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."
LOL
Perfectly put IMO.
Rubbish. Marriage is broken. It was broken by the corrupt politicians and the lawyers.
I used to work as a flight test engineer. We had test pilots on out team too. The difference: being involved, and being comitted. Kind of like breakfast. The chicken is involved in producing the egg. The pig is comitted to making the bacon.
It is good for a father to be involved. The mother is comitted.
Augustus Caesar had a sister who he gave in marriage to a political ally. She was famous for sexual affairs, but all of her children strongly resembled her husband. When asked about those two facts, she responded “My husband is commander of the Roman Navy. Of course I know that the cargo is stowed before you take on passengers.”
He did in the next to the last paragraph, you just didn’t read the article.
AFTER 20 YEARS OF SILENCE BARACK OBAMA COMES OUT AND SAYS BLACK MEN HAVE TO START ACTING LIKE REAL MEN WHEN IT COMES TO FATHERHOOD.
My Goodness; Barack must be running for office or something.
Its never good, but the statistics show that its the black population who is leading this trend - by large numbers.
What about white, hispanic, asian or fathers of any other race? yet more proof that B Hussein Obama is a racist.
I said it before - Obama will be running more and more to the “center” He has blacks, libs, enviro-nazis all locked up. Now he is trying to seem like a “moderate” until November.
anyone can make up a story like that , however undocumented.
Farce not! Just another thread that needs a good boost!
Today, Senator B. Hussein Obama, campaigning from the pulpit of a church, called on black men to “punish women with babies.”
Good points.
(so does she mean she made sure she was pregnant before fufilling her desires of lotsa passion?)
I have nothing much I can say about BHO that can be posted on a family forum...........yet.
Our nation is in extreme danger if that POS gets elected. His documented connections too real honest too god terrorists and their organizations whose entire lives have been used too destroy this nation by any means possible is something that can NOT be allowed.
GOP has really handed republicans and conservatives a turd this election that IMO can’t and won’t beat this terrorist.
Just my opinion of course.......
And only 'some' black guys can get away with it. Ask Bill Cosby and John McWhorter.
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