The failure of the black community : what Obama could change
04 November 2008 à 19h09
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The Democratic candidate explodes all stereotypes about the black community, even those which this community sustains itself and which maintain it in a kind of culture of failure. Can he save African Americans from self-degradation?
Being born black in the U.S.A. is statistically bad for your chance of growing up with a father, receiving a good education and not becoming a criminal. The American black community has been trying for decades to reduce the social differences between white people and it. In vain. It’s even been overtaken by new minorities, like Asians and Hispanics. Whereas the official poverty rate in 2007 was 12.5 percent for the whole American population, it rises to 24.5 % for black people (vs. 8.2 % for whites and 21.5% for Hispanics).
Is there a culture of failure in the black community? The question has been asked since a controversial report in 1965 by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, in which the black family was stigmatized as a “tangle of pathology”. Slavery was supposed to have produced a desegregated family type with absent fathers and single mothers.
It seems to be harder for young Afro-Americans to succeed because of the stereotypes they’re expecting to follow. Including by their own community. One example: the accent. Many blacks are poorly thought of because they drop the typical African American accent. The main models are sportsmen and musicians rather than lawyers.
In recent months a new model has appeared. His skin is black but he doesn’t carry the legacy of slavery. He plays basketball but isn’t a professional sportsman. He draws the crowds but without musical instruments. And when he speaks, he doesn’t have an African American accent. He speaks like a guy who went to Harvard. His name is Barack Obama. And he’s probably about to become the new president of the United States of America.
Can he change the way the black community perceives itself and give it a new impetus ?
“I know that Senator Obama is not the second coming, or even the answer to all our problems, but he is a shining beacon of hope, and proof that black men can be real fathers, good husbands, and strong and thoughtful leaders” writes Patricia Wilson on the Blog “Black women for Obama“ (http://blackwomenforobama.wordpress.com/2008/10/31). Obama himself is aware of his mission on the subject.
On Fathers' day (June 15th, 2008), in a speech at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago, he had tough words about black fathers’ abdication of their parental responsibility: “We need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception. We need them to realize that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child – it’s the courage to raise one.”
In this battle, the Illinois Senator isn’t alone. His wife Michelle is a strong argument too. She comes from a black ghetto of Chicago and like her husband has a degree from Harvard. Actually the real and effective example for the black community isn’t Obama alone. It’s his couple.
Being born black in the U.S.A. is statistically bad for your chance of growing up with a father, receiving a good education and not becoming a criminal. The American black community has been trying for decades to reduce the social differences between white people and it. In vain. It’s even been overtaken by new minorities, like Asians and Hispanics. Whereas the official poverty rate in 2007 was 12.5 percent for the whole American population, it rises to 24.5 % for black people (vs. 8.2 % for whites and 21.5% for Hispanics).
Is there a culture of failure in the black community? The question has been asked since a controversial report in 1965 by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, in which the black family was stigmatized as a “tangle of pathology”. Slavery was supposed to have produced a desegregated family type with absent fathers and single mothers.
The weight of black identity
It seems to be harder for young Afro-Americans to succeed because of the stereotypes they’re expecting to follow. Including by their own community. One example: the accent. Many blacks are poorly thought of because they drop the typical African American accent. The main models are sportsmen and musicians rather than lawyers.
Or should we say « used to be » ?
In recent months a new model has appeared. His skin is black but he doesn’t carry the legacy of slavery. He plays basketball but isn’t a professional sportsman. He draws the crowds but without musical instruments. And when he speaks, he doesn’t have an African American accent. He speaks like a guy who went to Harvard. His name is Barack Obama. And he’s probably about to become the new president of the United States of America.
Obama: a new black icon
Can he change the way the black community perceives itself and give it a new impetus ?
“I know that Senator Obama is not the second coming, or even the answer to all our problems, but he is a shining beacon of hope, and proof that black men can be real fathers, good husbands, and strong and thoughtful leaders” writes Patricia Wilson on the Blog “Black women for Obama“ (http://blackwomenforobama.wordpress.com/2008/10/31). Obama himself is aware of his mission on the subject.
On Fathers' day (June 15th, 2008), in a speech at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago, he had tough words about black fathers’ abdication of their parental responsibility: “We need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception. We need them to realize that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child – it’s the courage to raise one.”
In this battle, the Illinois Senator isn’t alone. His wife Michelle is a strong argument too. She comes from a black ghetto of Chicago and like her husband has a degree from Harvard. Actually the real and effective example for the black community isn’t Obama alone. It’s his couple.
