Sunday Talk

Bill Cosby appeared on Meet the Press this morning to promote his new book, Come on People, co-authored by Alvin Poussaint, a noted professor of psychiatry at Harvard. The man seemed very preachy, and showed little fire. He certainly won’t be leading any sort of movement unless he can amp up his stoic nature. Cosby shared the stage well at first as the pair mainly spoke about the high percentage of fatherless families in the black community. This culminates in children having no concept of a two-parent home, and more importantly in his eyes, no model for corrective behavior.

I have not read the book, and I do not know much about Bill Cosby the man, so this reaction is hardly researched. Based on his morning talk show appearance he came across like many conservatives as ignorant of history and is unwilling to talk of the severe setback that the racist nature of this country has caused for black families. He broached the subject of the high percentage of African-Americans in prison, and attributed a large part of the blame for this on mandatory sentencing. While he should be applauded for bringing this topic to attention, this was the only bit of history he discussed in his interview.

He spent a good portion ranting about “gangster rap,” continuingly avoiding the term hip-hop. The chance was there for Cosby to give examples of the many positive things hip-hop has done, and could possibly do in the future. He rightly accused the record companies of marketing negative images to a mostly white audience, but to me this is another example of going after the wrong people for the wrong reasons. This reminds me very much of blaming Marilyn Manson for Columbine, or blaming violent movies like Oldboy for the Virginia Tech shootings. He spent as much time discussing rap music as he did anything else. Citing bigotry as a possible reason for economic disparity is not an exercise in excuse making, but a chance to admit the scope of the problem of institutionalized racism.

Anyone doubting that race is still a tremendous hurdle need only to look to politics, both at a federal, and a local level. In a Louisiana town called Jena, a black student asked the school principal to sit at the “white tree” outside of the school. The principal said okay, and later in the day the kid showed up with some friends to talk with the white students. The next day two nooses were hung up in the tree. Three boys were identified and though the principal advised expulsion, the kids were pardoned by the superintendent, calling the incident nothing more than a prank. Later a group of black students beat up a white student, and are now being charged with attempted murder by a prejudiced district attorney. At the federal level, one small example would be the 2000 elections, when not one Senator would stand up and support the fight against the illegal disenfranchisement and “caging” of thousands of black voters in Florida.

The problem is that many of these elected officials are representing their constituents, and racist beliefs are generally steadfast, and firmly rooted through years and years of ridiculous teachings. It will take much more than the occasional speech with the Rainbow/PUSH coalition, or a meeting with Tim Russert crusading about rap music to keep the wheels in motion. I hope that Mr. Cosby’s book contains ideas for solutions, and isn’t filled with the uninformed diatribes he chose to spew on Meet the Press.

For more, visit http://www.jenasix.org/