It seemed appropriate that Barack Obama would talk about absentee fathers on Father's Day. The message, the messenger, and the location were perfectly aligned for the presumptive Democratic nominee to take on arguably the greatest challenge within the African American community.
Back in 2004 when Bill Cosby made similar statements, I was critical not about what Cosby said per se, I questioned the location. A star-studded, Washington DC black tie event is an unlikely place to find those who were the targets of Cosby's comments. To Cosby's credit, he has since carried his message directly into low-income black communities without much fanfare and media hype.
Obama gave his remarks at one of the largest black churches in Chicago, located on the South Side, the same place where he spent years as a community organizer.
"We need fathers to realize that responsibility doesn't just end at conception," he said. Adding, "It's the courage to raise a child that makes you a father."
Obama is the only presidential candidate running this year who could have made such bold statements without being tainted as political. It was not a "Sista Soldier" moment; it was an honest assessment from someone who grew up not knowing his father. Obama's speech was also a reminder that concern about the alarming rate of absentee fathers in the black community is not exclusive to conservative orthodoxy.
He rhetorically raised questions to the Chicago congregation that could have very easily been addressed to myriad single mothers living in Oakland, Los Angeles, or New York.
"How many times in the last year has this city lost a child at the hands of another child? How many times have our hearts stopped in the middle of the night with the sound of a gunshot or a siren? How many teenagers have we seen hanging around on street corners when they should be sitting in a classroom?" he said.
To many single mothers each week engage in the creative math required to make ends meet, instill values that are constantly being challenged by popular culture, and simultaneously assume the roles of disciplinarian, confidant, and comforter without any assistance morally or monetarily from the father.
But there is also an ironic tragedy in Obama's remarks in that he was the only one running for president, because of his race, who could make such comments. Obama's Father's Day speech only began to scratch the surface of what Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote about extensively in 1965, which led to Moynihan being unfairly labeled a racist in some circles.
There since has been a plethora of data that supports Moynihan's report. But the staggering number of absentee fathers, particularly in the black community has grown; and along with that growth has been a corresponding rise in the number of black children that live in poverty, commit crimes, drop out of school, become teenage parents, and who end up under the jurisdiction of the prison industrial complex.
Regardless of who is the next president, there can be no issue that is off limits to his bully pulpit.
While Obama could offer honest critiques about the plight of the black family, he was called an "elitist" when he provided observations about low income, rural whites. The irony there was those comments came on the heels of his having made similar remarks as his Father's Day message.
If one agrees these problems will eventually bleed into the larger society in some form, how can we remain in the embryonic stage of deciding who has the right to discuss them?
Imagine if John McCain had made similar remarks. No doubt he would have been criticized for playing politics or worse called a racist. Until there is a trend that reverses what is happening to segments of the black community one could argue that anyone who raises it, regardless of hue, is politicizing it.
But absentee parenting in the black community remains a problem that no legislation can fully eradicate. The change must come from communities like the one Obama spoke to on Chicago's south side last week.
Byron Williams is an Oakland pastor and syndicated columnist. He is the author of Strip Mall Patriotism: Moral Reflections of the Iraq War. E-mail him at byron@byronspeaks.com or go to his website byronspeaks.com