A Father's Day message

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.

Now, even in the middle of an exhausting campaign, the importance that Obama and his wife place on raising their two daughters is clearly visible. Much has been made about how nerdish the presumptive Democratic nominee looked during his family's recent cycling excursion, but it was evidence of how important such family moments are to the Obamas and elevates the candidate to a paragon for the very idea of black fatherhood. It also puts to rest many of the popular beliefs about the inability of black children to transcend the lack of fathers in their lives. But to see Obama as exceptional in this regard is to miss the reality of the situation.

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STATISTICS SUGGEST NEARLY 50 PERCENT OF BLACK CHILDREN live in households without their fathers, but too often these figures disregard the efforts that many of these men make to find alternative ways to be part of their children's lives. Whether these men are divorcees or fathers out-of-wedlock, these studies often don't measure day-care pickups or outings to the local park or cycling trips -- the simple ways that these men try to participate in the lives of their children, even as many of these men struggle to find legal and respectable work that will allow them to be able to better contribute financially to their children.

In this regard, Obama is truly in a unique position -- a man who struggled to find his own identity in the absence of his father and who has achieved unprecedented success as he struggles, as so many men do, to be a good father. His current role as candidate for president provides him a platform to talk about -- and possibly enact -- policies that better encourage black men to hold tight to their children and their families.

In his book "From the Minds of Marginalized Men," researcher Alford Young Jr. makes concrete connections about the inability of black men to live productive lives and the lack of sustainable job opportunities. Such opportunities could be enhanced by other support mechanisms that help fathers, particularly young fathers, better understand their roles as parents. How many young fathers, for example, simply jettison their families because of their fear or ignorance of what parenting entails?

Obama was fortunate in that there were many adults in place to help him achieve his goals, despite his father's decision to remain apart from him. He now has a responsibility, I think, to work toward ensuring that all children are provided that type of support.

(Mark Anthony Neal is a professor of black popular culture and director of the Institute for Critical U.S. Studies at Duke University.)