Posted on 06/15/2008 6:49:26 PM PDT by blam
Barack Obama asks fathers to take responsibility
By Alex Spillius in Washington
Last Updated: 12:51AM BST 16/06/2008
Senator Barack Obama has called on black American men to accept their responsibilities as fathers and to stop "acting like boys instead of men".
Barack Obama speaking at the Apostolic Church of God
In a Father's Day speech at a black church in his home city of Chicago, the Democratic presidential nominee listed the disadvantages faced by single parent families in the community, and urged men to realise that their responsibility as a father does not end at conception.
"If we are honest with ourselves, we'll admit that too many fathers are missing. You and I know how true this is in the African-American community," said the father of two.
"We know the statistics – that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime, nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison.
"The foundations of our community are weaker because of it.
"We need them to realise that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child – it's the courage to raise one."
Women who were working, looking after children and cleaning the house were performing "heroics", he said, but needed the support of another parent.
It was the first time Mr Obama has appeared at a Chicago church since he left the congregation of the Trinity Church of Christ, whose former pastor, the Rev Jeremiah Wright, mired himin controversy with his race-tinged criticism of America.
Although campaign aides said he has not yet decided on a permanent new church, his decision to speak at the Apostolic Church of God indicated that he will play it safe in future.
Bishop Arthur Brazier, the recently retired Bishop at the Pentecostal church, has said that he views politics in the pulpit as inappropriate, and is widely admired as a civil rights contemporary of Martin Luther King.
With a congregation of 20,000, the church has a powerful base in Chicago's South Side, and has bought up large portions of land where it has built affordable housing.
Though Mr Obama's message was delivered to the African American community, his belief in the family will not do him any harm in his efforts to court the religious Right and wavering Republicans for November's election.
His speech also contained strong elements of the confessional so popular in US politics.
The senator recalled how his own father, a student from Kenya, had left his mother when he was two.
He saw his mother, and grandparents, struggle with bills and to fill the void. Mr Obama, whose girls are aged six and nine, said: "I resolved many years ago that it was my obligation to break the cycle – that if I could be anything in life, I would be a good father to my girls; that if I could give them anything, I would give them that rock – that foundation – on which to build their lives."
Good for Bill on that one
Barry's fan club.
And Bill Cosby paid the price for saying the obvious by the black community for acting “uppity”. Obama will be praised for it.
Too little, decades too late. Sorry Hussein, but the damage is done. Both to black families and to my wallet.
cant this jackass simply say “ HAPPY FATHER’S DAY” like the rest of America?
This is the first thing I’ve heard Obama say that I agree with. However, it strikes me as incredibly sad, and also points to our dysfunctional society that only a black man could get away with saying this.
Gosh...when white guys say things like this, they get crucified.
Obama due to appear in MI...Look for the appearance to be for appearances sake. Watch the local news’s sappiness towards him. It should tell you something.
ducking for cover
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How do you raise one that has been aborted Barry?
Your speech is fine, but it does not line up with the positions or the stances you take on critical issues that undergirt what you are talking about.
You cannot say out of one side of your mnouth that young men should take responsibility and raise the kids that are born (which they should), and then out of the other side tells the girls that they are free to kill them before they ever are born.
Your moral authority to espouse one is absolutely destroyed by your support for the other. But I am not holding my breath for the MSM to point this obvious flaw out.
It's sort of the moat and the beam thing Barry, your know, like our Savior taught us.
Sorry, Barry, despite the fact that this message is a good one for all young men (not just black ones), your overall dog just don't hunt.
Winkin blinkin and nod.
Bill Cosby said it better. Maybe he should be running for President.
See my post number 13.
But Nobama 08 knows what he is talking about. His black father abandoned him at a very young age. I wonder why he didn’t mention that?
Good point. Tell the “boys” to be good fathers, but tell the “girls” to murder the unborn. It just goes to further prove what we’ve said for a long time; that liberalism is a mental disorder.
He has already told America that he doesn't want his own daughters punished wth a baby.
I live in a non black populated rural area and I can safely say the white kids have fathers MIA too.
Some have multiple fathers missing from one family.
Words from Obama and all those before him cannot change men who breed like animals and in some cases kill there young and the women who allow the cycle to continue.
That change has to come from the soul of such selfish people.
Something just never change.
And
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