Male dominance and father figures.

"'What is it with you men?' she [Mary] said, looking at Will and myself. Her voice trembled slightly as she pulled on her coat. 'Why is it you're always in a hurry? Why is it that what you have isn't ever good enough?' I started to say something, then thought about Mary's two daughters at home, the father that they would never know." (Obama 290)

I think that by mentioning this brief dialogue between himself and Mary, even though he never actually vocalized his thoughts, Obama is acknowledging a theme that is present in Song of Solomon: the lack of father figures depicted in the stories of many African-American boys. Macon Dead's father dies at an early age, provides an unhealthy and incoherent idea of a father for Milkman, Guitar's father dies at an early age, Freddie never knew his and went off on his own at an early age, etc. This is something that Asante Moran describes as a pandemic in the public schools in Chicago:

"Is it any wonder that the black child loses interest in learning? Of course not. It's worst for the boys. At least the girls have older women to talk to, the example of motherhood. But the boys have nothing. Half of them don't even know their own father. There's nobody to guid them through the process of becoming a man... to explain to them the meaning of manhood." (Obama 258-259)

Obviously I don't think that the lack of a father figure being damaging to one's identity (and the pursuit of it) needs to be characterized only in the African-American community. But I think Asante explains very rationally and logically how these boys are in social and filial environments that foster violent behavior; a desire to control their own destiny by creating fear in their opponents or oppressors. In Song of Solomon, of Guitar and Milkman:

"[With regards to male delinquency and succeeding in scaring others or picking fights when they were younger]...When they succeeded they rode the wind and covered their mouths to aggravate their laughter. And when they didn't, when somebody out-insulted them, or ignored them, or sent them running, they wisecracked and name-called until the sweat of embarrassment evaporated from the palms of their hands. Now they were men, and the terror they needed to provoke in others, if for no other reason than to feel it themselves, was rarer but not lighter. Dominion won by fear and secured by fear was still sweeter than any that could be got another way." (Morrison 177)

I think every boy can empathize with the desire to "name-call until the sweat of embarrassment evaporates from the palms of his hands", but it is interesting to imagine that very same innate urge in every male becoming "mature" or becoming more hungry and used for vindictive measures. It seems to me that this is the very process that Morrison and Moran are speaking to.