Obama celebrated Fathers Day today by speaking to a Black Church in Chicago. Various news sources including The New York Times, USA Today and The Associated Press gave accounts of the speech. Here are snippets of the speech:
“Too many fathers are M.I.A, too many fathers are AWOL, missing from tooThis is a breath of fresh air. The state of the black family is such a sensitive matter that only a Black person can raise the issue.
many lives and too many homes,”
“They have abandoned their responsibilities,
acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker
because of it.”
“More than half of all black children live in single-parent
households.”
“I know how hard it is to get kids to eat properly, but I
also know that folks are letting our children drink eight sodas a day, which
some parents do, or, you know, eat a bag of potato chips for lunch. Buy a little
desk or put that child at the kitchen table. Watch them do their
homework.”
“We need families to raise our children. We need fathers to
realize that responsibility doesn’t just end at conception. That doesn’t just
make you a father. What makes you a man is not the ability to have a child. Any
fool can have a child. That doesn’t make you a father. It’s the courage to raise
a child that makes you a father.”
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Barack Obama, whose own dad abandoned the family when young Barack was two years old, brought his wife Michelle and their two young daughters. He noted that "any fool can have a child." The entire text of Obama's speech can be found here. However, we suggest the version annotated by Barack himself: http://www.236.com/news/2008/06/16/obama_tells_black_men_to_act_l_7171.php
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