Restore Belize and NICH are hosting Etan Thomas, former NBA Grizzlies player, this week as he speaks to Belize’s youth on the importance of fatherhood in his Motivational Fatherhood Tour which include motivation sessions on Tuesday, June 2 and Wednesday, June 3 at the Bliss Institute for Performing Arts. This event is being sponsored by the Belize City Council, Radisson Hotel, Portofino Resort, Chamberlain Consulting and Belizean to Dah Bone!
Etan arrived in Belize along with his beautiful wife Nicole where they met with the press at the airport’s VIP lounge, hosted by the BTB. Etan Thomas is known as the poetic voice of his generation, a portal of our future, a poet, activist! He focuses on the importance of Fatherhood rising to the ultimate challenge as the key to molding a new and positive generation.
His inspirational meditation on fatherhood offers a lot to chew on, both as a primer for thoughtful fathers and children and as a particularly trenchant entry in the ongoing conversation on parenthood and race. In addition to relating his journey into fatherhood, Thomas has enlisted a cohort of men from the worlds of sports, music and media to add their stories, with the resulting chorus providing a stream of warning, encouragement and guidance.
Although Thomas maintains that “being a good father is an issue that crosses color lines,” there is no doubt that “Fatherhood” is intended mainly for black men and their families. Several times Thomas mentions that almost two-thirds of black children grow up in single-parent households, one of those oft-cited statistics that seems to reflect the reader’s presuppositions as much as it sheds clarity or insight. Is the problem cultural? Economic? Educational? Historical? Into the maw of this immensely complex and deeply emotional topic Thomas has launched an earnest, deeply felt, sometimes muddled book.
Thomas’s story deserves hearing in that it both typifies and diverges from standard conceptions of African American masculinity. Like many black men, he was raised largely by a single mother — in his case, in a working-class part of Tulsa. Playing in the NBA is, of course, the most visible and widely emulated black success story.
Etan Thomas states, It’s time to leave our mark on the world and show our spirit of helping and caring around the world.”
Restore Belize and NICH join the rest of Belize in welcoming Etan Thomas to Belize as he helps in shaping the moral fabric of fatherhood in Belizean youth.
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