Bill Cosby’s remarks about the source of black’s economics woes must have caused some internal consternation at Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition conference. I have a newfound respect for the erstwhile comic; between The Cosby Show and now, he’s mostly—save for the Ennis incident—been out of the limelight.
I wish that he would have struck deeper at the root of the black community’s problems—it’s general disdain for intellectual pursuits and success through hard work. Instead, he focused on bad grammar and only briefly touched on some of the factors that would prevent a n-word–spouting black kid from becoming a doctor. Further he hinted that the black kids of today should work at bringing themselves up to the American way of life out of a debt to the civil rights crusaders of yesteryear. That’s unfortunate since it sets up the worst reason for bettering yourself: duty.
At any rate, he’s a welcome contrast to most of the armchair-politician celebrities.
[NOTE: Lest my point be misconstrued, I am not suggesting that the disdain I refer to is universal in the black community. Cosby himself is a profound example of that.]