Barack Obama’s Father’s Day Speech

Over Father’s Day weekend, culminating on June 15th, Democratic Presidential nominee, Senator Barack Obama decided to give a speech about Absent Black Father’s; chiding them in his address for not living up to their responsibilities. Ironic isn’t it, because a few years ago comedian Bill Cosby gave this very talk to which he was met with consternation, jeers, and criticism. However, candidate Barack Obama, while preaching to a packed crowd of parishioners from the pulpit of The Apostolic Church of God on Chicago’s Southside, was met with enthusiastic applause, a standing ovation, and cheers. It would seem that the Black Community is sending out mixed signals.

On the one hand a particular message is condemned and at another venue the same message is praised. The term, “Don’t shoot the messenger,” doesn’t apply in this case because it just depends on who the messenger is. Besides all that, wasn’t the Harvard-educated Law School graduate concerned about these same issues previously when he was a community organizer on Chicago’s Southside about twenty years ago?

The acceptance of Barack Obama is reminiscent of John Kerry and the “Swift Boat” Ads in a strange sort of way. Barack Obama wasn’t one of us, but now he is one of us before he became one of us; it’s just that confusing. Does Senator Barack Obama bend in whichever direction the political winds carry him, and what was that poignant speech supposed to accomplish anyway? Will the many Black AWOL and MIA fathers suddenly return home and become a part of their children’s lives, emotionally, socially, financially, and mentally?

However, it was convenient to have the most publicly recognizable Black man in America, and throughout most of the world, to speak on such a sensitive topic that very few others could with such candor and respectability. The Reagan Democrats, Independents, Moderate Republicans, AWFC (“Angry White Female Clintonites”), and the rest of White America are all watching Senator Obama very closely to see whether he is for ‘real,’ or is he just a mirage that will disappear in the cool spring water of the oasis of political reality.


Robert Randle
776 Commerce St. #B-11
Tacoma, WA 98402
June 15, 2008
pbks@hotmail.com