Obama Ties Broken Families To Gun Violence In Emotional Chicago Speech

[theworldismine13]

Obama Ties Broken Families To Gun Violence In Emotional Chicago Speech
Obama Ties Broken Families To Gun Violence In Emotional Chicago Speech | TPMDC

President Barack Obama talked about the importance of parenting and life in his adopted hometown of Chicago on Friday, his third and final stop across the country to highlight the “ladders of opportunity” he spoke about in his State of the Union address.

In an unusually personal speech, Obama cited broken families and communities as one source of gun violence in Chicago, a city notorious for its high murder rate. It’s also where 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton was killed by stray gunfire last month. She had performed in Obama’s inaugural ceremonies in Washington.

“I wish I had a father who was around and involved,” said Obama before a young audience at Hyde Park Academy High School.

“Loving, supporting parents — and, by the way, that’s all kinds of parents — that includes foster parents, and that includes grandparents, and extended families; it includes gay or straight parents” are the “single most important thing” to strengthening communities, Obama said. “What makes you a man is not the ability to make a child, it’s the courage to raise one,” he added.

“Last year there were 443 murders with firearms in this city and 65 were people under 18,” he said. “That’s the equivalent of a Newtown every four months.”

“This is not just a gun issue, it’s also an issue of the communities that we’re building,” he continued.

The December massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., that left 26 dead, including 20 children, has sparked an effort to reform the nation’s gun laws — an effort that has since met reality in a wary Congress.

At his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Obama outlined legislation that would call for universal background checks on firearms purchases and a ban on high capacity magazines and assault weapons.

“Each of these proposals deserves a vote in Congress. If you want to vote no, that’s your choice. But these proposals deserve a vote. Because in the two months since Newtown, more than a thousand birthdays, graduations, and anniversaries have been stolen from our lives by a bullet from a gun,” Obama said.

Prior to his remarks in Chicago, Obama participated in a private roundtable discussion with 16 students who are enrolled in a youth anti-violence program.

“I had more of a safety net, but these guys are no different than me,” Obama said, recounting the meeting. “I had problems, too, at your age. Difference was, when I screwed up, consequences weren’t as harsh as they are on the South Side.”

 

[Dusty Bake Activate]

Tell him to lead on ending the fukking drug war and putting the prison system back in public hands.

 

[The Real]

Tell him to lead on ending the fukking drug war and putting the prison system back in public hands.

Exactly. This talk about "family" and "the courage to raise children" being connected to gun violence is a great way to turn a real point about urban gun violence- it's structurally-enabling factors- into declawed, Conservative canards about culture and individual responsibility. Families don't break up, or never form, just because people are cowards or lazy or culturally debased. And besides... broken families are not necessarily primary factors in violent crime, the way they are in education for example, so highlighting that at the expense of poverty, etc, is just irresponsible.

 

[MikeBrownsJob]

Exactly. This talk about "family" and "the courage to raise children" being connected to gun violence is a great way to turn a real point about urban gun violence- it's structurally-enabling factors- into declawed, Conservative canards about culture and individual responsibility. Families don't just break up, or never form, because people are cowards or lazy or culturally debased.

So what are the reasons families break or never form?

 

[El Bombi]

Man fukk Obama.

Can't believe I voted for this nikka twice and the rest of the Black Democrats that have sold out their own people.

All these nikkaz are bank roll puppets. Career politicians that are only worried about getting re-elected instead of voting to benefit their own people.

 

[Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson]

he prolly went dere lookin to by coke at a campane fundrazor by gangsta dusipels and vise lores. i hate dis kenyan malotto undokuminted non-worka so much.

 

[feelosofer]

While I personally thought this was a good speech, this was a lose-lose situation. I think that the things he said are things that he truly believes based on his cumulative experiences as a person and his time as a community organizer as well as Chigaco politian. I don't think the things he said about the violence being cultural are conservative platitudes to him, but his real actual beliefs. Be that for better or worse. But he also spoke of his own experiences honestly, and I appreciated that.

Quite frankly, a few years ago, I would have beaten up Obama for 'talking down' to Black people the same way, I did when Bill Cosby said something similar but you know what I am more inclined to agree with these two as the years go by. Yes, we need to make changes to the drug wars, but Obama doesn't have the power to do all that by himself even if he had a Democratic Congress and he's done quite a bit and in doing so will curb the construction of the industrial prison complex, but that's neither here or there problem in Chicago is two parts economical and cultural and he was right to address that in this particular forum because that can have the most immediate impact in the streets in Chicago and elsewhere.

In other word had Obama talked to much policy, he would have been seen as political pandering and if he spoke from the heart, people would say 'he
s not really one of us' and 'what gives him the right to judge'

Let's be real Obama was walking into a minefield.

 

[newarkhiphop]

he speaking on issues in the black community, happy?

 

[Mowgli]

This nikka is embarrassing.

 

[jadillac]

Obama is in a no win situation.

 

[Sam Peel]

[ame=http://youtu.be/p6eVxRk11go]The House I Live in Trailer - on DVD and VOD now - YouTube[/ame]

 

[intilectual recipricol]

the nicca is in a no win situation because when Rev Wright was spittin that REAL shyt, he threw him AND TRUTH, under the bus and in the bushes. Now he cant run back to spittin real shyt, and real shyt has been marginalized by a black democrat which hurts the chances it will ever be looked at by society as a whole again.

Kax gon be like, "Obama said blah blah blah and hes not even one of those sambo republican niccaz..."

Way to destroy everything MLK & Brother Malcolm worked for Barry

 

[Shogun]

Exactly. This talk about "family" and "the courage to raise children" being connected to gun violence is a great way to turn a real point about urban gun violence- it's structurally-enabling factors- into declawed, Conservative canards about culture and individual responsibility. Families don't just break up, or never form, because people are cowards or lazy or culturally debased.

I would say a decent amount of the time that is the case

 

[Sam Peel]

And? Single mothers keep popping out violent killers, use protection or close your legs.

 

[GetInTheTruck]

Damn, do homosexuals have to get name dropped in every speech he gives now?