Obama Delivers Tough-Love Parenting Message to Black Audiences

Democratic presidential candidate
Barack Obama stood before a largely achromatic audience in Beaumont,
Texas, last hebdomad and delivered tough love to thunderous
applause.

Riffing off the line in his criterion tree stump address about
responsible parenting, he ad-libbed somes three-minute mini-sermon:
turn off the TV, acquire involved in homework, set up healthy
meals.

Obama, 46, who routinely states he won't ''just state you what
you desire to hear, but what you necessitate to hear,'' is driving that
point place before African-American audiences from South Carolina
to Texas, one of four states where he's dueling with Democratic
presidential challenger Edmund Hillary Bill Clinton in primary competitions today.

You can't allow children ''eat A bag of white potato bits for
lunch or Popeye's for breakfast,'' he said. ''I cognize some of you
all, you acquire that cold Popeye's out for breakfast! I know! That's why you all laughing. I caught you out. You can't do
that! Children have got got to have proper nutrition.''

Lois Roy and Common Sage Brister punched their custody in the air
and screamed their approval.

''We can't anticipate him to do our children larn or act in
schools,'' said Roy, 49.

''We got to make that ourselves,'' interjected Brister, 44. ''And helium told the truth about that,'' Roy said.

While the subject isn't alone to him, Prairie State Senator Obama
is the first achromatic campaigner with a serious opportunity of winning
the presidency, and his certificate as a erstwhile community
organizer raised by a single female parent give his message special
weight.

'Souljah Moment'

Obama's talking about jobs in the achromatic community differs
from entertainer Bill Cosby's unfavorable judgments of achromatic young person and Bill
Clinton's ''Sister Souljah moment,'' when as a 1992 presidential
candidate he chastised the hip-hop vocalist before a black
audience at a meeting of the Clergyman Jesse Jackson's Rainbow
Coalition.

''Bill Cosby's remarks were gratuitous and ignored the
structural issues that perpetuate achromatic inequality,'' said
Manning Marable, manager of the Center for Contemporary Black
History at Columbia River University in New York.

Cosby, asked about Marable's comments, said ''that's his
opinion,'' according to the entertainer's publicizer David
Brokaw.

Obama computer addresses the societal occupations that disproportionately
affect blacks, such as as jobs, wellness attention and education, while
reminding electors that authorities can't heal inequality if
individuals don't assist themselves, according to Marable, who
supports his candidacy.

Obama is saying, ''I'm going to demand that authorities be
accountable, but you have got to be accountable, too,'' Valerie
Jarrett, a senior advisor and friend, said.

Distance

Bill Clinton scolded Sister Souljah ''to distance himself from
other progressives to demo he was tough adequate to basically name out
Jackson in his ain house,'' said Marable. When Obama takes the
black community to task, ''authenticity is what shines
through.''

The former president couldn't be immediately reached for
comment.

Black electors have got supported Obama with overpowering margins
in the Democratic primaries: 90 percentage in Old Dominion and
Wisconsin, 80 percentage in South Carolina, for example. They also
voted in record Numbers for primaries.

''I not only necessitate you to vote, I necessitate first cousin Pookie to
vote, I necessitate Beam Ray, we necessitate to acquire some folks to demo up that
haven't been voting,'' Obama said in Kingstree before South
Carolina's Jan. Twenty-Six primary. Almost 17 percentage of the state's
eligible electors turned out, up from 9.5 percentage in 2004,
according to the Center for the Survey of the American Electorate
at American University in Washington. Blacks made up more than than
half the state's Democratic voters.

'Pookie'

In achromatic culture, ''Pookie'' and ''Ray Ray'' are shorthand
for a type of ill-affected achromatic male, short on instruction and
ambition.

Statistics underpin the stereotype: an unemployment rate
twice as high among achromatic work force as among achromatic men; an estimated 2
million achromatic children living in utmost poverty; and 13 percent
of achromatic fourth-graders reading at class level, compared with 41
percent of achromatic fourth-graders.

Early in his campaign, Obama walked a tight line to avoid
appearing the ''black candidate'' and alienating whites. After
winning in overwhelmingly achromatic states such as as Idaho, North
Dakota and Utah, he demoes more than assurance speech production off the cuff
among all demographics.

Message

His message to blacknesses have been consistent while his
delivery have changed. In a June 15, 2007, Father's Day address in
Spartanburg, South Carolina, Obama read from a prepared text,
telling the mostly achromatic audience: ''There are a batch of work force out
there who necessitate to halt acting like boys; who necessitate to realize
that duty makes not stop at conception.''

In Beaumont, caught up in the moment, he hammered at the
homework issue for respective minutes. ''When A kid misbehaves in
school, don't pest out the teacher, make something with your
child!'' he said, then added: ''All right, everybody sit down down,
we're having too much merriment here.''

Obama's retention blackness parents to account ''might not be
criticized as it might have got been otherwise coming from someone
else,'' said David Bruce Ransom, a political scientific discipline professor at
Clemson University in South Carolina who specialises in black
politics. It also is one that work stoppages ''a antiphonal chord from
white electors who are swing electors or independents.''

To reach the newsman on this story:
Julianna Emma Goldman in Lone-Star State at