Obama, Lay Off Black Fathers!

http://mensnewsdaily.com/2008/06/17/...black-fathers/

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Obama, Lay Off Black Fathers!
June 17, 2008 at 10:08 am



Presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama thundered to
long, loud and vigorous applause from a Father's Day Chicago church crowd
that black fathers don't engage with their children.

A month before Obama made this stereotypical and plainly false assertion,
Boston University professor Rebekah Levine Coley, in a comprehensive study
on the black family, found that black fathers who aren't in the home are
much more likely to sustain regular contact with their children than
absentee white fathers, or for that matter, fathers of any other ethnic
group. The study is not an obscure study buried in the thick pages of a
musty academic journal. It was widely cited in a feature article on black
fathers in the May 19, 2008 issue of Newsweek. There was no excuse then to
spout this myth. The facts are totally contrary to Obama's knock.

But then again, this kind of over the top, sweeping talk about alleged black
father irresponsibility from Obama isn't new. In stump speeches, he's
pounded black men for their alleged father dereliction, irresponsibility and
negligence. Whether Obama is trying to shore up his family values
credentials with conservatives, or feels the need to vent personal anger
from the pain and longing from being raised without a father, or criticizes
out of a genuine concern about the much media-touted black family breakup is
anybody's guess. But Obama clearly is fixated on the ever-popular notion of
the absentee black father. And that fixation for whatever reason is fed by a
mix of truth, half truths and outright distortion.

Obama commits the cardinal error that every critic from the legions of
sociologists, family experts, politicians and morals crusader Bill Cosby who
have hectored black men for being father derelict have made. He omits the
words "some," "those," or "the offenders" before black fathers. Instead, he
makes, or at least gives the impression, that all, or most, black men aren't
in the home, and are irresponsible. That being the case ipso facto they are
the cause for the much fingered crime-drugs-violence-gross underachievement
syndrome that young black males are supposedly eternally locked into.

Obama presents absolutely no evidence to back up this devastating
indictment. The worst case estimate is that slightly less than half of black
children live in fatherless homes. But that's only a paper figure. When
income, education, individual background, and middle-class status are
factored in the gap between black and white children who live in intact,
two-parent households is much narrower.

This points to the single greatest reason for the higher number of black
children who live in one-parent households. That reason is poverty. A 2007
study noted that a black father's ability to financially contribute the
majoor support in the home is the major determinant of whether he remains in
the home. That's no surprise considering that despite changing gender values
and emphasis society still dumps the expectation and burden on men to be the
principal breadwinner and financial provider. Put bluntly, men and the
notion of manhood are still mainly defined by their ability to bring home
the bacon. A man who falls short of that standard is considered a failure
and loser.

The chronic near Great Depression levels of unemployment, not to mention
rampant job discrimination, endemic failing public schools, and stigma of a
criminal record virtually condemn many young black men to wear the tag of
societal failures as men and fathers. Obama in his rap against black men as
fathers says nothing about the economic devasation that drives many black
men from the home or prevents them from being in the home in the first
place.

Obama, undoubtedly is well intentioned in his criticism of black family
problems and certainly doesn't mean to slander all, or even most black men,
as derelict, laggards and slackers as fathers. Obama, as Cosby and others
who beat up on black males for alleged father dereliction, would almost
certainly publicly bristle at criticism that he takes the worst of the worst
behavior of some black men and publicly hurls that out as the warped
standard of black America. Yet that's precisely what he's done. And since
every utterance by him is instant news and is taken as fact by legions of
supporters and admirers, that makes his fan of stereotypes about black men
even more painful.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is
The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House.