Criticizing Cosby

In truth, most whites let themselves off that particular hook long before Cosby got around to doing it. It has been a very long time since whites, en masse, have appeared eager to take responsibility for the ills of America's inner-city ghettos.

Although Dyson does a brilliant job dissecting and demolishing Cosby's rhetoric, it is far from evident that Cosby's words have had anything like the impact Dyson, and so many others, seem to believe. Yes, Cosby got a lot of people talking, black and white alike; and, yes, he raised anew questions of personal versus societal responsibility that are as old as social thought. I have no doubt that Cosby's efforts are sincere; but I am not convinced that he changed many hearts or minds, or made people's lives either easier or harder.

Many young black people to whom I talked when Cosby's comments were in the news, responded to them with the same icy disdain they sensed that Cosby felt for them. As one young ex-offender put it, "He's saying the same s--- that people been saying for a hundred years, that basically black people ain't s---. He's talking about me holding up my end of the bargain. Listen ... I robbed 'cause I was hungry ... If he's going to put food on my table, if he's going to give me time to pursue education vigorously, then fine. But if he's not, then I'm going to hold up my end of the bargain and make sure I get something to eat."

That young man was precisely the sort of person Cosby presumably was trying to reach: an endangered soul adrift in a world offering him few options for success. To him Cosby's words were worse than irrelevant. The one-time stick-up man may have been less eloquent than Dyson in his dismissal; but his analysis was bracingly realistic--which, is to say, he had no illusion that the clangorous traveling Cosby show had much of anything to do with him.

© 2005