“You shot me. You shot me. I got a daughter bruh.” Oscar Grant’s last words before he was shot and killed. Considering the reading in Bell Hook’s We Real Cool, in Fruitvale, Oscar Grant as a dad represents loving fatherhood instead of the corrosive effects of American Patriarchy. Grant is a good father because of multiple reasons, he decides to change from who he was, he continuously decided to do the right thing rather than the wrong, he never wanted Tatiana to see the lifestyle he was in, he is in attendance in his daughter’s life, and lastly simply because he is a caring person. One reason why he is a good and loving father is because he decides to change from his previous lifestyle prior to his time spent in jail and to do what was right even when every old calling in his body was telling him to do what’s wrong. When he had no…show more content… Contrary to Bell Hook’s description of many black fathers in We Real Cool. He writes, “Since so many black males uncritically accept patriarchal thinking, they continue to believe that children do not need a father’s care as much as they need mothers.” (Hook, page 97) This explains, due to patriarchal norms children do not need their father’s love and affection as much as a mother’s love and affection, black fathers are absent in their children’s life. He also writes, “This faulty logic, reinforced by patriarchal norms, persists even though it is more than apparent that children need to be nurtured by fathers, long for father’s love, and without it suffer.” (Hook, page 97-98) So despite what the America Patriarchy expectations are, they did not affect Oscar’s nurturing or existence in Tatiana’s life. He was and always wanted to be there for his daughter, the only thing keeping him out of her life was when he was in jail. That is when he realized he had to get away from that lifestyle to be able to be present in her
