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Wednesday, July 16, 2008
What would Jesse say? The Obama race debate spreads to Britain.
Britain’s Conservative Party leader David Cameron joined the bitterly contested argument over family breakdown and race today by praising Barack Obama’s warning that too many black fathers have abandoned their responsibilities to their children.
In a wide-ranging interview with London’s Guardian newspaper, Cameron says that many black church leaders have expressed the same anxiety to him, and that it is time for a “responsibility revolution” to change patterns of behavior.
Referring to Obama’s speech, in which the presidential candidate warned that absent black fathers were behaving like teenagers and shirking their responsibilities to their children, Cameron said: “I think he’s absolutely right. I mean I think it’s a very brave thing to do. And it will have a huge influence that he has said it. I’ve had a number of meetings with black church leaders who make the same point. They are concerned about family breakdown and social breakdown, and want to see what I call a responsibility revolution take place.”
Cameron insists the appalling discrimination and economic disadvantage black people experience have to be recognized and changed, but at “the same time we will never solve the long term problems unless people also take responsibility for their own lives.”
