CE Week #8: “Cosby’s uncomfortable truth”
James P. Pinkerton
Newsday
October 19, 2007
The 17th-century philosopher Blaise Pascal once observed that mankind is suspended between two infinities – the infinitely large and the infinitely small. And so it is with two figures in the news: Al Gore wishes to speak for the planet, while Bill Cosby wishes to speak to the human heart.
And it’s revealing, given the liberal biases of our culture, that one man receives so much attention and the other man, so little.
Gore, former vice president-turned-pundit-movie star, has chosen, as his topic, the infinitely big. And he has been rewarded hugely: He just won the Nobel Peace Prize, on top of many other awards showered down on him by the elite culture, including an Oscar and an Emmy. So Gore will ascend into the jet stream of world renown – the same left-tilting empyrean occupied by such globetrotters as Bono and Bill and Melinda Gates.
In the meantime, closer to the ground, the comedian-turned-reformer Bill Cosby has joined with Alvin F. Poussaint of Harvard Medical School to write a book, “Come on People: On the Path from Victims to Victors,” which argues that many of the problems within the black community are self-inflicted, the result of a counterproductive culture of violence and victimhood.
Cosby has been making this point for years – and has been attacked by the left for years. Michael Eric Dyson, speaking for the liberal street-activism left over from the ’60s, wrote an entire book attacking Cosby’s “poisonous” view of black culture.
But Cosby and Poussaint have the cold terrible facts on their side: “In 1950, five out of every six black children were born into a two-parent home. Today that number is less than two out of six.” Yes, white racism exists, but it was worse a half-century ago. Something bad is happening within black culture, and Cosby and Poussaint are not shy about naming it: the celebration of violence and ignorance emblemized in the “gangsta” lifestyle.
The unyielding truth is that any group climbs into the middle class only by embracing middle-class values. This is a “conservative” fact of life that was once equally embraced by liberals, before they “progressed” on to “liberation” as a new goal.
But after decades of disaster, black thinkers such as Cosby and Poussaint – and before them, John McWhorter, Juan Williams and, yes, Clarence Thomas – are leading a moral renaissance among African Americans, which surely counts as the most hopeful social trend in our national life today. And yet with the remarkable exception of NBC’s Tim Russert, who bravely devoted the entire hour of Sunday’s “Meet the Press” to Cosby and Poussaint, the mainstream media seem little interested in this black renaissance.
Why is that? Perhaps because the liberal-leaning elites realize that they are losing the debate over poverty and uplift – the winners being those who speak for hard work, abstinence and delayed gratification.
No wonder the chattering classes, fleeing from their horror of such a “bourgeois” existence, have moved on to new, greener pastures.
But there’s a problem looming ahead for Gore and his many fans: how to radically reduce “greenhouse gases.” The environmentalists have their answer: some sort of global authority to restrict factories and cars – which would, not coincidentally, authorize them to rule the world. But maybe China won’t cooperate. Maybe the Chinese will watch as we shut down our factories – and they keep theirs open. And then who will win the next war? Not a war of polar bears and the Prius, but a real war of ships and airplanes.
If Gore wants to be constructive, he will figure out to how to reduce pollution – while still preserving American industry. If he could do that, he would truly earn the respect and admiration of all Americans.
But in the meantime, Cosby and Poussaint have taken on a challenge that we can win, because the struggle will take place within our own hearts.
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Ok, so I am still a little confused on this whole issue. What is it really about? Is it about Cosby or is it about Gore? I think this reporter has taken two topics and reported poorly on both. But that’s not here or there. What my understanding of this article is, correct me if I’m wrong, is that we have to men who have brought two separate problems to the attention of the public and one is being criticized for it and the other is praised. But the one who is being praised (Gore) might not have a realistic solution. I understand why Cosby is being criticized so much. It’s tough for Americans to realize things that they don’t want to. They like to stay in a state of denial and blame someone else, like the president. What Cosby is trying to say is that the reason that there are problems in the black community because the celebration of violence and ignorance emblemized in the “gangsta” lifestyle. Because people of the black community don’t want to accept their fault, they are criticizing Cosby. Gore on the other hand is being praised for opening the eyes of many about global warming, but really how realistic is solving this issue going to be? It’s not very likely all the countries in the world are going to stop driving gas cars and shut down factories. It’s more likely that we can solve the problems in the black community since it’s on our own turf. I think that instead of criticizing Cosby, we need to understand the point he’s making and try to make a change. Whatever that change may be.
It’s too bad Cosby isn’t getting more positive attention for what he’s doing, because it is just as important as what Gore is doing. That seemed to be the point of this article, and I tend to agree with it.
Gore wants us to protect the environment. Not a bad cause, really: our environment needs protection. We need to take care of this planet; we’re the ones who have to live here, anyways. Now, I don’t really like Gore (and from what I hear he’s a bit of a hypocrite; on An Inconvenient Truth, I hear he is on a private jet–only him and the camera crew–talking about how our fuel-inefficient technology is ruining the world) but his cause is a good one.
Cosby, on the other hand, focuses on those who live on this planet–specifically, the black community and why it’s going downhill. I agree with him in the sense that whenever any group embraces a destructive lifestyle, that group’s culture is going to decline. No, I’m not being racist. It’s a danger present in all cultures that can be embraced by all cultures.
Both causes are good ones, and they both deserve equal attention. Our planet is important, but so are the people who inhabit it.
I agree with Jackie. The reporter did a pretty bad job of making his point direct and evident.
But I also agree with Cosby. I’ve seen it (the gangsta lifestyle and generalization) for years. If someone says something that is “gansta” people get defensive and say, “You can’t say that, you aren’t black.”
Hmm.
The black community is getting way too defensive about this topic. Why can’t they just accept that they screwed up? By continuing to support this generalization, whether it be acknowledged or not, they are isolating themselves and causing worse problems.
What a mess.
I agree and disagree with Brynna.
For one I think that everyone is a direct product of their environments and you can go both ways after growing up in said environment. Of course this analogy worksmainly for “poor” environments where you grow up poor and end up poor in the end but it also works the other way. Obviously there are some African Americans who have embraced middle-class values and have the benefits to show for it. There are also African Americans who haven’t quite embraced those values and haven’t quite embraced the “gangsta” culture and are still quite famous and fortunate. Chris Rock comes to mind, someone who makes his living making fun of both black and white people in a very non middle-class way and still seems to do fine.
But I also understand that the “gangsta” culture is definitely a conscious decision to get into and that people don’t just fall into it as a off-spurt of curiosity. If you grow up in such a culture though it seems like it would be hard to grow up out of it.
Cosby is on to something and I hope the African American community can latch onto his views and make some changes for the better.
I agree with Jackie and Brynna that the message seems very unclear. He starts with Gore and Cosby, then says Cosbys got a point, down talks Cosby and ends with Gore.
I don’t know whether I agree with Cosby. Emily has a point though, and Cosby can definatly make a point with stats like the ones stated in the article. However I don’t think it is a race issue. I think that it is a poverty issue, and a desenatization to violence issue. I think the “gangsta” culture feeds on poverty, and that include violence. The mentality being using violence to quiet fear of not surviving. This strikes people of all races, but the race getting the most attention for it is African Americans because they have one of the highest percentage living in or below the poverty line. We seem to put this whole big concept of “gangsta” on the African American people, when gangs have been around forever, and in all races.
Violence feeds on poverty. I think the number of African Americans who paticipate in this violence and “gangsta” life is porportionate to those in and below the poverty line.
Alright so it is true that I am a huge Oprah fan and it just happens that Bill Cosby was on her show last week speaking about this exact cause. I couldn’t help but come away from that show with an idea that I had never really thought of before. Sure I knew that the black community is commonly known to be one of the poorest, and most uneducated, but I never really thought about what it is that is causing this community to be stuck in so much of a rut. The basics that Cosby wanted to get out were that the people of the black community do not care enough to get out of this rut they are stuck in and make positive changes for their children. He talked about how so many children live with only one parent, or in an abusive home, or with no one to care about them. Cosby’s biggest topic was schooling. He said that there are too many parents who aren’t paying enough attention to their children to know if they have homework or a test the next day. Cosby said that if a parent could care enough to want to be involved with their children’s lives, it could stop them from staying out on the streets and getting into trouble.
I can understand why there has been such uproar about Cosby’s issue, but I don’t understand why people can’t just listen to it and possibly learn something from it. There are other issues that must play apart of the black community constantly living in poverty, but Cosby is bringing up issues, as small as they may seem, that could result in bringing this community out of it’s past patterns. He is talking about simple things, such as parents just acknowledging that their children mean something to them and that they love them, a little jester that could keep a child off of the streets and out of crime.
I agree with this article. I think that a lot of attention is paid toward the global warming issue that Al Gore has brought up. I do though think that people are choosing what they want to see as more important. I received a email a year or so ago that tells a story of when Denzel Washington wrote a check to build a home that helped men that recovering from injury in battle. This story shows the publicity that we have and how none of it is good. The fact that Al Gore has more attention is due to what the people want. Hear me out first. I think that fixing global warming, if it is in fact a threat to the world, is easy. It can easily be done and will not take much change on the behalf of the common day people. But with Bill Cosby asking people to look at the black community and help them, that is hard. Helping someone change their lifestyle it a difficult thing. It is something that needs to be done though because many members of the black community have been dying. I guess what I’m trying to say is that we want to take the easy way out an have global warming be a major issue, instead of something that will affect us as a nation in nearer future.
This is a reply to Jackie. I too am a little confused on the article. I do not get what the writer is trying to get at. He starts the article by mentioning both Gore and Cosby, then talks specifically about Cosby and what he is trying to do. I do not understand how Cosby can be getting criticized for what he is doing to benefit the black community. That is when you know that racism is not out of American society. Any measure can be taken to improve white peoples conditions and it gets praise, but when a black person wants to improve their conditions it gets frowned upon. I am glad that Cosby is stepping up and pointing out the problem of the “gangster” lifestyle. Many people are getting killed and doing horrible things with their lives and there may be a way to prevent it. Why is what Gore doing so important? It does not seem to help anyone in the “now” only the future. How many of us will still be around when improvement is seen? Cosby is doing something that will help society now and make parts of the nation safer to live in. Racism is still a huge part of society, especially when what Cosby is doing will benefit many and it is still frowned upon.