Obama slams black fathers

Senator Barack Obama gave this father's day speech:

In an address Sunday that was striking for its bluntness and where the candidate chose to give it, Obama directly addressed one of the most delicate topics confronting black leaders: whether absent fathers bore responsibility for some of the intractable problems afflicting black Americans. Obama noted that "more than half of all black children live in single-parent households," a number that he said had doubled since his own childhood.

Too many fathers are "missing from too many lives and too many homes," Obama said to a chorus of approving murmurs from the audience. "They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it."

I think that this speech is offensive. Yes, Obama's African father abandoned him, but Obama had a white mom and a privileged upbringing that has little in common with black Americans.

Obama puts all the blame on the black fathers, but there should be just as much blame on the black mothers who are having illegitimate babies, on the welfare system that encourages illegitimacy, and on the courts for a bunch of anti-father policies.

Obama is a phony who is trying to pander to whites by showing that he is willing to criticize black men. At the same time, he tries to portray himself as a black man who overcame a fatherless family. I don't buy it. If he really wanted to fight fatherlessness, he would propose something constructive.

The Half Sigma blog writes:

The NY Times headline says that Obama is assailing absentee black fathers. Some people will be snookered into thinking that this sounds vaguely conservative because he’s blaming someone besides whitey. But it takes two people to have a baby. Someone needs to blame black women for the problem. Black women are more responsible than the black men. A black woman who wants to get pregnant will be able to find some man to unwittingly help her.

On Friday, Mr. Obama announced that he would be a co-sponsor of a bill with Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, that his campaign said would address the “national epidemic of absentee fathers.” If passed, the legislation would increase the enforcement of child support payments and strengthen domestic violence prevention services.

The message here is that if a black woman has a baby out of wedlock, someone else (either the government or the unfortunate sperm donor) will pay for it. States have already been rigorously going after fathers for child support, and it has been a disaster. The men who impregnate welfare mothers tend to be too poor to pay any child support. And the lives of innocent men have been ruined. Read this excellent Reason Magazine article. And read these real facts about deadbeat dads from a prosecutor who has prosecuted countless cases against them.

Obama’s solution to our nation’s problems is to federalize a really bad state policy.

Glenn Sacks also slams Obama for this speech.