Barack Obama has experienced the defining trauma of our culture: He has been abandoned by his father.
Read that linked article for an account of a truly evil man, whose son–to his credit–is responding to the emotional devastation he felt by trying hard to be a good father to his own children.
The syndrome of growing up without a father in the home has devastated the African-American community–so much for the charge that Obama is unconnected to the black experience–but it is also a growing devastation among divorce-prone whites.
The ill-effects of not having a father in the home–or of having a father in the home who is utterly unconnected to his children, which is much the same thing–have been thoroughly documented. They include the “hyper-masculinity” that sends boys to gangs in search of male role models and that lead them act out their macho fantasies in violence. Also the “hyper-femininity” of girls, leading them to sluttish dress and promiscuity in a sad effort to make themselves wanted by a man.
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