Men We Reaped

Ward’s only brother, Josh struggles with the harsh expectations of masculinity modeled for him by his father. As the only son, Josh endures the weight of his father’s and society’s expectations, and he abides by the mandate that men must provide, which leads him to sell crack cocaine in times of unemployment. Ward describes her brother as intelligent, but he leaves school due to what Ward argues is the inflexibility of the public school system to individualize learning. Josh moves from job to job until finding employment as a valet attendant at a local casino. He demonstrates a keen common sense that helps him navigate the streets more adroitly than Ward, who maintains a naivete fostered by her education. After taking a different route home after work, Josh is killed by a White drunk driver who flees the scene.

Although she does not name her in the memoir, Ward provides the full history of her mother’s life. The eldest daughter of a single mother, Ward’s mother cares for her six siblings from a young age and witnesses firsthand her own mother’s struggles to provide for the family. Her role as caretaker leaves her “lonely and isolated,” feelings that are compounded by “her natural shyness” (19). She desires to escape from her family’s generational struggles and moves to Los Angeles after high school.

Eventually, Ward’s mother moves to Oakland to be with Ward’s father. She dreams of becoming a preschool teacher and hesitates to return to Mississippi. After returning at the behest of her husband, Ward’s mother struggles to reconcile her desire to provide her children with the two-parent household she never knew and the disrespect she endures from her philandering husband. Ultimately, she becomes a single mother who works tirelessly as a housekeeper for White families to be present for her children. She is a consummate provider and a source of inspiration for Ward, who envisions the possibility for real societal change through her mother’s qualities of strength, courage, and resilience.

Described as “handsome and charming and funny, muscular, and artistic” (17), Ward’s father flitters in and out of the household as he is unable to remain committed to Ward’s mother. The child of a single mother, Ward’s father also witnesses the struggles of a fatherless household and initially promises to provide his children with a two-parent household. He and his family relocate to Oakland, California, in 1969 after the devastation of Hurricane Camille. The freedom he experiences as a result of his gender allows Ward’s father to pursue various interests, which include kung fu. He dreams of opening his own kung fu studio and attempts to do so while also using his and his wife’s saved money to purchase a motorcycle.

Despite his repeated infidelity and fathering of multiple children out of wedlock, Ward’s father is Josh’s main disciplinarian. As he attempts to train Josh for brutality in the same manner as he trains his many fighting pit bulls, Ward’s father also tries to impart his belief in “the power of community, in the power of conscious political thought to fight racism and transform people who were browbeaten into those who had agency” (197-98). Unfortunately, Josh never experiences this transformative power and falls victim to the pressures to provide by dealing drugs, often to help his father pay his own mortgage.

The former boyfriend of Nerissa, Rog is a close family friend to Ward, someone with whom she spends much time partying. Rog lost his father to a heart attack at age 28. Although Rog previously left Mississippi for California and found steady work in an auto body shop, he returns home and constantly makes plans to escape Mississippi. As Ward numbs herself with alcohol during their outings, Rog becomes addicted to cocaine. Unable to overcome his addiction, Rog takes cocaine and a prescription pill, which results in his death from a drug-induced heart attack at age 23. His death mirrors his father’s and furthers Ward’s exploration of the generational patterns that plague young Black men and women in her community.

Demond is another friend of Ward’s sister Nerissa who accompanies Ward on her many outings partying in DeLisle and New Orleans. Unlike the other men featured in Ward’s memoir and Ward herself, Demond is the only child of a two-parent working-class household where he lived a peaceful, stable childhood. Demond leaves the military after four years and works diligently at multiple factory jobs, where “he wore his work jumpsuits and his boots like a badge of honor” (66). Demond becomes a father in his late 20s and lives with his fiancée and child.

Demond once suggests that Ward, an aspiring novelist, write about his own life, inspiring Ward to ponder how she uses her fiction to create worlds where she protects her characters from the forces that would destroy them in real life. To protect himself from such forces, Demond agrees to testify against an alleged shooter and a drug dealer. Despite his stable childhood, his commitment to working hard, and his attempts to escape from the cycles of violence in his community, Demond still remains vulnerable and is murdered in front of his house as he returns home from work.

Ward’s dynamic and athletically gifted cousin C. J. struggles to find stability throughout his short life, moving from relative to relative. He dates Ward’s youngest sister Charine and even attempts to create a pseudo-family with her by stealing a small pit bull puppy. Despite his athletic gifts, C. J. does not play for his high school sports team, and he drops out in ninth grade in what Ward lists as another example of the public school system’s neglect. C. J. reluctantly sells drugs to survive and uses them himself. He foreshadows his death numerous times and even shares with Charine his belief that he will not live a long life. C. J. dies on a foggy night after his cousin’s car is hit by a train. Due to derelict alert system, the cousins do not see the train coming. Unable to escape, C. J. dies in the car when it catches on fire.