Actor Terry Crews. Screen grab via ABC’s “The View”.
“America’s Got Talent” host and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” star Terry Crews isn’t afraid to mix it up when it comes to discussing issues some view as “controversial.” This week as no exception.
It all started on Sunday. Crews linked to an opinion piece from the New York Times written by human rights lawyer Derecka Purnell in which she criticized remarks former President Obama made at a town hall earlier this month.
He was speaking to a group of young black men, and Purnell took issue with what she saw as Obama’s shaming of black culture:
He and the basketball player Stephen Curry discussed mentorship, masculinity and mass incarceration. But his scolding of black boys drew the most attention.
“If you are really confident about your financial situation,” Mr. Obama told the crowd, “you are probably not going to be wearing a eight-pound chain around your neck.”
“Because you know,” he continued, “‘Oh, I got a bank account.’ I don’t have to show you how much I got. I feel good.”
His comments disappointed me because they’re part of problematic practices, like calling out black children for having ghetto names like mine or wearing Air Jordans. Such remarks by Mr. Obama reflect his administration’s failure, and to an extent that of My Brother’s Keeper, to tackle the systemic inequality that shapes black people’s lives in America.
Crews’s response: “If a successful black man can’t advise the black male youth of the next generation, who will? THE STREET. That’s who.”
His next set of comments sparked the uproar that followed:
“Another thing that bothers me is that this OP-ED was written by a WOMAN about how how boys should be taught to grow into successful young men. How would she know? MEN NEED TO HOLD OTHER MEN ACCOUNTABLE.”
The actor was then being accused of being a “misogynist” – and he wasn’t having it:
“No misogyny involved. Just reminding you that fathers are just as necessary as mothers. Especially for young men. And even if he doesn’t have a father around— they need to see an example of what a good man is.”
He went on to say that “I’m calling on black men who are awol to actually be the fathers those fatherless boys need.”
He added later:
“There are things a person can only get from their mother. But there are also things a person can only get from their father. I would never render either unnecessary. And if you are missing one— you need a good representation of either/or in your life at some point.”
Fruitful conversations about this issue are always so difficult to have because the perpetually outraged “woke” crowd feels that somehow women are being slighted by the suggestion that responsible fathers/father figures are needed in a child’s life, too.
Townhall writer Kira Davis, who was as exasperated as many others were after reading the back and forth exchanges between Crews and his detractors, sounded off:
You should be reading @terrycrews TL right now. The man is being forced to defend the very NON-controversial idea that kids need moms AND dads. Even if you just believe in natural evolution that’s not controversial – even nature requires the two to make one. There’s a reason.
— Kira (@RealKiraDavis) February 27, 2019
Watch Crews talk about the vital role fatherhood plays in children’s lives in this 2014 interview on “The View”:
He went into the lion’s den and came out alive. Well done, sir.
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—Sister Toldjah is a former liberal and a 15+ year veteran of blogging with an emphasis on media bias, social issues, and the culture wars. Read her Red State archives here. Connect with her on Twitter.–
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