The Elephant in the Room: Obama's actions speak volumes

Is there some John the Baptist to give us a clue about where exactly Barack Obama Superstar is going to lead us?

How about one of America's most respected African Americans? Bill Cosby, in his best-selling book Come on, People! (a hipper way of saying "Repent and make straight your path"), detailed what he called the crisis of the black community. The book examined the influence of multifaceted poverty on our youth and the need to lift this generation beyond the vicious cycle of life on the street.

Cosby didn't stop there. He also criticized parents' lack of accountability: "I'm talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit. Where were you when he was 2? Where were you when he was 12? . . . And where is his father, and why don't you know where he is?"

Cosby's call for parental responsibility went largely unheeded. Even worse, some in the black establishment treated him only slightly better than John the Baptist was treated 2,000 years ago.

In a speech last Father's Day, however, Obama said something important and, perhaps, change-making: "If we are honest with ourselves, we'll admit that what too many fathers . . . are is missing - missing from too many lives and too many homes. . . . They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it."

Properly, Obama was speaking to Americans of all races. Yet, having spent years pushing the government to encourage intact families, I know the same sad truth Cosby knows: Family disintegration and fatherlessness is most acute in the African American community. According to a Census Bureau report, one of every three American children live apart from their fathers, but two of every three African American children live in fatherless homes.

Social scientists have chronicled the attendant devastation. Rapes, murders, drug abuse, sexual abuse, abortions, and out-of-wedlock pregnancies up; marriages, diplomas and jobs down. The problem is especially acute in Philadelphia, where, for example, the murder rate is about three times the national average, and rape is nearly twice it.

There are as many reasons for this societal mayhem as there are statistics documenting it. At its core, however, is the irresponsibility of fathers.

Some 25 million American children live apart from their biological fathers. Many have little to no interaction with them.

Young men, in particular, look for strong male role models and, not finding them in their fathers, find them in falsely hyper-masculine hip-hop stars or the thugs too often playing in the NBA.

In the Senate, I fought for resources for the National Fatherhood Initiative to fight this scourge. In my book It Takes a Family, I offered a series of solutions for families and communities across the nation. In return, I was accused of imposing my personal values on society.

Encouraging dads to care for their kids, and parents to teach their kids right from wrong, is imposing my values?

Then came Obama. As a senator, he joined in the reintroduction of my Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act after my electoral defeat. As a presidential candidate, he gave the Cosby-like Father's Day speech. And last week, in his first words as president, he talked of an "era of responsibility."

Obama has a unique opportunity to confront what's destroying our inner cities. He can institute pro-family policies that erase the disincentives keeping many fathers from becoming dads. He can use his "bully pulpit" to talk up the importance of fatherhood.

Yet, even if he doesn't say another word, he will still have some influence. St. Francis is said to have said, "Preach often. When necessary, use words." Obama's very existence as a devoted husband and father will show inner-city young men what it is to be a man in full.

Maybe an Italian American politician from Pittsburgh and a black comedian from Philadelphia weren't the right leaders for this fight. For the sake of our children and our country, we should pray that the first African American president from Chicago's South Side is.