(chicagotribune.com) When photographer Carol Ross published a book of portraits honoring African-American dads, she had no idea it would be the cornerstone of a national campaign that challenges the image of the absent black father.
But Thursday night at a South Side art gallery, the fruit of her partnership with Burrell Communications was unveiled: a media initiative that will showcase her compelling photographs in time for Father’s Day.
Ross and executives at Chicago-based Burrell said they launched the campaign because they believed the troubling statistics about black fathers were somehow flawed. The black men they knew, wed or unwed, were involved in their children’s lives.
Though statistics show that more black children are in single-parent homes than other groups, new research notes that their fathers — often young, low-income, unmarried African-American men — are more involved than one might conclude, despite comments from prominent black men such as Bill Cosby and Sen. Barack Obama.
Research over the last decade shows that these young fathers spend time with their children and give money to their children’s mothers, even though the financial arrangements often don’t go through the courts. Researchers aren’t arguing that the men should get a pass from paying child support or other daily responsibilities, but their work reveals that the fathers, many unskilled, uneducated and unemployed, are not merely missing in action.
“African-American fathers have been viewed in a monolithic way and, in many instances, become the poster men for non-involved fathers,” said Waldo Johnson, an associate professor in the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago.
“What we find in the more recent research is that the ways in which these low-income fathers are involved with their kids are not the traditional ways.” (more…)
I completely agree with this article. The point that I try to make regularly here on this site is that there is also a significant population of Black men who do NOT take care of their children in any way, shape or form. While I cannot speak for Cosby or Obama, listening to what they have said in the past on this subject it also seems that their comments are targeted to this particular group as well. Studies have shown that in most cases it is the offspring of these irresponsible fathers that make up much of the prison population. Dyson and others have taken these criticisms and made it into an indictment against all Black men when in reality only the irresponsible ones are being (and should be) addressed. If you ask me, this gives way to a destructive brand of protectivism that prohibits constructive criticism that can lead to real solutions on this issue.
