Barack Obama talks about absentee black fathers

Certain things are inevitable. One is that the "Reverend" Al Sharpton (erstwhile champion of Tawana Brawley) will be a featured speaker at any BLM protest. Another is that when I write an inconvenient truth about a prominent person of colour, a reader will call me a racist, bigot, yada yada yada.

This happened yesterday. Even as the Rev prated in front of the Lincoln Memorial about how whites just love putting their knees on black throats, a reader e-mailed me to complain about my statement, yesterday, of the fact that both ex-President Obama and Veep-wannabe Kamala Harris were raised by their mothers with little or no help from their absent fathers.

She (are you surprised?) accused me of perpetuating the negative stereotype of -- my words now -- irresponsible black dudes who impregnate baby mamas (of all races) and then bail out, leaving the mothers to do the best they can, on their own. Just as Barack Obama's mother did. Just as Kamala Harris's other did.

Dear reader. The "missing black father" is not a mythological creature. He is real, and watching from afar as his kids riot, loot, and shoot or get shot. How many reports have you seen on your local newscast in which the mother of a young black(ish) man who is either the perp or the victim weeps and tells the meeja that "he was a good boy, trying to turn his life around" etc etc, with the father nowhere in sight.

Before resting my case, I wish to put in evidence the chart at left, compiled by the National Center for Fathering. Click here to read "The Extent of Fatherlessness", which explains the issue in detail.

Let me leave you with the words of Barack Hussein Obama himself. On 15 June 2008 (a Father's Day), he addressed a black church in Chicago. According to Dr Randall Kennedy (in The Persistence of the Color Line, recommended yesterday), Senator Obama (as he then was)
"stated that 'in the African American community...more than half of all black children live in single-parent households,' and that 'too many fathers [are] missing from too many lives and too many homes.' Continuing, Obama declared that 'these absent black fathers have abandoned their responsibilities, acting more like boys instead of men.'"

Dr Kennedy (who is black) does not say that Mr Obama was wrong in what he said, nor wrong to say it, although he does suggest that there may have been an ulterior motive. Like what? Like preaching family values to black people to prove to white people that he was not the sort of trashy black who would leave his wife and children... or the country... in the lurch.

The facts about incomplete families in the black community are what they are. So are the facts of the lives of ex-President Obama and Senator Harris. I make no apology for pointing out the facts... just the facts.