A message to their sons —You are loved and smart, but you must fight for racial justice

As cities and towns around the world hold anti-racism protests, parents are struggling to explain the moment to their children as they watch it unfold on TV and outside their windows.

Three South Florida dads are making those difficult conversations a priority, even though their young children may not fully understand the injustices their fathers want to help them see.

Jerry Rateau, a restaurant cook and son of a hard-working Haitian immigrant, was forced to talk to his 7-year-old son after he inadvertently watched George Floyd’s death on TV.

Danny Flores, a musician who picked up his skills from a formerly drug-addicted father, is using music to connect the Hispanic and Black communities and teach his own sons love and acceptance.

And Corey Patterson, though his son is only 18 months old, has turned to Instagram to fight stereotypes about Black fathers and show his son how to thrive in the world.

“Fatherhood is important ... regardless of what type of home you come up with, having a male figure is really important,” Flores said. “I remember there were many times in my childhood where I wish my dad was there and was sober and was effective and was coherent.”

Holly Zwerling, CEO and president of the Fatherhood Task Force of South Florida, said fathers play a powerful role in making the world better for their children. All three fathers are involved in the task force, which aims to bolster fatherhood involvement in children’s lives.

“I want more fathers to take on this issue of racial justice. I want more fathers to be advocates,” Zwerling said. “Dads really need to become leaders ... and leaders for their children, so their children can advocate. The children see their dads advocating and they too will become future advocates.”

Explaining George Floyd’s death to a 7 year old

As George Floyd called to his “Mama,” 7-year-old Jeremiah Rateau, who was watching from the living room of his North Miami home, turned to his dad, Jerry Rateau.

“What? They killed that man? Daddy, I thought police was good guys.”

The 37-year-old fry cook was staring at the news broadcast, too shocked to realize his son had slipped out of his room to be seared with the image of a police officer suffocating a Black man to death.

“There’s a time to have certain conversations with your children and police brutality was not something I thought I had to address with him at 7 years old,” Rateau said. “But… it had to be faced; it had to be spoken.”

With protesters taking to the streets and making the world turn its attention to systemic racism, Rateau said this Father’s Day every father and child should be having conversations about civil rights and law enforcement, and what it means to be Black in America.

Rateau said being a father for the past seven years has meant carving time to play Jenga on “family game day” with Jeremiah and his wife Cindy, bonding with his son over video-game feuds and building rocky forts that take over their living room before rushing to his late-night shifts at Bahama Breeze in North Miami.

But Floyd’s killing, Rateau said, has served as a reminder that being committed to fatherhood also means having difficult conversations about how a Black child should interact with the police, what a human rights violation is and why the homicide committed by one officer in uniform shouldn’t define all police.

Rateau said Floyd’s death should be a teachable moment for all children to understand basic tenets: “They have the right to equality. They have a right to a voice. They have a right to speak. They have a right to not be abused.”

And, he told his son, “You have a right to jog down the street without being followed,” referencing the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man shot to death by a white man while jogging in a south Georgia neighborhood on a Sunday afternoon in February.

Rateau’s father, a Haitian immigrant who worked long days and late nights to get food on the table, often didn’t have a chance to sit him down and have those conversations.

Raul Garcia, 37, who lived next door to Rateau as a child and has been his friend for 31 years, said they both grew up with absent fathers.

Rateau broke out of that pattern and inspired Garcia to do the same.

Rateau helped him realize, Garcia said, that, “At the end of the day you’ve got to be a dad… (and) that doesn’t just mean providing for your kids but being there to teach them life lessons”— even in the midst of a pandemic and while mourning the death of yet another unarmed Black man killed by a police officer.

“To stop it [police brutality] from happening all around the country… we need to speak it, we need to live it: This will not happen (to my son),” Rateau said, leaning against Jeremiah and holding his face close to his chest.

Caroline Ghisolfi

Music as the connector to family, the community

On Danny Flores’ piano, his instrument of choice, sits a Polaroid of him, his father and his two siblings: a testament to how far the family, particularly Flores’ father, have come.

At just 8 years old, Flores, 41, watched his father battle a crack cocaine addiction. His father, Daniel Flores, was verbally abusive toward the family, popping in and out of their lives.

But one thing remained constant between the father and son: music. The father, a music director, instructed his son to pick up the piano, having him play gigs at restaurants and nightclubs.

Flores has since turned that skill into a career as one half of the Puerto Rican, Grammy-nominated duo known as COASTCITY, for which Flores produces as well as plays keys and sings backup.

“It’s ironic because although he had this addiction and he obviously made some really poor choices in his life, he still somehow tried to have some sort of relationship with me,” Flores said. “Sometimes, it was a bit abusive. And some of it ... came from the heart.”

The senior Flores, now sober and living in Orlando, is a devoted grandfather to Flores’ two sons.

Flores said his father, whom he called a “kind” and “beautiful” man outside of his addiction, grew up without a father himself. Flores said his dad was just trying to figure out how to “emote love to his children.”

A generation later, Flores is working to do the same thing.

“I think I took the good stuff that my dad demonstrated and I took also his mistakes and turned those things around,” Flores said. “A lot of times kids that come from a broken home, they end up in addictions ... I ran away from it because I saw how awful [it was], how that destroys a human being and how it can destroy a family.”

Flores’s COASTCITY partner, Jean Rodriguez, said Flores is a devoted dad. The two have been working afternoons and nights so Flores can watch his two children — Lucas, 5, and Noah, 3 — while his wife, Yaritza, 34, works during the day.

“Always, since day one, he’s all about the family,” said Rodriguez, 39.

Whether Flores’ children will follow in their father’s musical footsteps is up for debate. As his father strums “Guajira Guantanamera” on the piano in the family’s Coral Gables home, Noah bangs on random keys alongside him, his giggles echoing twice as loud as his father’s voice.

Lucas is slightly more disciplined, laying his hands on top of his father’s and playing along as he snuggles into his lap. The two play the recently released COASTCITY song, “Lullaby.”

Flores and Rodriguez wrote the song three years ago. Rodriguez said the song flowed out of “true, honest emotion” while the pair were out doing a promo tour, separated from their kids.

The music video features cameos from Latinx stars and their children, including Ricky Martin, Big Time Rush’s Carlos Peña and Luis Fonsi, who is Rodriguez’s brother.

Rodriguez said the song is good for the current moment, with lockdowns triggered by the coronavirus as well as nationwide protests borne out of calls for justice after George Floyd’s killing. The protests inspired Flores to get involved with the Fatherhood Task Force of South Florida a few weeks ago.

“I saw the [task force] was one organization that was actually very involved with the Black community,” Flores said. “And I also saw an opportunity for them to be able to be involved with the Hispanic community.”

For Flores, hard conversations about racism start in the home, even if his children’s age make their understanding limited.

“We don’t judge, you know. We don’t create friendships just because of their color of their skin,” Flores said he tells his children. “We create friendships and we have proximity to people because they’re human beings.”

Maya Lora

Sending a message to his son

For the past three weeks, Corey Patterson has ended his night the same way.

He reads to his 18-month-old son Cole then asks him to repeat the following mantra:

“I’m a king. I’m strong. I’m smart. I love you.”

Cole may not understand this — a toddler, he’s just learning how to use the bathroom. But at a time when Black Americans are battling the intertwined pandemics of COVID-19 and racism, the elder Patterson wants to equip his son with the tools to thrive in a world that will often try to pigeonhole him because of his skin color.

“The power of those words, being said out loud, will always be with him,” said Patterson, 34.

To Patterson, it’s all about changing the perception of Black fathers. His newly minted Instagram show, “Conversations with CP,” allows Patterson and other Black men to have an honest dialogue about fatherhood.

“Especially in the Black community, I feel like representation is important,” Patterson said. “Sometimes in the media, whether it’s social media, television or radio, you don’t always get the opportunity to see Black fathers viewed in a positive light.”

A first-generation college graduate, Patterson didn’t come from a home where diplomas were mounted, framed and hung on plaster walls, a parchment imprimatur of society’s standing.

Yet he gave his parents both his undergraduate and master’s diplomas.

“Those things are not accomplished without them,” says Patterson, who lives with his family in Plantation.

He credits his parents with supporting him in the arduous process of becoming a certified public accountant, a field where Black Americans account for fewer than 1 percent, according to an article in Bloomberg Tax, citing statistics by the National Association of Black Accountants.

Patterson also credits Edward Triangolo, whom he was introduced to more than 10 years ago after a Johnson & Wales University board of trustees meeting at the Fairmont Turnberry Isle Resort & Club in Aventura, where Patterson was working as a concierge.

“He had a great attitude. He was someone who wanted to succeed and he was very attentive,” said Triangolo, 77, a former president of Johnson & Wales and a Fort Lauderdale accounting professional.

Triangolo says fatherhood has only strengthened Patterson’s character.

Patterson’s fiancée, Regina Grimner, chuckles at how she had initially wanted a girl to soften him up. But Cole has Patterson “eating out the palm of his hand.”

“Some people are just people who happen to be parents and they parent with that in mind,” said Grimner, 29. “But I feel like Corey really tries to be the best parent he can be.”

The affirmations, the Instagram show, the fatherhood-induced excitement are all part of Patterson’s legacy, a word he uses quite frequently.

“Superman is cool. Batman’s cool. But no one’s better than dad,” he said.

C. Isaiah Smalls II

Fatherhood Task Force of South Florida

To learn more about the Fatherhood Task Force of South Florida, go to www.ftfsf.org or email holly@fatherhoodtfsf.org

This story was originally published June 20, 2020 at 11:23 AM.