Dope Black Dads
To alleviate the impacts of COVID-19 policies, many initiatives have been developed by civil society organisations – NGOs, local governments, or citizens. A team of national researchers from the RESISTIRÉ project has collected and highlighted a set of particularly relevant initiatives in 27 European countries and in Iceland, Serbia, the United Kingdom and Turkey. These Better Stories currently cover eight specific domains: gender-based violence, the labour market, the economy, gender-pay and pension gaps, gender care gaps, decision-making and politics, environmental justice, human and fundamental rights.
This Better Story was collected by: Claire Stovell, Charoula Tzanakou, Alexis Still, Anne Laure Humbert.
A group of black fathers in London have started their own podcast to challenge stereotypes and share their experiences of fatherhood.
How it all started
Marvyn, a black British father decided to send on Father’s Day 2018 a WhatsApp message to friends who are fathers saying thank you for their great work in raising the next generation. Every man replied quickly, and the group started discussing what it means to be a black dad in the UK today. The conversation being so rich and honest, they wanted to share them with as many people as possible and so they created a podcast.
Calling themselves “Dope Black Dads”, they speak about the added pressures of being a black male parent: “the parenting part is the same, but what you’re trying to teach your child is much more layered. You’re trying to show them that having a different skin tone and hair might mean they are judged differently”.
Launched in October 2018, the podcast has 60 regular contributors from around the globe. Episodes cover varied topics and some have explicitly referred to issues linked to the pandemic, for example, Get fit with Dope Black Dads; The mental load of masculinity and male parenting; Are you sending your kids back to school?; Back to school post covid.
The impact of the podcast
Dope Black Dads, a digital safe space for fathers who wish to discuss masculinity and their experiences of being a black parent in the modern world, is a success among women too. “We have had a fantastic response to the podcast from real people. Women are our biggest audience – there is a 60/40 split – and we have a global audience from different cultures.”
The hopes are that this podcast will be a step in the right direction and might stop black dads from feeling alone. The aim is to celebrate, heal, inspire, and educate black fathers for better outcomes for black families.