In Dreams from My Father, Obama makes clear that he adopted his father’s ideals and social philosophy—which essentially was Socialism-on-the-way-to-Communism. Why does he want to be like his father? Is it because he thinks that adopting his father’s worldview will somehow yield him the paternal love, approval and guidance he never got?
In the Father’s Day 2009 edition of Parade magazine, Obama wrote about being a father. He said, “My father left my family when I was 2 years old, and I knew him mainly from the letters he wrote and the stories my family told. And while I was lucky to have two wonderful grandparents who poured everything they had into helping my mother raise my sister and me, I still felt the weight of his absence throughout my childhood” (21 June 2009, p. 4).
He continued, “I came to understand the importance of fatherhood through its absence—both in my life and in the lives of others. I came to understand that the hole a man leaves when he abandons his responsibility is one that no government can fill.” And he concludes, “That is why we need fathers to step up, to realize that their job does not end at conception; that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise one.”
Finally, he goes on to declare that he doesn’t want that sense of abandonment and emotional distance to happen to his daughters and therefore he is recommitting himself to “those duties that all parents share.”
Self-insight and self-understanding are fundamental to maturity and happiness, and it is to Obama’s credit that he stated what he said above. But it is to his discredit that he avoids all mention of his father’s politics as the basis of his own. Is it deliberate or does it reflect a failure to recognize and assess his father’s irresponsibility and shortcomings? Is it a lack of maturity in Obama which prevents him for seeing that the Emperors in his life had no clothes?
For all his words about what makes a good father, Obama doesn’t see—or perhaps is simply unwilling to admit—that both his father’s and his own political philosophy, as expressed in the vast socialist governmental actions he has already taken and proposed, is the foremost contributor to the dysfunction of the black community in general with which he identifies.
To the extent that the black community is functional, it is because of two factors. First, many blacks have let go of their race-based identity enough to assimilate into mainstream America and take advantage of the opportunities available to them, and have recognized that the only colors which really count are red, white and blue. Second, black religious institutions such as churches and mosques insist on moral behavior and self-restraint.
Remove that and what’s left? Dysfunction verging on anarchy and chaos! Bill Cosby’s recent criticism of the black community blames bad parenting for:
– the high rate of crime in the black community
– the high rate of incarcerated black men
– the high dropout rate of black high school students
– the high rate of unwed mothers and one-parent households
– the coarse behavior, vulgar speech and slovenly dress of black youth
– the failure of many blacks to move up the socioeconomic ladder
Cosby declared that parents are primarily responsible for these social ills—not their slave heritage and not white oppression—and therefore they must change their parenting behavior to provide moral guidance and socioeconomic upward mobility for their children.
(To be concluded)