Views > December 13, 2007

Come on Cosby, Stop Hatin’

Cosby makes blanket indictments of an entire class of black people and offers only exhortations from the sidelines

By Salim Muwakkil

Deepening class conflict within the black community has produced some interesting symptoms.

Every Saturday, black protesters march around the Washington, D.C. home of Black Entertainment Television President and CEO Debra Lee, demanding that the network stop airing what they call demeaning portrayals of African Americans.

Their major targets are the rap videos that specialize in sexually objectified or “hootchified” images of black women. But the hip-hop attitude of “keeping it real” and reflecting the ethos of the street is the true focus of their ire.

Black, middle-class opposition to hip-hop (or rap) music has accompanied the genre since its birth. But the furor over Don Imus’ “nappy-headed ho” comments last April churned up even more opposition, and it has been strong ever since.

Rap is a scapegoat not just for generational reasons, but also because it is a class-bound, cultural product of America’s most criminalized and marginalized population: urban black youth. The genre has a ghettocentric vibe that tends to discomfort many middle-class blacks.

In Chicago, black protesters regularly ring the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Push headquarters, contesting his role, as well as his style of leadership. One of their signs reads: “He’s pimping our community.” Many of those demonstrating against Jackson are jobless former inmates who argue that the civil rights leadership does little to ameliorate their plight. These ex-offenders consider themselves victims of the prison-industrial complex and are becoming increasingly aggressive in their attempts to be heard.

Bill Cosby’s campaign to bring attention to the behavioral deficits of lower-income members of the black community is another signpost of this growing class tension. Cosby made remarks in 2004 at an NAACP dinner in Washington, D.C. that castigated “the lower-income people” for not “holding up their end of the deal.”

Cosby’s major point was that African Americans’ negative behavior is more responsible for their misery than white racism. The famous funnyman’s comments sparked such an explosion of controversy that Cosby took his act on the road. He has since been making the rounds of the macaroni-and-cheese circuit of black churches and other venues of middle-class propriety.

Last year he upped the ante with a book, Come on People: On the Path from Victims to Victors, that frames his hectoring broadsides in the comforting theme of cultural therapy. The softening of Cosby is probably due to the influence of his co-author, Dr. Alvin F. Poussaint, a Harvard psychiatrist with a history of progressive activism.

But the book, essentially, is a glorified advice manual.

With occasional sketches from Cosby’s road show—labeled “Call-Outs”—the book is a conventional self-help text with section tags like “Keep Your Cool, But Not Too Cool,” “Keep Those Kids In School” and “Slow Down On the Fast Food.” Cosby’s wit enlivens the prose, and Poussaint’s erudition lifts the message beyond rant.

Normally, I would resist responding to the work of a fellow In These Times columnist, but since the columnist clash at the New York Times has made intramural conflict all the rage, I may as well jump on the bandwagon. Laura Washington, in her column last month, “Come On People! Bill Cosby Is Right,” lauded Cosby and Poussaint’s book.

She argued the book is on target with its advice for black people to stop making excuses for dysfunctional behavior. She quoted approvingly: “Blaming only the system keeps certain black people in the limelight, but it also keeps the black poor wallowing in victimhood.”

No doubt, there is a time and place for the rhetoric of moral uplift. But Cosby makes blanket indictments of an entire class of black people and offers only exhortations from the sidelines. In so doing, he smothers the black community’s complexity and maligns the most vital cultural expressions of its youth. He reduces an entire class of people to a caricature designed for entertaining polemics.

With these sweeping generalizations, Cosby feeds the master narrative of black youth as amoral super predators and “baby daddies/baby mamas” who think the pursuit of education is “acting white” and who have a value system obsessed with shiny materialism (or bling-bling).

For Cosby and others of his ilk—like Juan Williams of National Public Radio and the Fox News Channel (whose book, Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America—and What We Can Do About It)—these miscreants are the true enemies of the black community.

Charges of racial treason echo in the protests of those ex-inmates outside Rainbow Push headquarters. The BET protesters shout that rap is too loud and undermines family values.

These, my fellow Americans, are the sounds of class conflict.

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• Reader Comments

  Yeah this article nails it. The problem is not with blacks as individuals, but rather the systematic discrimination against all non-whites in the US. Having babies out of wedlock, dropping out of school, doing drugs, etc are not really bad, it is merely the white racism that continues to hold the black man down. Cosby is just an Uncle Tom who made it big and refuses to see that personal responsibility has nothing to do with how a black mans life turns out, since the white racists will hold him down anyway, most likely due to “bigger penis” envy. The only solution is reparations for all blacks, which should amount to at least $1 Million per black household, plus another Million for the black men who deserted the households above (again due to the white racist society in which we live).  Plus all blacks should be released from prison, since we know the only reason they are there is the white justice system is so very racist. Sure they may have shot their estranged wives or robbed a liquor store, but it was the white man that made these things happen, due to institutional racism. Really, when you think about it, the black man is completely helpless under our white dominated society, which will not offer him any breaks at all.

  I think we can all agree that the US is the worst of all nations and the African nations are the best. If not for the interference of the white man in Africa, it would be even more of a paradise than it is now.

  Salim, thanks for setting things straight, once again! It is always very amusing and enlightening to read your stuff!

  Posted by wolf on Dec 13, 2007 at 10:17 AM

  Wolf’s sarcasm is exactly what the critics of Cosby’s and Williams’ advice seem to be willing to accept as a part of the community’s complexity and vital cultural expressions.

  Muwakkil charges, “For Cosby and others of his ilk—like Juan Williams of National Public Radio and the Fox News Channel (whose book, Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America—and What We Can Do About It)—these miscreants are the true enemies of the black community.”

  Hmmm, that seems a bit like a sweeping indictment.

  If there is any hate in their messages it is for the wasted lives of those waiting for a miracle. The big sports contract or being “discovered” as the next music star.

  “...an indictment of an entire class of people” ???  Well, yes, but only of those for whom the shoe fits.

  Cosby and Williams could leave out any reference to color and the advice would serve us all very well.

  Posted by whattheheck on Dec 13, 2007 at 10:52 AM

  “Rap is a scapegoat not just for generational reasons, but also because it is a class-bound, cultural product of America’s most criminalized and marginalized population: urban black youth. The genre has a ghettocentric vibe that tends to discomfort many middle-class blacks.”

  Perhaps because they’re so often expected to identify not only with those who have been unfairly criminalized and marginalized, but also those who are truly criminal and marginal, based on loose similarity of racial features.

  “Many of those demonstrating against Jackson are jobless former inmates who argue that the civil rights leadership does little to ameliorate their plight.”

  What could he do about their plight? Jackson doesn’t always impress me, but how can he be held responsible for things he has no ability to affect, e.g. their own decisive behaviors?

  Those inmates who were incarcerated justly, I mean. Those who were railroaded, not them. But the real crooks? What can anyone do about them, but them?

  “These ex-offenders consider themselves victims of the prison-industrial complex and are becoming increasingly aggressive in their attempts to be heard.”

  They are victims if they’ve been stereotyped as criminals without cause, charged on trumped-up bases, denied access to decent defense, convicted on crap evidence and/or hit with inordinate sentences that non-blacks would not suffer for similar convictions.

  They are not victims if they’ve been the victimizers, and if that’s why they went to prison.

  Perhaps the author has a point about the “class” element involved here, but insofar as the different responses of Mr. Muwakkil and Ms. Washington to Cosby’s efforts (which to me hardly seem driven by “hatin’"), maybe they owe as much to generational differences as anything else. I don’t know specifically how old either of the two writers is, but their photos suggest that she is a fair bit younger than he, and therefore the two may well have had very different experiences within the racial complexities based on a difference in age. Therefore they may see completely different perspectives on the “race problem”, implying different solutions.

  Either way, I agree with whattheheck’s closing line. Cosby’s push for acceptance of personal responsibility for one’s actions and deliberately choosing to work toward excellence instead of mediocrity (as well as criminality, if that shoe fits) is good advice for anyone, regardless of what they look like.

  The feet we stand on are our own two, whether we like it or not.

  (what the hell is “racial treason”?)

  Posted by Kuya on Dec 13, 2007 at 10:50 PM

  I think some of Cosby’s criticisms should be taken seriously. I do think the Juan Williams book is nonsense.

  Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Dec 16, 2007 at 12:28 PM

  People like Wolf wear blinders when it comes to race. His sarcasm betrays an intellectual shallowness unfit for a serious publication such as In These Times. I would suggest that Wolf confine his racist views to that sanctuary of rightwing dead-enders called Fox News Nethwork. I’m sure he would fit in as Special Consultant on Bill O’Reilley’s or Sean Hannity shows.

  Many black folk who are stuck in low wage jobs with fewer and fewer choices. Yet for ten years Republicans refused to raise the minimum wage, while bending over backwards to give tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans. If Cosby wanted to be taken seriously, he could have campaigned for a hike in the minimum wage, supported living wage campaigns beings waged nationally, or joined the recent fight to expand SCHIP. He cares about kids doesn’t he?

  Cosby could have said something like this to members of congress: “You ended ‘welfare as we know it’ and required poor people to get jobs. You lectured them about the dignity of work and the importance of being role models to their children. Why then, are you frustrating their ability to earn a living? Salim is right to locate this debate in the context of class. How else does one explain Cosby’s unwillingness to take on Bush on SCHIP, or his eagerness to defend a rich white woman, Martha Stewart, who defrauded the stock market system by the thousands—a lot more than the petty theft he attacks young Blacks of committing. The reason he won’t is simple: class solidarity. He feels a sense of kinship with the Bushes and Stewarts. 

  The priorities of Republicans like Wolf do not include these desperate people. Apparently, “personal responsibility” is reserved only for the poor. When it comes to rich, privileged white people, there is a bottomless reservoir of excuses. How many of George Bush’s cronies have been fired to incompetence? On the other hand, listen to the rightwing make excuses for Scooter Libby, Rumsfeld, Rove, (Michael) Brown, Gonzalez and his Justice Dept. minions, CIA tapes being destroyed….., fill in the blanks. The exclusive focus on the behavior of poor Black prevents an overdue focus on people in charge of this economy whose policies have force the poor into desperation.

  Monomotapa
  Chicago

  Posted by monomotapa on Dec 16, 2007 at 9:37 PM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

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Also by Salim Muwakkil

• The Vendetta Against Black Men
  
• A Speech Even Condi Could Love
  
• The Man or the Movement
  
• How Black is Obama?
  
• Nas: Whose Word Is This?
  
• Come on Cosby, Stop Hatin’
  Cosby makes blanket indictments of an entire class of black people and offers only exhortations from the sidelines

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