Prometheus 6

I think people have conveniently forgot that Jackson supported Obama before many black voters were unsure of whether to support him and when most of the black elders of civil rights movement had already lined up with Clinton. They want Jackson's personal foibles (and there are many) to be the crux of the conversation and any criticism of Obama's general election strategy of delivering lift-your-self-up-by-your-boot-strap speeches to be regarded as outdated and narcissistic. Jackson's criticisms are relevant even if he privately makes them in the undignified manner of someone whose time has come and gone.

Not one person has stepped forward and explained why Barack Obama, as a candidate for the presidency of the United States, was compelled or felt it necessary to give a national speech on Fathers Day about the responsibilities of black fathers. I want to move for a few moments beyond the issue of whether he was speaking the truth or not. What I want is someone to tell me why the speech was necessary given that absentee fathers are not just a problem in the black national community. Since the speech I have read and heard a great deal about the responsibilities of black fathers but almost nothing about the problems in general caused by absentee fathers.

I'm waiting.

pt, read the speech once more. It's not just about black fathers. There was ONE paragraph about absentee black fathers (because he was after all in a black church) but the rest of it applied to fathers or families in general. He spends more time criticizing the government's role in the dissolution of the family than he does speaking negatively about black dads. The media has chosen to spin this narrative as Obama throwing black men under the bus, but no, it's nothing like Cosby's hypocritical speechifying. He addresses the multifarious causes of black parental disengagement, and of course, he's speaking from personal experience, having been raised without his own father.

xigxag -

I appreciate your viewpoint and your efforts to expand my understanding of what Obama said. My objection to the speech is, however, in toto. Obama is extremely shrewd and sophisticated. Please don't try to tell me that the intended audience for his speech was the national black community. It was not.

In my opinion, the circumstances surrounding Obama's fatherless childhood have little if anything to do with the dynamics which account for the widespread absence of black fathers in the African American community. I find it strange that Obama consistently mentions his own absent father in his speeches about African American family life when his father was never really a member of the African American community.