Obama, the Father

from The News & Observer

Point of View: A Father's Day Message
by Mark Anthony Neal

DURHAM - The dap-love that Barack Obama and wife Michelle shared at a recent rally highlights one of the most refreshing, yet seldom talked about aspects of his candidacy. This was Barack Obama not simply as the first African-American nominee of a major political party, but Barack Obama as African-American husband and father.

The Obama campaign has tried throughout this year's presidential campaign to downplay the significance of the senator's race, yet he stands as such a stark counterpoint to long-held stereotypes about African-American men as fathers and husbands. In this regard, his ascendency challenges myths not only about the capacity of African-Americans to serve as commander-in-chief, but also about black men as fathers.

With Father's Day almost upon us, Barack Obama, the African-American father, offers needed affirmation of the black men who toil and struggle to be effective parents.

There's a veritable cottage industry associated with so-called black fatherlessness, as many books and studies make the link between under-achieving black boys and the lack of father figures in their lives. The very idea of the shiftless, lazy, irresponsible black male has reached such mythical proportions that when black men show evidence of even the most basic of parenting skills, it's cause for celebration. Indeed, much of Obama's appeal lies in the fact that he has overcome the absence of his own father.

In his best-selling memoir "Dreams from My Father," Obama provides a heart-wrenching account of the effect that not having his father in his life had on him. Obama's parents divorced when he was a child and he had little contact with his father, who died in 1982. Obama literally had to conjure a father, whom he saw only once after his parents' divorce, recalling, "I would meet him one night, in a cold cell, in a chamber of my dreams."

Yet there's no secret to Obama's success. Even without his father present, he was a product of strong parenting and adult presences, such as his grandparents, in his life.

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