Thanks Barack Obama!

Yesterday Barack Obama (my future President) gave deadbeat Black daddies the Father’s Day present they deserved. A wake up call!!

The African-American Illinois senator amplified one of his campaign themes in condemning absent fathers who have “abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men.”

“You and I know how true this is in the African-American community,” Obama said, recapping government statistics showing more than half of all black children live in single-parent households.

Such children are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime, nine times more likely to drop out of school, and 20 times more likely to end up in prison, he said.

“And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it,” said Obama, who dwelt on his own challenges growing up with a single mother from the age of two after his Kenyan father abandoned them.

Highlighting one of the signature themes of his presidential bid, Obama said the “greatest gift” that fathers can give their children is hope.

“I’m not talking about an idle hope that’s little more than blind optimism or willful ignorance of the problems we face,” he said.

“I’m talking about hope as that spirit inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better is waiting for us if we’re willing to work for it and fight for it. If we are willing to believe.”

SOURCE

Now I’m sure people of all colors are going to call him to task for singling out Black people, But I commend him!! Kudos Barack!
You can’t call out dirty laundry when the whole nation can smell it already. Tons of songs by black artists talk about their absentee fathers. The Maury Show is alive and kicking on the backs of absentee, paternity test demanding black men. So how can we call out something that’s literally dancing around our heads.
The honest to God truth is that we have a generations of men who didn’t grow up with their fathers and although some of them are trying, they really don’t know how to be fathers. A father is more than a Child support check. Yes Child support is important. Yes you need to pay it, but if you don’t physcally take time to spend with your kids don’t be surprised if they still don’t respect you when they grow up. Don’t be shocked that they call you absentee. don’t be shocked if they only call you for money (afterall you spent the majority of their life being nothing more than a check). Being a real good daddy is more than the occasional weekend and two holidays a year ( and please understand that if you barely spend time with your baby all year yet you want to take them for Christmas and Thanksgiving then baby’s mama will be pissed. Think about it, she’s doing the work all year but you want the best holidays??).
It means calling and communicating with the child AND the child’s mother. So you don’t like her, get over it, you should have thought it through. That means asking for your child to come and visit you. If that means ol girl needs to go to court then take her. The child needs his/her father more than you child’s mother needs to fight with you.
And while we’re at do things with the kid without having the new wife, baby mama, girlfriend, fiancee, jump-off etc around. No child should have to share a parent with somone other than a sibling. Plus, If everytime she/he sees you there’s a chick ( or a different chick) hangiing around what are you teaching them about healthy relationships?

To summarize- Some of our black fathers need to kick it in high gear. Start being the dad you wished you had and do better. Thanks Barack for saying it