De'Sean Quinn:We need wellness, and when we have struggles, let's talk about them, and so in some ways I also thank my father for that as well. And I remember for a while I was pretty upset when they got divorced and he distanced himself. And then I went away to Morehouse and I just remember really thinking about, like, why isn't he here, why isn't you know? But there there are reasons. But it wasn't until I forgave him for the situation. Did I? Did I actually get to connect with him and talk to him and learn even more of the history about our family and his experiences?
De'Sean Quinn:And then I'll close with this it's funny when you talk about forgiveness and grace, about our family and his experiences. And then I'll close with this it's funny when you talk about forgiveness and grace. Remember, I told you about my father not really knowing his father. He called me and my brothers because his father had passed in Portland and this was kind of the first time he said hey, regardless of what's going on, can we all go down there? Can you support me? So we go to the funeral? And his family said we don't recognize y'all in the family.
De'Sean Quinn:You're not his son and it was a time to kind of bond on our connection and kind of renew our love and respect for one another and then also just reflect on his experience because his father was never in the home Again, like really focusing on generational things that we want to change and how that ties to Raising Boys. I'm very intentional about that process and again a lot of it's coming from those experiences of wanting somebody to talk to when I was in high school or my senior year or picking colleges or you know, and that support. I had to kind of find it with the broader family that was around me and kind of figure it out. Like you all said, it's like you kind of. We have this extended family that come in and help. But again I go back to that forgiving him for survival behaviors.
De'Sean Quinn:That moment I mean he cried and thanked me in that moment I'm glad he did it. He perceived it well, but it was so it was. It was a bonding. It was another bonding moment for us and and we are, we are as close as we can be. Um, he knows he's always there for me. If I need something he'll be there. Um, but I'm so proud of, like his legacy. So sorry to go on, but I mean it's kind of a.
Terry White:It's one of those things I hold on to I think you said something that I think I pick up on is this whole like I tell my boys that not having a blueprint and how I'm going to try to figure this out with you and I need you to communicate with me. Well, that hurt, that didn't feel good. But I love how you came in and apologized and we moved on, and I love how you show love after the moment, like it's still OK. But something you said and you kind of allude to without even getting to is this whole thing of your father did better than his father did for you even in the struggle.
Terry White:That's right, and, whether he said it to you or not, his expectation for you to be better and do better. I mean we kind of want that. I think it's ironic that all these athletes out here are always talking about how they were better than the generation before them, but as parents, they always want their kids to be better to do better in all those areas the contradiction is something.
Terry White:But I think you said it. We all have been saying the thing I look at in terms of finding father figures, and especially for black boys who have to, who are I mean, the world is biased anyway and how it looks at, how we look at each other across the spectrum, but how folks look at black boys started from a place of you're just a ch, a chattel, that's what you are. You do things for me and I don't pay you. Uh, feed you so that you can stay healthy enough to do more things for me. Uh, and then, having that to, how does that evolve into a place where you are looked at as valuable, respected, trustworthy, productive, professional, and that's, I think, the things we're always trying to figure out how to work on. And when you come from a generation where they separated us, they took you from your children.
Terry White:You didn't get the chance to figure out how to have a bond to, let alone then try to figure out how to take care of a home without these tools that other folks had growing up to, then trying to pass that on to the next generation to do it even a little, just a little bit better and hope that that keeps going.
Terry White:And I think that's the biggest thing to me was I don't have a father figure that I look at and go, this is the thing I cherish, or whatever, and it was so common that I never missed it. I just didn't even what I'm missing a dad, and it was never there for me.
Terry White:So, that wasn't the reason that spurred me on, but how I grew up and how I was treated and how I was viewed trusted or not trusted, depending on what my abilities were those were things that I was really trying to make sure I passed on to my kids. You're going to be looked at a certain way. You're going to be judged before you walk in the room. You need to show up a certain way.
De'Sean Quinn:I know you kind of alluded to some of this.
Terry White:Grant Lee is how you walk into a place, how you sit up front, how you raise your hand, how you engage in conversations is going to matter for you, let alone how you show up when the police car pulls. Yeah, and make sure that music and that sound goes down quickly.
Terry White:Get your hands where you can see them.
Terry White:But that's all the stuff that you hope and pray that it gets easier and easier as the generations go. And I think it is in a lot of ways, but there's so much more to this that we were behind on. But I love the spectrum of where we are on that and how you can see the hope of what we can all get to as a, as a community of black folks, of black men.
Terry White:There's a place to go and I think that's the thing I try to to pass to even you know, beyond my boys, I have my boys who are now becoming mentors to other kids and to show them what's possible. If you do these things, that's becoming the real thing is this I have this group that I get to hang out with beyond even you all, that I'm so proud of, that I get to show other kids who look like us and say this is what you can be. And it's beyond that whole thing where King County talks about the opportunity to thrive which is more than survive Thrive.
Grantley Martelly:Thrive is not.
Terry White:You know, it's more than just.
Grantley Martelly:I ate Just barely getting along, a little bit more than just barely getting along.
Terry White:You're supposed to enjoy life, so how we get our kids to that place so it's commonplace and it's not an anomaly. I think is the biggest thing that I caught on to was hey he's saying something I need to hear, or he's doing something I need to do for myself and for my family and for their families, right.
Grantley Martelly:Andrea, anything to add?
Dr. Andre Sims:You know, again just dealing with the spectrum of kind of. You know the dynamic of the four of us and our childhood. So I think one thing I picked up on what Terry was saying is you know this 10 and 2 o'clock is what Deshaun said. And what does it mean to be black and to be pulled over? When I moved federal way, the African-American population was 7%. The chief of police is a Korean believer, andy Wong, and he's just a very real guy. He's just a very, very straightforward type type of person, and so he would provide the statistics on traffic stops, and the traffic stops of african-americans in federal way at that time was 31, but they made up seven percent of the population. Yeah, and I was saying what, how do we explain this? And so then he came up with this chief of police advisory council that had people of color on it as a way to address the facts. This is not fiction. This is not people of color just throwing out information that has not been substantiated. This is coming from the police themselves.
Dr. Andre Sims:So I just remember, growing up, my father explaining to me what it meant for him to have to come up to the school because of my behavior him to have to come up to the school because of my behavior and that he was not opposed to coming to the school. But his favorite phrase don't have me coming up there being loud and wrong. If you call me, you better have your ducks in a row, you, you, I better know the truth, the whole truth and nothing. But don't let nobody tell me, surprise me with something you didn't tell me before I left work and came to your school. But recently I had a, a high school friend of mine, pass away um and and we were, we were, we were really close, donnell myself, and we were really close, and so it was an unexpected heart attack kind of thing. So I flew back to Chicago about I guess it's been about seven months ago now.
Dr. Andre Sims:So a lot of the high school crew came through. I've been out of high school, I hate to say it 40 years, so some of those guys I haven't seen in literally in decades. And one of the common themes at the repass after the celebration of life was dude. I always admired the fact that your father, when he came to the school, it wasn't just about you, it was about every black boy in the school right, and most of my friends didn't have a father in the home. Many knew of their fathers but didn't have relationships with their fathers, and so it was always a big deal when dr sims came to the school because he he was coming and something was going to get worked out and it was going to help all the black males, that's right, you know my, my PE teacher, and I'll pass the mic.
Dr. Andre Sims:My PE teacher, mr Bequette, decided that instead of calling him Mr Bequette, I needed to call him sir, and I communicated that my father doesn't require me to call him sir, but I am required to call you with a title. So I choose Mr Perquet, and he kicked me out of class and I circled back about 10 minutes later and said I just want to be clear that I called you by a title out of respect and because I didn't say sir, you kicked me out of class. Blah, blah, blah, blah. I didn't say sir, you kicked me out of class. Blah, blah, blah blah.
Dr. Andre Sims:I don't care who you are so I went to the pay phone, called my dad and by the time he got to the office, all 14 black males in my PE class were in the office 14 of us, because he was a requirement of all of us but of those 14, I was the only one that had a father I could call. I like that. I grew up watching my dad stand for black boys not just his son and it taught me that's how I need to live my life, not just for the one that biologically belongs to me, but the ones in the community, the neighborhood, the church and so on and so forth.
Terry White:I think that's really important is you're raising more than just yours. Yes At that point, for sure I know, when my middle son, kendall, was in about the sixth grade, I was coaching his football team and I used to show up at the school quite a bit and he would be like, why are you always in here?
Terry White:and yeah, and it was about it was about more than him, but I remember the you know he. He was taking care of business. He would. He would come to the car and go. Okay, before you go in there, I have a a, b on this, but I've already talked to the teacher.
Terry White:She missed a piece. It's an A.
Terry White:It's going to be corrected tomorrow, right, right, so you don't have to go in and do all that stuff you did, just weigh that out. I'll show you the A tomorrow and I had explained to them half the time I'm in there.
Terry White:It's not for you, it's for the other kids that are on your team. And the same point I'm making there was because half of them don't have somebody to show up for them. Even the ones who have mothers and fathers, because of the predicament they're in in terms of their work, they're not really allowed to go. I remember my mom saying when I come to your school, I'm not making money, they're not giving me some type of grace thing. So she was more like don't let me have to come up here at all.
Terry White:I'm losing money. Can you listen to that Right, right.
Terry White:But the thing is for all of us, and we used to joke about this, but there's some truth in the fact that a parent showing up in a school setting semi-regular, whatever can improve that grade point average a bit, because them teachers are a little more dialed in because they see you are, but they are dialed in for all the kids because you're in there, right, you're watching or you're helping out for your child, but everybody is benefiting from the fact that there's somebody in the room and I think it's just really important for men, especially black boys, to see black men Absolutely In those types of settings you get to aspire to something.
Terry White:That's what I want to do. That's what I want to be, I want to give back like that and you start to see that play itself out over and over. That stuff matters a lot.
Grantley Martelly:Yeah, especially when you grow up in communities where most of the homes don't have a father in them, right? Because as the black boys are growing up, we're growing up you're not seeing that father figure, you're not having that father figure there, right? So then, who stands in for you and who stands in the community for you? You know you guys talked about, you know, one of the challenges when you raising your sons. You know the things that you said you didn't want to do as fathers, right, and I had my list too you know things I didn't want to do as fathers.
Grantley Martelly:I wanted one of my son to grow up in a home with both parents, you know, to do good in school. You know my mother always insisted that we did good in school. I mean, it was I call my mother the benevolent dictator, right? You guys probably identify with that right. She instilled value, she instilled purpose, she instilled everything in you, but she expected you to do what you were supposed to do right, which is to go to school. And I remember when I was 16, I told my mother I wanted to quit school because I was just angry.
Grantley Martelly:I didn't want to go to school. And now she said while you live in this house, you will do what I tell you to do and your job right now is to finish school. So end the discussion. Right, you know, but you need that right. In their typical home, if you had a father, the father would have been having that discussion, right, but she had to do that discussion.
Grantley Martelly:But one of the things that I had in my that I noticed was my father drank a lot. I called him a functional alcoholic. He could drink and he could still go to work or whatever. So I'm drunk a few times, but that was pretty common in our in the Caribbean setting. You know, friday nights you get off work, you don't come home straight. You stop by the what you guys call a bar, we call it a rum shop in the neighborhood and all the fellas are hanging out there and they're playing dominoes and some of them are spending the money they shouldn't be spending. Some of them are doing whatever. But you know they drank a lot and and uh, listened to cricket and did all this stuff. And he was also a womanizer.
Grantley Martelly:You know and I'm not degrading my father, these are things that I've said to his face, right, and I also said them in his eulogy and his wife, she thanked me. I said can I say these things? She said, yeah, it is what it is, but he changed in his latter years, coming into his latter years before he passed away. He changed a lot but we weren't around. So one of the things that I saw was I didn't want to see. I saw how alcohol took away a nearly everything that people work so hard to accomplish. So we lost a beautiful home because of alcohol. I saw him lost nearly everything and I saw my uncles lose and lose and lose and lose. So I made the decision that I'm not going to be a drinker, an alcoholic, and people ask me a lot you know, why don't you drink or whatever? I don't drink for a number of reasons. One of them is my faith. But I mean I have a glass of wine periodically and stuff, but I'm talking about like these guys could drink a bottle of rum.
Grantley Martelly:Like fish. Without chisels right.
Grantley Martelly:This is serious drinking right, and I tell them I don't do that, not because I can't do it, because my father introduced me to alcohol when I was about nine years old. I do it because I don't do it because I see what it can do when it begins to rule your life, and I taught that to my children as well. I think we all have that list of things that we say that we don't want to do because of what we saw with our fathers. So that was one of the things on my list, and then the other thing was not to come to the end of my life and have lost everything that I worked for.
Terry White:Pass something on.
Grantley Martelly:Yeah, pass something on to your family.
Terry White:I think legacy is important and coming from places where that's not common hasn't been common historically for us folks who look like us, always starting over because of a death. That's right we have to move. We don't have oh, there was nothing. We have to try another way now, and those are the kind of things you learn from another way now.
Terry White:And those are the kind of things you learn from I know. You know my mom married a man who, for a few years, was my stepfather and I could tell he was trying, but he also drank a lot. He's a good man when he wasn't drinking, Unfortunately, he drank a lot. You could see him try. You could see that he was probably doing better than he had seen before. Uh, but the lessons he was teaching me was that same one you got was uh, maybe I need to stay away from this bottle stuff, um, because you seem to be a completely different person. Uh, when you're doing that and you do that a lot.
Terry White:Now the other thing for me was not knowing the biological makeup of my father and being a little guy. Back in the day I was trying to figure out how to get to college and my mom didn't have the money, so I was intent on not doing drugs, smoking. I got to be just as fast as I can possibly be and I need to top out at the height I'm supposed to potentially get to. If that stuff is going to mess that up. I can't afford to do that because no one's paying. I've got to get some help. So for me it was more of the if I'm going to get to the place where I can be a giver, a helper, a contributor. These are some of the things I just can't do because I don't know if I'm addicted.
Terry White:If you're prone to that?
Grantley Martelly:yeah, If I try it and it gets me, I'm done it and it gets me.
Terry White:I'm done. So a lot of that was literally the I got to get to. At least I hope 5'11", I'm 5'3" and I'm tied with the girl down the hall.
Terry White:There's the shortest people in the fifth grade. Hey, so some of that you're just seeing the well, that could deter me. This might help me. So I'm going to try to do those things, and then those are the things I try to pass on. The irony is that my son Kendall he hasn't had a drink and he's paying attention to the whole he said well, if you don't know, if you're dead, well then how do I know? Because you didn't do any of these things, I don't need to be going down those paths.
Grantley Martelly:Because what if there is in us?
Terry White:They're listening, even when you don't think they're listening to what you do and they're watching which is a good thing.
Terry White:If you get up going, I'm going to do things in a way that would never embarrass my family.
Terry White:Yeah, Terry White did that.
Terry White:Mother White don't have to worry about.
Terry White:He did do that, not he did what. That's right.
Dr. Andre Sims:You're trying to make sure that's a different question, yeah.
Terry White:Tell my oldest boy, nico, when he's going on hanging out with his friends Now if you guys are going to be doing anything you're not supposed to be doing, make sure you use a different last name than the one I gave you, wow.
Terry White:I don't want to read about that, right, I don't want to see about that.
Terry White:You know, my mom used to be like I'm not coming to, I've never been to the jail and I'm never going. If you go to jail, you use that phone call on someone else because I'm not coming.
Grantley Martelly:Wow, yeah. So we talk about showing up in public, we talk about showing up in schools, we talk a little bit about law enforcement. So let's talk a little bit about the value of education. How do we see the value of education changing the trajectory of life for our children?
De'Sean Quinn:I mean it's significant right. You know, to me I was the second oldest, so second born middle child. My father was the first in his family to graduate from college. I was second and it wasn't without the challenges, but I knew that that was my path to opportunity. But what I didn't know is what you know it was also a path to understanding and loving my community as well, because I was able to go away to school, to Morehouse College, you know.
De'Sean Quinn:and they have this thing where when you get there as a freshman, they say look away to school, to Morehouse College, you know. And they have this thing where when you get there as a freshman, they say look to your right, look to your left, that person's not going to be there. And I think a part of the reason why they say that is you have this precious opportunity and respect it. But also you have this responsibility that if you're here and you made it, you got to get back. And then the kind of the power of walking the same steps as Dr Martin Luther King, it does something and you go into buildings where these names that you haven't heard growing up in the Pacific Northwest, but everybody else seems to know it in the community and maybe it's important to say like we have a legacy of intellect right and that's what I tell my boys.
De'Sean Quinn:We have a legacy of intellect. Just because, um, maybe the images that you see um contradict that. Uh, I think I heard michael bennett.
De'Sean Quinn:Oh man, I thought it was pretty powerful, um I got to meet michael bennett and and he kind of described himself as I'm proud of being the descendants of slaves because we made it, we here, uh. But to go back to the topic of education, like a lot of the well black colleges were founded on that, but that was to me, my aha moment. No playing around, even though you kind of the second, you got to take this seriously. And then I thought about my brothers who were back at home and I had two younger ones and I wanted them to have the same opportunity and see the things that I saw because I I showed back up in Washington just different, and it's also about the power of who you have around you. Um, I saw a legacy of, uh, the benefits of education and intellect and and that's how you get generational wealth as well, and that's how you get generational wealth as well.
De'Sean Quinn:But let me stay on topic, because I think we were all talking about showing up at school.
De'Sean Quinn:My wife and I we made the commitment we was going to have kids. We're going to show up to everything and I think the way I remember it is I want to make sure. Well, my dad did this for me. But the reason why we do it is my son has a name, he comes from a family and we're going to always be here and show up and our expectations are high expectations for them. And so, whatever you need, please call us and we will support you. And we're going to be clear, we're going to be knowing every component of what they're learning. And we're going to be clear, we're going to be knowing every component of what they're learning and we're going to reinforce it. I guess I'll I'll education side.
De'Sean Quinn:My grandfather, johns Island, south Carolina, leveraged his military service to get an education, you know, with their version or the African-American version, of the GI Bill. So he was able to get a continue his education and found the first heroin treatment facility in the area, therapeutic health services, and he used that actually to connect with the black community, help the black community and from that just the connections that he made. You know and to know. He kind of did that after his adulthood, but he knew that that was his path and to the day he died he was an executive of a hospital. But he did it late in life. I think he was over 30 when he went back to school and I always tell my kids the story about investing in your education.
Dr. Andre Sims:You have options.
De'Sean Quinn:When you do that, you have no options. If you don't have no education, you have limited options. And the way this society is built, you have less than your fellow person that is an African-American. So I just wanted to know the power of education.
Terry White:I think it goes to the 7% 30% conundrum. Yes. And what happens to uneducated black boys? Same type of thing, yeah. And while it hurts to know that you might have to work harder to get your education or to get more of it, just to keep your spot or to rise. It's kind of a thing you, you share right it's the you. This might hurt a little bit, but you're gonna have to do a little more than maybe your neighbor, yeah I mean just the fact that we and it's not fair you're right.
Terry White:I acknowledge that, uh, and a, a mentor of mine, would say to me when I said man, how do I, how do I move up in this organization? I. I got my degree and he said well, how's that working out for you?
Terry White:it's not well then, maybe you should get another one get another one how is this?
Terry White:that's not fair. Yeah, he said well, you could cry and sit on the porch, or you could cry and get off the porch. I'm not saying no, that it don't hurt and you shouldn't cry, but are you gonna cry and do nothing about it?
Terry White:you, you see that it's not working for you Do a little more.
Terry White:I tell my kids that whole. When someone asks for the who's going to step forward, who's going to raise their hand who's going to voice the thing? That's your opportunities, and I don't want to have to be the person who I get it. However, if you're trying to get to a place that you said you wanted to get to, I'm just telling you these are the things that you might have to do to get there.
Terry White:To get there, yeah, and that's the thing I think you tell your kids over and over that you hope they're hearing you say is the journey is going to be a little tougher maybe because of how you look, but yeah, you kind of got to go there. You got to go there because the alternative. You don't have an option, it's not and you see that and it you might be in some ways. I look at it and go I should have been where I got earlier. But it's just, the journey is tough.
Grantley Martelly:We are starting from a little bit farther back. We are we're hoping that we're pushing them ahead With no blocks. Before you start, andre, I want to make a point that when we talk about education, we're not just talking about college education. You can also be a really good plumber or a really good electrician or a really good crane operator or a really good mechanic. Those kind of people are making bank today For sure. I mean I remember when I found out how much a backhoe operator makes man, those got a good backhoe operator.
Terry White:I mean those guys are like Elevator technicians are cleaning up.
Grantley Martelly:Yeah, elevator technicians and stuff. You know these skills, you know it's just like you can be so many things. So when we talk about education, we're talking about find something that you love and be good at it. Be good at it. If you like using your hands, be hands. If you're good at intellect, be the intellect, but not just. You know here's a rat type approach to life, but that's from the financial point of view. But if we think about it from the societal point of view, it also, like you said, it provides opportunities when you become good at something and you're known for that and pretty soon people will honor you and respect you, irregardless of your color, just because of what you do, because you're really good at it. Yeah, sure, and terry you always talk about, you know, not everybody's going to become an nba and nfl, right?
Terry White:so you gotta really none of them, right. None of you are the statistics they speak for themselves.
Dr. Andre Sims:I think too. Uh, speaking about jobs that people have uh looked down upon, especially for a person of color to have said job, my mother's father was a custodian. He was the first African-American staff person in the entire Detroit public school system, first person of color to ever be hired by Detroit public schools, and he was hired as a custodian. But he took it upon himself to create a custodial school and trained other black males, young boys, guys that came out of high school and didn't have ambition or money or opportunity or grades to move to enter into the custodial school. And he used that money to send his only child, my mother, to Michigan State and paid for her education for four years at Michigan State on a custodian's salary. And so, again, when we talk about this idea that it's a little bit tougher for us, you know we don't always get the. You know the student loans and right uh, you know having to work while you're also going to school while somebody else is just going they're just rolling and and not really going.
Dr. Andre Sims:They just there, you know said and they cramming four years into six because they can you know what I'm saying.
Dr. Andre Sims:That's good and then you know, there's the struggle of being a person of color once you're there, right, just getting in. It's kind of like this idea of mismanagement or stewardship of wealth just because you can attain something doesn't mean you can maintain or sustain the thing you got a budget for both. Just because you can maintain or sustain the thing you got a budget for both, just because you can buy it, doesn't mean you can keep it. And so there were 22,000 students in 1958 when my mother entered into Michigan State and there were 200 African Americans, so less than 1%. And when my mother walked into our English class, it's the big amphithe know, amphitheater class with, you know it's gen ed requirements there's 250 plus students in the class. And then professor called the only African-American down to the front of the class, which was my mother, and he said I just want to make sure you know you can't get an A in my class. And she said I beg your pardon. He said I just want you to know you can't get an A in my class because no one who looks like you has ever successfully finished my class. That was the first day when the syllabus came out. So these are, you know, as people of color especially, and that's a female. So when you start talking about black boys, that's a different conversation of some additional adversity associated with this idea of higher education.
Dr. Andre Sims:So I'll say this out close. So my grandfather on my father's side, my father's father, did not finish high school and had 11 children. My dad is number 10 of 11. And my dad was the second to finish high school. His older sister, liz, finished high school. So my father saw his sister finish and said so he could finish, but, like I said, he finished at 16. And then he became the first to finish college. But I just say this about, you know Terry talking about his father, the relationship now and Terry's 50 plus, but there's a connection right with the dad. And same thing with Deshaun. There's a connection even though there was divorce.
Dr. Andre Sims:There's a connection with the dad. So my grandfather told my father and my Uncle Frankie which was number 10, my dad's 10 and Uncle Frankie's 11, that he could place a roof over their head, but he couldn't feed them and he couldn't clothe them when my dad was 11 and his brother Frankie, was nine and I never really understood like what. So what is that about? Like you got kids and you can't. Why did you have so many if you can't? But I found out later in my life that my grandmother had an affair and the reason my father is so much darker than his family is because my grandfather is not my father's biological father, wow yeah, and then she had a second affair and my uncle Frankie was born by another man.
Dr. Andre Sims:But my grandfather let them both stay in his house and and was a father to them. And so when you talk about the resilience and the love to want to see black boys make it, he said I got to feed these nine, I got to, they got to get the. So he taught my dad and my uncle Frankie how to shine shoes at Fox Theater downtown Detroit so they could earn the money to buy powdered milk and clothes from the Goodwill, while he housed them and gave them a place to sleep and to see what transpired in my dad's life by the choices he made with education, because he saw that as the way out. Now, of course, the pendulum swung a bit far, because by the time I came along, I was that kid that you know everybody else is outside playing football or basketball in the street, you know, or four square, you know, with the ball on the lines on the cement or chasing possums in the alley.
Dr. Andre Sims:But I'm that kid that had to do the homework after the homework. So whatever worksheet I got when I came home, after it was finished and my father would go down on my mother and go into the filing cabinet downstairs and pull out another, that same sheet with 15 more questions. And so there was never a wish, a homework oh, I ain't got no homework. Oh no, that's not. You always of homework. Oh, I ain't got no homework. Oh no, that's not. You always have homework, you always have homework. And after you finish it and we grade it, then we need you to go get that worksheet, draw number three, get these math problems out. That's great, but I what did you think?
Terry White:what was the expectation? What did you think the expectation was for you in a house with doctors?
Dr. Andre Sims:Right, and it was one of those. You know this just comes with it, Like you don't need to debate it. You know this, just comes with it. And my dad never heard of the term timeout. My dad didn't know what restriction was Right.
Terry White:Yeah, my dad was a leather conference, man, everything was resolved with a conference.
Grantley Martelly:Just because you make it doesn't mean that everybody's going to make it easy for you to go up, for you to stay there. We got to teach our children that, right, you may get in the door, but you got, whether it's academics or sports or whatever.
Grantley Martelly:Just because you made it on the team doesn't mean you're gonna, yeah, start if you don't work hard just enough is not enough let's talk about some of the joys of seeing your children begin to do better than you did, or come up with things that questions that you couldn't answer. It's like, well, I gotta go and research that, because now they're like they're not just looking to do better than you, but they're like stepping out ahead of you and now you're the one trying to catch up with them.
Dr. Andre Sims:This whole college athlete thing. There's some things that come along with that that you have to be guarded against if you intend to actually stay an athlete. For the entire four years you're there, unless you're going to leave early to head to the league or something of that nature. But I was telling those stories to my son early on because he was saying, dad, I want to go D1. I want to get a scholarship when I go to college.
Dr. Andre Sims:And I'm saying, son, that's great, but there are folk there, whether they're boosters or whether they're young ladies who who, like the fact that you're an athlete, it might be going somewhere. They see, you know this or that about you that that might hinder you from actually ever accomplishing your own goal of being on scholarship for the time that you're there and graduating, of being on scholarship for the time that you're there and graduating. And so a middle of our sons, at the end of his second semester as a freshman, he called us one time and said I just want y'all to know. I decided I'm not going to date while I'm in college. And I'm thinking, okay, well, you say that now, but it's a bunch of honeys on the yard, I don't know if you're going to make that one Reverend.
Dr. Andre Sims:But I hear you, though. I hear what you're saying. And by his junior year he had still never been on a date at Washington State University which had the party school reputation and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, he was the fastest on the squad. That's why I received fastest person on the squad, lowest fastest, 4-3 time. And he called us one time and said hey, football's not my thing. I wanted to prove to myself that, coming from a 1A Christian school, I could do it. Now that I know I can, they want too much of your time. That's your life. I'm going to stay with track, run these hurdles, he said. But, dad, there's a girl on track team. She's really nice. She's having a party. A lot of football players and track guys are going. I think I'm gonna go. I'm like, son, you, you don't need to be telling me where you go to the weekend. That's your, you know, that's you, that's so.
Dr. Andre Sims:I get a call about three in the morning, right from your kids period and I said, son, what's going on? He said, oh, I just wanted to talk to you. I'm over here at Denny's. I went, but it wasn't for me. I'm a junior, I hadn't been to a party in three years. I'm hanging because I went with the football players and now that's my ride. They still there, so I walked down to Denny's. It's 24 hours.
Dr. Andre Sims:I'm waiting for them to come pick me up, and so I just was like, yeah, you on a different page than your daddy, was you doing it totally different than I did, which is beneficial for you.
Dr. Andre Sims:To be an African-American male, to be 33 years old, to be a virgin, is not something we talk about, but that comes from the amount of time that was spent communicating some of the challenges and the shortfalls and the poor choices that I made as a black male scholarship athlete. That he heard that and it wasn't a you need to some kind of way he put it together. You know what did that? That was, that was funny, but that that wasn't beneficial. So here's what I'm going to do. But anyway, that's just when you talk about being excited about what the next generation is doing. He'll be able to say to his son this is how he walked through five years at Wazoo and this is how he kept himself, to be able to say to his wife one day that these are the choices I made prior to saying I do, which. His mama could say that at the altar, but his father certainly couldn't.
Terry White:I think there's some beauty in the whole. They actually are listening to you If you are committed to saying it, sometimes over and over and over they're hearing you. Sometimes they don't want to hear it because it's contrary to what they're thinking at the moment, but it's still getting in there, and then you get to see the benefit of it later. I know for mine same thing. It was like, well, you went to a D1 school, yeah, but they didn't help me do anything I had to get in the back of the line like everybody else.
Terry White:Let's look at some of these other schools that are more academic-minded. Graduation rates are 97%. Let's talk about some of these because you can still play and I remember with my oldest I was like, if you go D1, you're going to maybe get to play 20 games. 20 games, what are you talking about? So, again, you're not going to play as a freshman and you might play a few and get on the field. You'll probably do special teams more than anything else, and then you're going to come into your own and get hurt and miss a few games, and then there's going to be some freshman that shows up as your senior.
Dr. Andre Sims:That's all world.
Terry White:So you'll get 20 games out, that's, you know, 20 games, or you can go to this other school, get this education, where they're going to help you get on with your life, because they have 97% graduation rate and they actually have this group that helps you, so you don't have to start in the back of the line. Those are the kind of choices you have and you, you know yeah, well, you wear. D1.
Terry White:They listen to me, but turns out they are, and that's. I think that like you get the phone call and I get kendall and he's like dad, kendall did run a start and he did so did so did dominic so they were early in where they were supposed to be. He had his AA at 18. He got his four-year degree at 20. And he had his master's at 21.
Terry White:He said yeah, I'm getting these phone calls to go play basketball over here and they're offering me a master's, which I already have. But I already know I'm not really going to go. I'm not going to the league and I don't have an interest in going overseas. So I'm going to go ahead and take this teaching job and do this so that I can start helping kids get their educations and start moving through life. That's that phone call where you're like moving ahead right now Is this guy sick?
Terry White:Is this the same? I'm going to North Carolina.
Dr. Andre Sims:Right, right, right, right, right, right to the end.
Terry White:Now he's telling me he's turning down so he can get started with helping.
Terry White:Yeah, that's so good. That's the problem. That's so good.
De'Sean Quinn:Can I just add one thing?
De'Sean Quinn:I have my kids 10 and 15. So, not unlike your children, my eldest son is going to start running, start next year. It's like I'm in the moment, right, Because I think the surprising thing when you are a father is you got to let go of that, want to do it for them right and leave space so they can figure it out. And they are. My two boys are mentally strong, comfortable with being emotional when they need to be not being raised, I think from all the generations before them, and a term is a term and I think it's a relevant term the toxic masculinity.
De'Sean Quinn:For us, it was just a normal experience, but to see this sense of responsibility and connection, but mental strength, right, this piece around. You know, if you have to read being comfortable with going to therapy if you need it, talking about the hard things in our household which we never did, right? You know whatever happened to so-and-so? Oh well, they lost their house to probate, right, but now they're talking about investments at a young age. You know, I think about my eldest son, just the work ethic.
De'Sean Quinn:Look, I played football and I did it the old school way Show up out of shape. My son did it right, and then you get in shape.
Dr. Andre Sims:During the two days, during the two days.
De'Sean Quinn:And then so, whether it be between nutrition, but even just my son, he just finished his, I think, his third year in track. He runs 100, the 400, the 4x1. I say all that that he's willing to try different things until he found a thing that he liked and the day after the school was kind of done, competing, he's out because he, dad, can you give me this thing for my training parachute, whatever Next day? He's out there and then talking about his plan. So they got a plan and I think for us we were trying to get there, we were trying to stay there as we talked about. But I think my boys are again when I think about the generational maybe not curses but just generational experiences, but being able to develop new ones.
Grantley Martelly:Yeah, turn the corner. Turn the corner, see them moving ahead of you at the same venue, where that is Exactly right For sure, and my three brothers.
De'Sean Quinn:they have that kind of investment in their children as well, so they are at a better starting place. But again, the experience around not being satisfied or just getting there because you got to stay there and the level of support will be there. But you kind of got to go find it and people do want to kind of see you not win, so that that's this is a good place to talk, turn and um as we sort of round from home.
Grantley Martelly:Here's the biblical foundation for all the stuff that we're talking about. All four of us are believers, christ followers and stuff. Let's talk about some of the biblical foundations that surround the things that we're talking about. The Bible obviously has examples of good fatherhood and not good fatherhood, but what would you say are some of the biblical foundations for some of the principles you've used in raising your boys and that you're hoping for them going in the future?
Dr. Andre Sims:Yeah, I would say you know. So, even though I grew up in a Christian home, education was the god of my house, you know my dad didn't come to any of my sporting events, and that was on purpose.
Dr. Andre Sims:He wanted to help me understand where the value was. The value was in the academics, the value wasn't in the athletics. But we didn't have Bible study. Formally, my dad wasn't gathering the family together after dinner or at the dinner table and opening the Bible. It was required to go to church. It wasn't an option Like well, dad, I don't feel like that. That wasn't a discussion. And if you weren't healthy enough to go to church, you weren't going nowhere that day. It wasn't like well, I don't feel good this morning. Then later on, you want to go outside. Yeah, that's not. And if you spent the night over somebody's house on saturday, either you had to have it worked out where they were going to drop you off in time enough to get to church or you, or you weren't going to whoever's house it was if you couldn't do church in the morning.
Dr. Andre Sims:So with my kids, um, I wanted them to be able to have a place where they could ask questions about what they were experiencing. At them go, unless they were willing to write a paper, one page paper, on what it was in the movie. That was contrary to what they had been taught.
Dr. Andre Sims:So instead of just saying, no, you keep because it's got this, it's got that, it's got this other thing. It was well, you can go, but this is what you got to do to be able to go. And sometimes that would be like, oh yeah, no, I'm good, I don't need to go, yeah, and the same thing with the music. There'd be certain you know music that was out there that the other, their friends, were listening to, and they'd be like what?
Dr. Andre Sims:I want to get and I want to yo mtv raps and I want to, okay, well, no, but if you want to do it, then you need to actually play it and and tell us what it is about it that you know is contrary to the screen. Why is that not in keeping with what God is saying? And so sometimes that would just that would be enough to, and other times they'd be like, yeah, I'm writing the paper Cause I'm definitely going to go see the soul, and so so when can we go, you know um.
Terry White:So, and so. So when can we go? You know, I already got the paper Right.
Dr. Andre Sims:Right. But I listen to my kids now as adults and they say that you know the whole PK thing, you know, wasn't our life experience, because, for whatever reason, you and mom allowed us to experience things that our peers were experiencing, but we had to use the scripture and find places where. So we know that's not right, but we don't know where it is. So then the next assignment was well, you don't have to write a paper, but you have to write, you have to find the Bible verses for these 10 things that I looked at when I saw it and hear the 10 things that are contrary. I need you to tell me where do you find that in the Bible. And we would go back and forth. So I think when my daughter says to me okay, dad, I don't know why, that's not right, but that's not right what that person just said, we listened to a podcast and they're supposed to be Christian and they I can't tell you where you find it.
Dr. Andre Sims:That is wrong, but it's something in my spirit, like it's something off about you know, and you go wow, so that foundation that you laid early on, where you were gathering a family together and having casual conversation about whatever it was that was happening, and we had decided that our kids again for us, our kids were required to go to private Christian school, kindergarten through eighth grade. Then they had the choice to go wherever they wanted to go for high school. We just wanted to lay the foundation. First my son was playing football. We went to the 5A powerhouse for high school, met with the athletic director, went to lunch period About 300 folks throwing food and cursing, going crazy. He was like oh no, I'm good, dad, I'm heading back over to the joint.
Dr. Andre Sims:My daughter was saying I don't care where I go, I ain't staying here, I ain't going to go visit nobody. Just as long as you know, I'm not going to finish here.
Terry White:I grew up with my mom Bible study at the table, to the point where you start to go hey, didn't we study this already? We started turning to reruns or something I already know this. I know this part Well good, but I got it and I knew she would leverage what I was learning in real life and I just picked that up so I would take that with my kids. So the whole mindset of sitting at the table and going through your Bible study lessons at the time not knowing that's devotionals.
Dr. Andre Sims:Right right, right, right right. Oh, no, okay.
Terry White:Yes, that's devotional.
Terry White:But sitting there and trying to instill what you heard, what you read, into everyday life and the choices you make, and I've always been this kind of are you going to be a giver or a taker? Are you going to be a servant, leader, leader, servant, or are you going to be a iron fisted? Because I said so and not benevolent enough to understand that you need a team to be with you and they need to be a part of your decision making so that you can make way for those who are coming after you. Because that's really what it's about. It was never really about just you. Uh, what you know, when you, when, when your time comes and they ask, well, what did you give, what did you do? Yeah, and it's not gonna. I don't know if anybody in line is going to say, well, I made a lot of money. Oh, I guess it wasn't really about it, yeah it wasn't.
Terry White:So I try to get that part through to my kids as that spiritual piece of and here's where it shows- that it's about how you serve others, and to much whom is given much is expected. That's not Spider-Man, that's Luke Right right. Yes, they try to. That's biblical. And then to watch your kids start to go into that area, I think that's a big piece for me. Beyond the, it's not just about making it, it's not just about you.
Terry White:That's not part of it. And then tying all that other stuff in the financial piece which I didn't get growing up. I had bad credit for a long time because nobody ever told me that you're not supposed to fill that thing out and send it in immediately for that 23% credit thing, just so that you get stereo and pay for it for the next eight years, or whatever.
De'Sean Quinn:It was. Right, right, right, right. Pay for it three times.
Terry White:Right right, right right.
Terry White:But that whole when you get your money. This is what you should do. This is all you really need is add a want versus a need and have that mindset growing up so that you should do. This is all you really need is add a want versus a need and have that mindset growing up so that you're ready, because the more you understand those pieces, the more you get to get around to serving, and that's your blessing. I mean, of course, you feel good when you see there's nothing better than seeing someone you helped doing something, and then they helped doing something, and then they're doing it, and I think for us it's just rare for us to hear about the good that you see black men doing.
Terry White:We're just quick to see the and then they did this and shot up of this over here.
Terry White:And this over here was in the end, the thing went bankrupt. We don't get to hear a lot of all that incredible stuff that happens, but it's out there and we see it and I, I, I feel good that. I think the things we do with our kids, especially when you push that, that for me, leader, servant type of you're here to serve. You're here to lead a life that might cause someone else who's struggling to go. I need to figure out what you do, that's good.
Terry White:Because I'm struggling and you in the same pool as I am and you seem okay with this.
Terry White:Yeah.
Terry White:What kind of peace you got that whole. I know I'm going to be okay and I think it comes from that first piece of no matter what you was there.
Terry White:You were there, you were there.
Terry White:You were there, and that's a different place when you're, that's that whole like. I'm trying to be like your father in heaven. He's there, he's there, I'm going to be here. I'm trying to be like your father in heaven.
Terry White:He's there.
Terry White:He's there, I'm going to be here and I'm going to try to do these things for you, and it gives them some calm as they try to make it through because they've got to fall back. That's right. They've got to fall back. Now what they do with that on the next piece, I'm looking forward to hearing about that. It's up to them, yeah.
Grantley Martelly:We grew up in the house, just like you guys and my mother did devotionals and stuff like that. We were always in church, involved in youth group, involved in anything, got involved in music. I learned to play. I started playing the Christian band when I was 13 years of age, Started playing the tambourine, worked my way all the way up. But that really helped me growing up and it helped me formulate a lot of my values. When I went to college by myself, I was in a predominantly white college and to me it really came out about how you live it.
Grantley Martelly:Right Now I'm on my own. There's nobody there, there's nobody left. You can do whatever you want to do. And that's when it really came out to me about how do you live this life that you're supposed to live. You know, I had this mentor who was teaching me as well, but that's when it really struck me that you know you could go to college and do whatever you want to do, because your parents aren't there. There's nobody there, you're in another country, it's not like you're down the street.
Grantley Martelly:But when I got my kids, I would admit that I was not very good about having the devotions around the table. We tried that and I was never consistent in that. But we tried to make sure that. We tried to make sure that our kids were in the word, you know, involved in youth group, involved in Sunday school, involved in cuisine, got friends around them, had Christian friends around them, service projects, local, national, international, you know, and seeing again. Again, it's not about them. How do you serve others? How do you live this life? And some days I wonder, you know, if, if we even did it right. You know a lot of people kid about you know, when you have kids there's no manual, and I think about that all the time and I think back. You know all the ways we raise our children. It would have been good to know that, it would have been good to do that.
Terry White:It would have been good to do that.
Grantley Martelly:But you're doing it as you go right. For sure that's how you try to teach them the best. You know, and that's always been on my mind with my children as they're working out their faith. You know, but I see it in them, the things that they do, the way they talk, the way they help people, the way they're concerned about people. You know they call us and ask us to pray for friends, that kind of stuff. They welcome strangers into their home. You know they give to people who need to be given to.
Grantley Martelly:You know my kids always talk about how many people we always had in our home every holiday. Everything because my wife and I when we were in college, many times we were alone by ourselves because we were foreign students and everybody took off with their families and stuff and we were alone by ourselves. Or some people invited us to their house but sometimes you really didn't fit in. So we sort of made this promise after we got married that we would make our house to be the place where people who didn't have anywhere to go would come when they would come.
Grantley Martelly:That's good. And when you talk to our children now they tell you I remember those days, I remember these people coming, I remember serving, I remember going on that trip to Alaska or going and helping out people, you know, and we were talking to our son the other day and he said he was telling his wife and stuff. He said I remember that Thanksgiving we had at our house and we had all of these people from all around the world and we said Thanksgiving grace in seven languages. So. But the Bible gives us, you know, we talk about the biblical foundation. The Bible gives us, you know, train up a child in the way they should grow and when they're old they won't depart from it.
Grantley Martelly:And I struggled with that for a while. And then I was at church back in Utah and I was really worried about, you know, have I done a good job as a father raising my children? And one of the associate pastors, she came up to me I remember Bridget Waters and she said do you believe what the Word of God says? And I said yes, she says well, it says that if you brought up those children in the way that they should grow, that someday it is not going to depart and someday it's going to come back. Do you believe that? And I said yes. So she said well, all you got to do now is wait for it to happen.
Terry White:Yeah, I believe it. I believe it. I believe it's very true. We do all we're supposed to do. We're all over on the spectrum, on time and distance and all of it, and ultimately, the one thing you taught them early on was faith. Have some faith. So you got to have it too. When it comes to did we do what we were supposed to do? And you sit back and I know Danae and I have them kind of conversations all the time. Well, you know, let God do what? He's supposed to do. You say what?
Grantley Martelly:you're supposed to do. You say what you're supposed to do.
Terry White:You be where you're supposed to be. And could you have done more? Probably, but hey, you could have done less too, yeah, so in the end, you can't save them, you can't.
De'Sean Quinn:Right, that's so good.
Terry White:That's the truth part. But every now and then they give you a little glimpse and you go wow, he was paying a little attention there, I'm just saying.
Grantley Martelly:My daughter told me that one day I'll listen to you. I heard you. She said to me she says you didn't think I was listening to you when you were talking to me, did you?
De'Sean Quinn:And I said well, some days I wondered and I said well, some days.
Dr. Andre Sims:I wandered Some days. I wandered, I think, too, always reminding our boys in particular, that life is about choices and that phrase you show me your friends, I'll show you your future. Who are you choosing to spend time with? Who's in your circle, and why are they in your circle? What motivated you to be with that person? And using passages like 1 Corinthians, 15, 33, you know, bad behavior corrupts good character or Exodus 23, 2, do not follow the crowd in wrongdoing. Uh, first, timothy 522 do not share in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure. And this whole idea. Well, johnny was doing it, me and john, yeah, no, but that's not. That's not the standard.
Grantley Martelly:I know you. I know you and johnny want to it, me and john yeah, no bro, that's not.
Dr. Andre Sims:That's not the standard I know you, I know you and johnny want to be you. That's your dude. But as soon as johnny go left, you gotta let him go left by himself and learn that maybe johnny's not the guy you thought he was. And so my wife came up with this uh, mrc. Mrc became the phrase for the kids, which stood for make right choices. So when they would leave the house they said well, buy that, it's going to go on, mrc. You know this idea. You're going to have some choices out there tonight that we aren't going to be privy to. That's great, and we're encouraging you to make right choices. You've been trained what the choices are, but ultimately you have to make them.
Terry White:I think the earlier you start with your kids with any types of sayings and this is what I believe and you are who you hang out with when they're young they catch that stuff early. It's like saying you are obviously brilliant when they're real little. That's right, so they really are taken to what you say and then later on, depending on how you cultivate those teachings, it does. I do do the whole like who do you associate with?
Terry White:What are?
Terry White:they going to become. When they were little, I was doing that and I could see them picking and choosing and in some cases, being worried about how I might feel about who
Terry White:they're hanging out with.
Terry White:I knew you wasn't going to like them so I didn't even bother. They didn't have it all yet, but later on you start to see that manifest more, and that these are the people I associate with and it's about all of those things doing right, being ambitious, wanting to become something. And if you're associating with that, you said get with like-minded people, even date people who will understand what it is you're trying to be, because they're trying to be, and it becomes that kind of a. Those are also the kind of choices you make good bad choices.
Terry White:People say anything, how you're gonna serve, how you're gonna live, and it starts to help you. Uh, because it's like going to the gym. You might do well if you go and you're, it's just you and but certain days you know you don't want to go, for whatever reason, and if you've associated with the right people they can get you there You're not going.
Terry White:Come on man.
Terry White:It's just, I'll come through and get you.
Terry White:You get those kind of folks around you and they can get you through some of them moments, those kind of folks around you and they can get you through, some of them, moments versus the are you going to raise him up or he's going to take you down?
Terry White:Which, how? Which way is this going to go? Because if you don't think you can raise them up, why are you? Why are you still associating? This is not going to work out. Well, they're taking you down. Well, I know it's going to work out. Well, they're taking you down. Well, no one's going to take me down. Well, I'm just telling you what I'm seeing right now Proof is in the pudding, and I let my kids go. Okay, I had to cut her loose.
Terry White:Because that's not what I wanted. Right.
Terry White:Good, because that's the thing You're trying to put them into places, right, tell them all the things and it sent them. That's what I believe, that's the faith part that I did all of this, and then a big piece of everything is prayer. I think, as men raising black boys, you got to go in there with prayer first almost all the time Okay help me to say the right stuff, lord, and when I get here.
Terry White:If it goes off on a tangent, please help me keep up with it. That's funny.
Terry White:And I feel better knowing that I sought it out. I sought out some prayer before I walked into a situation, yeah, and then I tend to have much better peace. I'm good. It's going to play out the way you want it to play out, and I did. The thing you asked me to do was seek you first before I go, and now I'm going to just let it be.
Grantley Martelly:Let it play out, yeah, trust.
Terry White:When I say that, I say that and I say that and I say that, and there are still times where I'm not feeling good about it and I'm having a conversation, and I'm having like a father conversation too.
Terry White:Now, Lord, you told me.
Terry White:I don't see it. I'm not seeing it. Are you coming?
Terry White:What do you know? But?
Terry White:hey, that's the place where your faith has to be there too, for your boys, for the boys that they're going to have Right Generations.
Grantley Martelly:Were you going to say something, deshaun? Yeah?
De'Sean Quinn:I was just going to say that that's how I was raised. My mom and she still is the person I call when we talk about Scripture and I think I mean she's that rock and we talk about scripture and I think I mean she's that rock I don't think I would be choosing the career that I have now right, whether it be elected official in service transit, serving others without that foundation, because there are a lot of challenges that we have in society and the responsibility that comes with those roles. It's not always fun. So you have to have some foundation and I remember it was probably a tactic. Although my mom grew up in the church, she made sure we grew up in the church, so as you all said we was doing youth confirmation.
De'Sean Quinn:We were doing bake sales, sales. We were at everything and that was my mom. She didn't play that we. We knew we had to show up and we talked scripture, um. But I would just say she's my rock because it doesn't matter, um, what I'm going through and I hope she can be there. As long as she can be there. She's kind of like my pastor She'll break out verse in a minute and it always is helpful, no matter what's going on. And I'm doing that for my boys and I'm also having them spend time with her because I think all my challenges that I've ever had she was always there.
De'Sean Quinn:And I remember, not that I'm. I mean, I've done some things in life and I'm proud of the service that I that I continue to be involved in I show up and kind of give to others. But the one time she told me specifically that she was proud of me was we put on this event for the community feed the community and that that was the first time I ever heard her full-throated say I'm very proud of you. And it wasn't for these things and these titles that I gained, but that we were building community. And I know where she got it from, because my grandmother was a founder of the church in Johns Island, south Carolina. So you can just imagine there's a few churches but not many. That's where she's buried and she had in her pew. She got her pew seat and still ain't nobody sitting in it.
Terry White:And.
De'Sean Quinn:I have two uncles that are ministers, but for me it was a lifestyle that are ministers, but for me it was a lifestyle and it probably was. As I reflect on it, it was how she kind of got through raising four boys on her salary and we would pray whenever things were good and challenging and that's what I was taught and that's what I teach my boys. And I have to say, like it does build your character, it gives you some guardrails on how far you should go. So I think the choices that I made was because it was buried in being taught and learning the Bible and being a good Christian and having a sense of responsibility. I think the first one that I remember out of fear was the outer dive.
Terry White:Father always.
De'Sean Quinn:But I also think it's also that you don't write off family, and so I'm kind of going back to my relationship with my dad Like that was never. It was never an option, it was we were always going to get back together. But I just think about the foundation because, again, just being exposed to all those activities, giving back and and why you give back and being of service, I find it hard if you don't have that foundation, because there's so much there to say, it's a lot to carry every day, every decision, every day, every decision, and I found myself even just kind of we all have challenges, but to have friends and mentors that you can pick up the phone and they reinforce, maybe something your mother said right, terry.
De'Sean Quinn:Plenty of times where you would reflect on a scripture that my mom would always tell me, or Grantley, just your resiliency and being able to reflect on the way I was raised. It just keeps you centered and balanced and focused and and it's easier to then be a parent to a child and you also have to tell them the reason why you are balanced and focused and that is that just being grounded in the Bible and being a Christian and reading the word and understanding why we do the things that we do, and don't be left to your own devices.
Terry White:There is a way right, and so you don't have to wing it the whole time.
Grantley Martelly:You don't wing it. So let's, let's sort of wrap it up by talking about what's our hope, our hope for our boys, our, our boys and young men and men, now, as we look forward, I think, the thing I I try to pass to my boys is they're supposed to be better fathers than I was.
Terry White:They should been paying attention enough that they take the good, they throw out the bad and they get better.
Terry White:And they're apologetic about the things that they don't do. Well, with their kids so they can see that coming up and instill in their kids. What I was trying to get into them was that I truly believed something great for them coming, you guys are
Grantley Martelly:going to be amazing.
Terry White:I don't know what at, I don't know how, but I know I'm supposed to be here doing this thing to make sure you get that opportunity to be incredible people, incredible givers. And I say that whole, you start early.
De'Sean Quinn:early, because if you say, your kid can fly at two.
Terry White:They believe you right. Start to try and figure out how to be great, then how to serve better, uh, and if they do that, then that whole well deshaun is just an anomaly. You know, yeah, Pastor Sam says yeah, but he's different. And how do we get beyond? We had this conversation. How do we get beyond the point of, well, you got in because and you know we're not calling anybody else we're not calling anybody else. We need to get our boys to grow up in a way that it starts to become do you?
Terry White:have any other people. You know that we should be reaching out to. That that becomes more of the commonplace than this anomaly. Mindset of there's not many. So how do we break some of the biases down? Mindset of there's not many. So how do we break some of the biases down? And I think that's our jobs, as the men who are raising black boys is to instill in them. How hard it might be, but you got to go and you're going to be great.
De'Sean Quinn:That's so good.
De'Sean Quinn:You just reminded me of something that, about being a father, you end up seeing yourself in little different ways in your kids, and I think about being there not so much to correct it but to inform it through my life experience. So my youngest son is emotional, really hard on himself and he's strategic and for me it's over-processing. So being able to give to him a way to process so that's my hope is just seeing what we see in our children and giving them the tools to be successful. And then I think the other thing is being able to practice love and joy and celebrating it. That would be amazing. And so my responsibility is to create those spaces and tell them they should be unapologetic about love for others and actually experiencing joy. And I think maybe the last thing is we're all a part of a legacy and you don't always know what part you play in that legacy.
De'Sean Quinn:So my hope is that they will again take the mantle or standing on shoulders, um, and pick up that legacy and create and be unafraid to step out, um, and contribute to actually making this world a better place. But they say I don't want to prepare my kids that's funny. I just wrote this for the hardships of the world, the disparities of the world. I want to prepare them for the possibilities, and so I kind of feel like that might be the biggest thing, cause I know my father tried to do it for me and his father tried to do it for him is to prepare them for the possibilities.
De'Sean Quinn:How do I convey it? So they say, dad, you're right, there are possibilities. And now that I'm in school and I'm not getting the help that I need, I'm going to push through it because you, because you said you know I got to make my way. So I think that's the biggest thing is prepare them for the possibilities. And I hope they seize and take it and be a part of their legacy.
Dr. Andre Sims:Yeah, I certainly agree with both Terry and Deshaun as far as this uh limit less potential, right? It's this idea that um Ephesians three, 20, he's able to provide more than you could ever ask or think.
Dr. Andre Sims:Um. So my hope is that they continue to swing for the fences uh, cause you, you never hit any home runs that you don't swing at and that they don't need to be anything for me or their mother. They need to be authentically who God made them, and so the hope is that they will hear, take the time to hear, from their heavenly father and and walk in that with the supernatural empowerment of the Holy spirit. That's my hope is that they live out their faith, um, to the maximum degree, that the abundant life is their, their actual experience, not a passage that they can quote from John 10. It's like they are using their spiritual gifts with every born again. Believer is most fulfilled when he or she is walking in the gifting that the Holy spirit gave them. That that's their desire, and then they actually see the fruit of that. Our daughter Penn, is a really high compliment, not close with this.
Dr. Andre Sims:We were there for her birthday last week and she's got this newer gentleman, that's, he's made it the furthest along, she's 29 and I said to her I don't want to disrespect you, I don't want to enter into your space, but I have a comment or two I'd like to make, based on an observation with the young man. I don't want to enter into your space, but I have a comment or two I'd like to make, based on an observation with the young man I I'm. I would like you to be there so you can. You can hear for yourself that your daddy cause she was like dad, you know how you do. You know the, the men see you and they. She said I learned that in junior high don't invite you to come to the class for nothing because, then I don't hear from no boys the whole year.
Dr. Andre Sims:So you're ripping phone books in my classroom.
Dr. Andre Sims:It's not good for my social life. So anyway, long story short, we finished the conversation, my wife. I felt like the Lord allowed us to say some things for the young man to know that we have interest in his spiritual life it's not just about our daughter only and I said to her I said, did you feel like I crossed any line in my discussion? She said, dad, I'm not married, you're still my spiritual covering. So I welcomed what you had to say until such a time as when somebody else is supposed to be. And I thought, okay, okay, that's what you're looking for. I'm treading light, trying not to hit any landmines while I'm trying to drop this truth out there. And she was, like that's what you're supposed to do, like that's, until I'm married, I'm taking my instruction from the one that God gave me. I just was like, okay, that's what you hope for.
Grantley Martelly:That's pretty powerful and I agree with all the things that you've said. You know, I think we've all had similar experiences in some ways and different in other ways, whereas in our kids.
Grantley Martelly:But I think the hope is, you know, to see them live out their full potential that God created them to be, find that thing, that path that God has created for them, and to live it out to the fullest for themselves fullest for themselves and serving others with humility and honor and integrity, to raise the next generation that will even go further than we have gone, or we have seen them gone without hope and that anticipation that anything is possible, that they can do it, and to leave a legacy. We hope that we leave a legacy for our children that they will be willing to pass on to their children and to their children's children. That is our hope.
Grantley Martelly:My biggest hope is that they serve the Lord fully in their life, you know, realizing that achieving what God created you to be is not a separate accomplishment from serving him Right. They're both tied within the same thing. Yeah, and I've been reading 1 Samuel these last few weeks weeks, you know, and the thing I know about samuel is that he learned to hear. He could hear the voice, but he couldn't recognize it, you know. And then eli says that's the voice, so learn to recognize it. Once he recognized it, he said to him now you got to do whatever he, even if it means you have to tell me things that I don't want to hear, because the first message was not a compliment for Eli. And Eli said tell me everything, don't hold anything back, so be truthful and honest. So my prayer for them is that they would find that relationship with God, learn to hear his voice and learn to be obedient and do what he's asked them to do.
Grantley Martelly:But I'm also proud of my kids in terms of seeing them, already at this point in their life, accomplishing greater things and going farther than I even dreamed and imagined that I could get right, and seeing them do things that I could.
Grantley Martelly:Even I thought I had a big imagination when I was young, but I watched my kids and I was like man.
Grantley Martelly:They're doing things that I didn't even dream, I didn't even know it was possible, you know, and that's part of it. And then to see my son begin to now instill those things in his son because he has a son, all right. So now he is beginning to, to raise a boy now in the world, and I think that the last thing I would say is that, um, to be able to learn to navigate the world right, because I realized the world that our children grew up in, and even now the world that our grandchildren is growing up in, is completely different to the world that I grew up in. So how do we teach them to navigate the world? And the hope is that the same God who brought us this far will carry them as well, because they don't have a manual. It looks like we didn't. The manual we have is the word of God, it's the Bible, it's prayer, it's the power of the Holy spirit in our lives.
Terry White:So I want to thank you, gentlemen, for this time tonight, thank you for having us, that we can sit around and talk Great conversation, you know, just a great conversation around the table.
Grantley Martelly:We don.
Grantley Martelly:We don't know where it's going to go hopefully somebody will want to listen to it, but even if nobody listens to it, we learn from each other and we hear from each other. You know about the things that we can continue to encourage each other on, and I just want to thank all of you four, you three publicly for your part. You playing my life and encouraging me, and being there and and and being available and being able to speak into my life. You know the things that I need to hear at the times. I need to hear it.
Dr. Andre Sims:That's mutual brother.
De'Sean Quinn:Thank you Absolutely.
Grantley Martelly:Let's go raise some boys.