HONOURING OUR FATHERS

Michael Reagan


Despite the media play Chicago gets, it isn't the
official "Murder Capital of the U.S.A."
That unhappy distinction - based on the
murder rate per 100,000 people, not on the
number of actual dead people on the streets -
belongs to poor, under-populated Flint, Mich.
Chicago gets the bad rap - and the attention of
the anti-gun nuts -- because it led the nation
with 415 homicides last year. That's more
murders than any other city, but not even in
the top 10 when you factor in population.
Thanks to its recent "Independence Day
Massacre," which left 18 dead and 82
wounded, Chicago's murder toll has already hit
201 for this year.
Homicides have been trending down in Mayor
Emanuel's kind of town and other major cities
for decades. Chicago had nearly 1,000 murders
a year in the early 1990s.
But most of the city's murder victims, and their
murderers, continue to be young blacks and
Latinos who either belonged to gangs or were
the victims of their drive-by violence.
The slaughter in our inner cities, while not as
bloody as it used to be, is our continuing
national tragedy.
Chicago and statistically more dangerous cities
like Detroit, New Orleans and Washington are
perpetual war zones where Americans kill
each other year round.
The only solution liberals have for ending gun
violence in the cities is to take away
everybody's guns.
But Chicago already has some of the country's
toughest gun laws. They obviously don't
bother the local drug lords.
No one ever wants to address the underlying
cause of the violence in our inner cities.
It's not the presence of guns. It's the absence
of fathers in the homes of the gang-bangers
who are using guns to shoot each other.
The numbers are depressing and well known.
Nearly 2 in 3 black children grow up in homes
without a father present. One in three Latino
kids do.
We can thank the liberals and their 1960s
welfare programs for many of these broken
families.
It was their "War on Poverty" that gave
unmarried mothers financial independence,
made fathers superfluous and undermined the
formation of two-parent families.
Fathers were let off the hook for their baby
making and disappeared from family life.
Mothers and grandmothers raised the children.
And when the fatherless boys grew up they did
what children born into broken families often
do. They went out and found their own
substitute families on the streets. We call them
gangs.
And then as gang members they use guns to
defend their street families from those who try
to do them harm the same way we'd defend
our family members.
The murderous violence in our cities is never
going to end until someone stands up and
wakes up America with a "Put the father back
in the family" speech.
Bill Cosby tried it - and caught hell. Others
have caught hell for talking about the
importance to children and society of intact
families.
It's time for someone politically and culturally
important - like the president - to make a big,
brave speech and remind everyone in the
country that families need fathers, and vice
versa.
The "fatherless family" problem goes beyond
the inner cities and it transcends race and
ethnicity.
We have a nation today where 20 to 30 million
children go to bed each night without a father
in the home.
We have a pop culture that constantly
disrespects and mocks fathers.
Try to find a popular TV show - or a Disney
movie - where the father is not laughed at or
depicted as a bumbling fool. It's not easy.
Dishonoring our fathers and denying their
importance to strong families has to end. If we
want America to survive, we need to put
fathers back in the home where they belong.