SURVEYS & POLLS

Obama gives a speech as part of his new "Pretend I'm White" initiative.

Survey: Parents Don't Want Kids To Know Prez Is Black

WASHINGTON (CAP) - A confidential survey by CAP News shows that the majority of parents who are against President Obama's planned "speech to students" are trying to keep their children from finding out the country has a black president.

"I've managed to keep it under wraps for eight months," said 'Fred,' a parent of three elementary school children from Skokie, Ill. "I'm not about to let them blow it for me now."

Fred, along with many of the 1,000 people surveyed nationwide, say that it should be up to parents to decide when their children are ready to find out the president is black.

"I was furious when my [fourth grade] son came home from school last year and I found out they'd forced him to watch that so-called inauguration," said 'Sally,' a mother of two from Laconia, N.H. "Luckily I was able to convince him that it was just a movie starring a black man, like that funny Daddy Day Care with Eddie Murphy."

A good portion of the respondents said they also objected to their students being subjected to a "political" speech.

"School is for the important things, like the Pledge of Allegiance, and praying," said 'Mary' from Fackler, Ala. "Who cares what the president has to say? Or at least this president."

When asked why President Obama should be denied the opportunity to address America's schoolchildren when presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush had both done so, the respondents characterized the current circumstances as different.

"Those two weren't Marxist fascists," noted 'Bob,' a father of four from Wichita, Kansas. "Plus they were more, you know - mainstream.

"By that I mean white," he added.

The controversy has clearly blindsided White House officials, who hoped the speech would be a "feel-good" story to counter the contentious healthcare debate.

"Frankly, I thought it was pretty much well-known to everybody at this point, even the children, that I was, you know, black," said Obama in a press conference this morning.

"Apparently that fact is harder for some people to accept than I thought," said the president. "I suggest that parents, you know, get over it, before I send my shadow government agents to their house kidnap their daughters."

Administration officials later clarified that Obama was "absolutely, positively" joking about the "whole shadow government thing," but some studies show that parents' concerns may have some validity.

"According to a survey we did in June, since Obama was elected, middle-class white girls have been as much as 60 percent more willing to sleep with black guys," noted Dr. Tyrone Wilkins of the Pew Research Center. "And they were already pretty willing to begin with. I'm just saying."

Meanwhile, parents like Fred say they're going to do their best to keep Obama's blackness from their children for as long as possible.

"I figure he's a one-termer, so I only have to keep it up for another three years or so," said Fred. "Even less if we can get this birth certificate thing straightened out."