Comments Posted By The New Centrist
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This is the "speech on race" Obama should have made months ago. Now, when he sees that Latinos and working-class white voters are skeptical of his "change" mantra, he makes this speech. I honestly thought you would see right through this...
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/let-us-by-all-means-have-an-honest-conversation-about-race-11379
When the Moynihan report was written, 25 percent of black children were being born out of wedlock—a shocking figure at the time. By 1980, the out-of-wedlock birthrate for blacks had more than doubled. It now stands at an astounding 70 percent. Marriage rates for blacks have also fallen to perilous levels; only 32 percent are currently married and living with their spouse. Today, the overwhelming majority of black children will spend most of their lives being raised by single mothers—or increasingly, like Barack Obama, by their grandparents.
High rates of single female-headed households, in turn, lead to much higher poverty rates for blacks: 37 percent for female-headed families, as compared with just 8 percent for two-parent families. And children raised in female-headed households are more likely to drop out of school, to get into trouble with the law, and to become single parents themselves.
Obama’s Philadelphia speech was a perfect opportunity for him to address this obstinate reality, which, in order to provide a fuller picture, must be placed alongside the progressive march of so many blacks into the bastions of the American middle class. Here was an especially opportune moment to talk about the consequences of black family breakdown, a subject Obama could have discussed with the compelling authority of one who himself experienced abandonment by his father but had refused to follow the same path and had become a model husband and father. He had even written about the issue with rare candor in his book, The Audacity of Hope (2006), acknowledging that the breakdown of the black family “reflects a casualness toward sex and child-rearing among black men that renders black children more vulnerable—and for which there is simply no excuse.”
But instead of repeating this thoughtful assessment in Philadelphia, the candidate offered up only pious nostrums, linking the erosion of black families to “a lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that come from not being able to provide for one’s family,” before going on to blame a lack of parks, policemen walking the beat, garbage collection, and building-code enforcement—in brief, government policy—for helping to “create a cycle of violence, blight, and neglect.” His formulation conspicuously avoided the issue of behavior—like dropping out of school and having children out of wedlock—that virtually guarantees the continuation of the cycle of poverty.
Comment Posted By The New Centrist On 17.06.2008 @ 10:07
Rick, my condolences. I know how much love pets bring into folks lives. Take care.
Comment Posted By The New Centrist On 25.12.2007 @ 11:47
