(Akiit.com) Obama could help the nation focus on strengthening black families, and fathers…

Barack Obama’s agenda is groaning with big-ticket items, some that go to the top because they’re so important to the nation, some that get there because they’re important to the groups that helped him win. Some, particularly the economy, will keep him and his team busy and challenge every bit of imagination and intelligence and courage they can bring to the task.

There’s an issue that’s not on the official agenda, but should be: the state of many of the nation’s black families.

Is it audacious hope, or wishful thinking, that raises the prospect that President Obama might unwind the cycle of poverty and dependence, illiteracy and irresponsibility, that threatens another generation?

These concerns are not just part of a social agenda; they’re relevant to the economic agenda as well. The grind of poverty, inadequate education and job skills, illegitimacy and fragile family structures are the prism through which too many black families experience national economic trends. When these factors combine, as they do, even the good economic times aren’t so good. And the painful ones are more so.

Let it be clear: These problems aren’t exclusive to the black community, but they strike it hardest.

According to the Census Bureau, 25 percent of black families fall below the poverty line, compared to 10 percent to 11 percent of white, Asian and Hispanic families.

Many get there because they don’t have the education or training for the jobs that pay more than poverty wages. Or because they live in communities where jobs, transportation and good child care are hard to find.

Many get there for reasons that have to do with what constitutes a family. It’s easier to slide into poverty when there’s just one adult — and most black children spend at least part of their childhood in such homes. According to state birth records, in Virginia, two out of three African-American babies are born to unmarried mothers. This isn’t a problem one race owns, of course, but that rate is more than twice the rate for white mothers.

Families headed by mothers alone are likely to be poor. Their children are more likely to be raised around other poor people, in communities with bad schools and little exposure to the kind of expectations that would propel them to success. They’re more likely to drop out of school and to end up in prison.
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(Akiit.com) Some prominent creative forces behind shows that featured black families see a tougher road ahead.

Long before he set out for the White House, Barack Obama sought to adjust the colors on America’s TV sets.

Four years ago, fresh off his star-making keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, Obama challenged the television industry to live up to its responsibility as the country’s “most powerful media” and accurately reflect the nation’s population. “TV ought to reflect the reality of America’s diversity and should do so with pride and dignity, not with stereotypes,” he told the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. But as Obama prepares to move into the White House in January, he and his family will be hard pressed to find blacks like themselves represented on any of the major networks — ABC, NBC, CBS or Fox.

In fact, not only will they have great difficulty locating any black family in a leading role on the networks, they also will see it’s nearly impossible to find a scripted comedy or drama that features a young person of color in a central role.

Although the networks’ prime-time slates are packed with more than a dozen comedies and dramas revolving around family life or involve characters who are related (from ” Brothers & Sisters,” to ” Two and a Half Men,” to “Dirty Sexy Money“), almost all of them have predominantly white casts. A black family has not anchored a network series since “The Bernie Mac Show” left Fox in 2006.

Whether the presence of a popular African American president and his charismatic family will affect the racial dynamics of prime time is an intriguing question. The subject is an uncomfortable one for the networks, as most high-ranking network executives and diversity heads declined to talk about the issue.

And people in the black creative community disagree about the prospects — some even saying Obama’s presence may actually raise the bar for their work.

The only African American family regularly on prime time network television is on CBS’ ” The Unit,” where Dennis Haysbert (who played a U.S. president on Fox’s thriller “24″) plays the leader of an elite special ops force. And while an increasing number of blacks and other minorities has scored regular roles on series (” Grey’s Anatomy,” ” Heroes,” ” Fringe,” “Heroes,” “Lost“), those performers are largely relegated to supporting or minor roles.

Though the development season is in full gear, there does not appear to be on the horizon a series that would take up the cultural torch of “The Cosby Show,” the groundbreaking comedy featuring what conservative commentator Karl Rove on election day called “America’s First Family.” The only African American family that would anchor an upcoming major series is animated — “Cleveland,” a spinoff of Fox’s ” Family Guy.”
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(Akiit.com) So happy my colts won, as now I’m pretty confident we shall make the playoffs… Can’t believe there is only 4 games left in the season still… Oh well I for one is ready for the playoffs… Anyway, I must double check this letter, as my wife has been looking at some Wilmington NC real estate for a friend… Hate to see someone close to us move, but at times one must follow where their job is located… Let me finish this up, then go watch some TV…

Written By CTA

(Akiit.com) There may be a tendency among some in our communities and elsewhere to see the election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States as a magic bullet that will instantly solve all our problems.

Some commentators have even suggested that an Obama presidency ushers in a new ”post-racial” era that lowers the urgency and takes the spotlight off the need for equal opportunity and economic justice for urban and African Americans.

I strongly disagree. This may be a time for celebration, but it’s no time for complacency. While it is true that for the first time in a long time, African-Americans and other minorities can feel like we have a real friend in the White House, we must also understand that President-elect Obama can only be effective if the same extraordinary coalition of white, Black, Hispanic, Asian-American, and Native American voters that elected him, now works together to support his agenda for change. In my view, the Obama presidency marks the beginning of a new ”multi-racial” era in American governance that empowers and employs more of the growing diversity that is America’s great strength in solving our common problems.

The thing that impressed me the most about the Obama campaign was its ability to bring so many heretofore disparate parts of America together in common purpose. Candidate Obama liked to say that this election was not so much about him as it was about us. He stressed that change comes from the bottom up, not the other way around. That means that we as citizens and advocates must take an even more active role in governance at all levels.

Our voices must continue to be heard from City Hall to the halls of Congress to the White House. I am encouraged that the Obama transition team is putting a high degree of emphasis on building, as Bill Clinton did, an administration that ”looks like America.”
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(Akiit.com) Riverside, CA – “They strut through the world like some dusky colossus looming larger than life itself: a nightmare, a fantasy, an American original, feared, emulated, shunned and desired. They are as complicated, as intriguing, as American history and in many respects, every bit as confusing. Nevertheless the Black man strives in the midst of progress and peril.”

When the great sociologist and scholar W.E.B. Du Bois penned those words more than 100 years ago little did he know a nation founded by slave owners, seared by civil war and generations of strife would elect Barack Obama the son of a Kenyan father and a white
mother President of the United States of America.

“Barack Obama’s victory will force people to look at race and equity differently only if we can get past the narrow images that linger in the public mind,” says Melvin W. Daniels, Jr., 52 a self employed former Marine, handy man, painter, cleaner, and jack of all trades.

Even as he and millions of Black men celebrate Obama’s historic victory, many wonder if the President-elect’s astonishing ascent to power and consistent drumbeat of hope and change will help redefine America’s attitudes toward Black men.

“I wish my mother and father were alive to witness this moment, they would say without hesitation ‘all things are possible’. Black people can accomplish anything they set their minds
to.”

Over the last 100 years, perhaps no segment of the American population has been more marginalized.

The Black male image, Daniels argues, has been battered, maligned, and assaulted by a merciless media, academics, filmmakers, Black rappers, feminists, comedians and
countless others.

Syracuse University finance professor and social commentator Dr. Boyce Watkins worries that discomfort could increase as an Obama presidency creates a false perception that racism died November 4. In his words ‘We don’t need more PhDs in Black America, we need more Phdos’.

“The biggest problem in America is racial inequality a product of racism which has led to the social and economic exclusion of a group of people for 400 years. You have these huge racial imbalances economically and educationally that result from that. We can reject those
toxins or we can continue to succumb to them.”

Certified public accountant William Ellis believes as important as Obama’s triumph is, there is a greater message for all of America, and in particular a generation of young African-American men who can’t feel the power of Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream and have fallen into self destructive lifestyles.

“It’s unrealistic to think we can hook our dreams to the President’s coattails. Black men must rethink the way we view themselves and reassert that collective genius which empowered us in the past.”

“There are no excuses. If Obama a community organizer from the streets of Chicago can become president, anything is possible,” insists Ellis. Still says Daniels being a Black man in America has never been easy and won’t change overnight.

“The world sees us as lazy, dangerous, over sexed figures entrenched in crime, drugs and violence.”

Soft spoken, Daniels describes his multi-racial family as a tight knit group open to color blind straight talk and powerful ideals. We are a family of Blacks, Mexicans, Whites, Asians you name it. As Air Force brats exposed to bigotry we were taught ‘you can be president’.
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