Cosby and me: Why we don't see eye-to-eye

By Michael Eric Dyson

For more than a year, I've been embroiled in a public debate with Bill Cosby about poor blacks. Cosby has been harshly critical of the poor, blaming them for their plight and arguing that personal responsibility is the key to their success. Cosby has dismissed both social forces and the legacy of racism in berating the poor for their many failures--bad parenting, bad language and bad behavior.

I have acknowledged that personal responsibility is an important element in all people's flourishing. I have also argued that it is naive and irresponsible to ignore the negative impact of low wages, poor health care, persistent prejudice and conservative public policies on the lives of the black poor.

Recently, civil rights leader (and my dear friend) Rev. Jesse Jackson and columnist Clarence Page have entered the fray. I'm afraid they've both missed the point of my criticism of Cosby's beliefs.

In an open letter, Jackson contends that my "attacks on Dr. Bill Cosby are too harsh," and that it is "one thing to disagree with his views, but quite another to personally denigrate him to make one's point." Instead of saying how this is the case, Jackson defends Cosby by chronicling his generosity to Jackson's organizations. Jackson also points to Cosby's pioneering role in defeating racial stereotypes as a reason to admire him.

True, but that has little to do with the legitimacy of my criticism of Cosby's stern rebuke to the poor. In the absence of any supporting evidence, it might appear that Jackson is arguing that the very act of my disagreeing with Cosby is to denigrate him. But that would mean that kowtowing to the rich and mighty had replaced the role of social criticism and, presumably, strong black leadership: to speak truth to power and defend the vulnerable.

Jackson is justly famous for doing both. Renowned scholar John Hope Franklin reminded him of it recently in a public forum. When Jackson asked Franklin about Cosby's comments about poor black folk, Franklin said that too many influential blacks have been "co-opted by white people" and have "betrayed their own race." Franklin urged Jackson to keep up his fight for the voiceless.

In a profile of Jackson by Don Terry in the Tribune Sunday magazine last year, Jackson said that while he agreed with much that Cosby had to say, he thought the comedian's words were too harsh and lacked context. I agree with Jackson's assessment, one that I think he should have repeated in his open letter to me. Jackson calls for a balanced approach to our problems: Black folk must exercise personal responsibility as we fight "institutional inequality and injustice." I agree. But Cosby's stark insistence on personal responsibility while slighting institutional impediments is a gross distortion of the situation of the black poor.

Jackson knows better. He has criticized others for holding such out-of-kilter views. He must summon the courage to confront Cosby.

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Comments

[Deocliciano Okssipin Vieira]

We must act now.
Wait for others to change, so for we to change?
I think Mr Cosby is right.

Why lost time with matters that would not ever change.
I still think we Africans, its a race, we have no place to call home, besides our head.

Any change comes from one´s own self, as Ornette Coelman puts it, happiness comes from inside not the outside. So the change in the communities can only rise from self responsibility.

[Wil]

The point of Cosby's comments, to the best of my recollection, relates to how African American culture in general has taken the low road. I did not understand his commnets as an attack on the poor. In the past a significant percentage of poor people showed respect for their elders, valued women and families, understood the importance of education, and saw themselves as part of a larger community, a community with much work ahead of it....Perhaps my experience growing up in the midwest during the mid-century was unique - but I think not.

There is no reason that African Americans cannot create a paradigm shift. Think of Japanese manufacturing after world war II - the words that sping to mind are "cheap and shoddy". Think of Japanese manufacturing today and the word that come to mind are "state of the art, futuristic and expensive". That's a real paradigm shift - and it occured in only one generation. We could do the same if the concerns about offending the lagging segments of our society were re-conceptualized as a effort to energize a movement towards excellence...

[Terrence Says]

Wow. Powerful as always. Dyson is so right. He put it so succinctly. And all I can say is.....Wow! I'm left speechless and without words to describe that column. How can anybody argue with that piece? How can anybody not get it?

Thanks for posting.