Atty. Gen. Eric Holder

Before a Sunday church crowd of more than 400 people in Long Island , Atty. General Eric Holder Jr. advocated a “spiritual awakening” among African Americans, saying the community needs to confront violence and other social ills that disproportionately impact blacks, Newsday reported.

Holder, a native of Queens, honed in on the absence of black fathers, which he said has hurt the family unit in  the black community.

“Too many men in the black community have created children and left them to be raised by caring mothers. These women do a wonderful job, but we ask too much of them and too little of our men,” Holder said at the Memorial Presbyterian Church in Roosevelt, L.I., on Baldwin Turnpike, according to Newsday. “It should simply be unacceptable for a man to have a child and then not play an integral party in the raising and nurturing of the child.”