It’s hard because the “missing black father” has caused so much pain. That hurt runs through the rhetoric of every well-meaning person who has ever admonished black fathers for not being in their children’s lives. It’s the foundation of Barack Obama’s first book and the speech he delivered before the congregation at Apostolic. That pain is real and can’t be discounted, but so long as it is the only way through which we see this issue, the myth will continue to entangle us and prevent us from reckoning with what’s real. The damage isn’t done by the absence of a father, but from the feelings of
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