Who's Your (Black) Daddy?

Today I had to help one of my little cousins get ready for his high school prom. This is the same cousin that I; taught how to drive, acted as his personal trainer, tutored and mentored through adolescence. I have a lot of cousins with whom I go through this same process. In the Bible it says; ..Blessed is he who is father to the fatherless.. . Is this what the Bible was talking about? Most of the kids I mentor have fathers- they just don't know who their father is or their father is nowhere to be found. Why do so many Black children grow up without a father and in turn end up being absentee fathers themselves?
Q- Who's your daddy?
A- In too many instances this question cannot be answered. My father died when I was one year old. My "daddy" was from the South, from the country, in the military, on drugs -and my STEP-DAD! Talk about mean and strict. The thing is; he was there. He made me do things (chores, homework,sports,etc.) that I didn't feel like doing. But he was there. I tell my "little-niglets" (that's what I call them all-to their faces-they think it's a funny name) about my adventures growing up. About the times I've been in trouble. I always thought that my step-dad was mean, but we were just some bad little kids (I was the "good" one). Too many Black boys don't learn respect (to have it or to earn it) in the home, they don't practice respect at school, they don't treat people with respect on the street. This cycle leads to them fighting for "respect" in the showers of prisons across the country- while leaving their boys in the hands of overwhelmed single mothers. The question shouldn't be; "Who's your daddy" but "where's your daddy".