Pt. 1 - The Open Mind, "The New Negro"
Pt. 2 - The Open Mind, "The New Negro"
Now this was a snapshot, imperfect as it is, at the debate on American race relations a couple years after Jackie's debut and Brown v. Board and Montgomery and a few years before the Freedom Rides and the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and what has in popular verbage become known simply as "the civil rights movement".
Watching this interview reminded me of something about today's argument at least amongst other brothers and sisters and even with white brothers and sisters, something struck my mind. Let's see if I'm onto something here.
Let's try to contrast that previous interview with today's look at race in America from another prominent and seriously taken black opinion on the topic. This was an interview between Tavis Smiley and Dr. Bill Cosby taken after Dr. Cosby's famous 'Pound Cake' speech
made in 2004 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision by the Supreme Court. My thoughts after a few excerpts...
Cosby: The mistake I made was not in clarifying that I wasn't talking about 'all.' I think that unless it's later on, I think I said prior to this, the 50% dropout. I think I said that prior to this, '50% dropout in school.' Very, very important, because with that, that means 50% of our African American males, from grade 9 through 12, in certain parts of the city, have no education.
Now I'm also listening to what is a new language, and it's a new language in the area, and it's only good for the people you come in contact living in that area. It's no good on Wall Street. It's no good at Temple University. It's no good filing and understanding an employment waiver or blank.
What I'm saying here, and the mistake I made was... In saying that there are people who are striving and working in the lower economic area, the people who are not holding up their end is quite obvious to me. And that happens to be those people who don't have a clue in terms of what education, learning standard English, math, and graduating from school, what that has for them in terms of empowerment. Many of them, after they drop out, they have to turn around and come all the way back in again. That's not bad for those who want to drop out and come back in again, but we want--I want more voices in the home challenging the child to not just stay in school, 'cause I've always been against saying to children, 'stay in school'. I've always wanted to add 'study' because that's a part of it.
I don't think that there's a greater high... I challenge any high--heroin, marijuana, booze or anything--that if you know your stuff and you go into an exam knowing that you know it, there's no better high. There's no better high than sitting down and then opening the booklet and reading your first question and saying to yourself, 'Who made up this question? This person didn't-- You know, I'm ready to go.' There's no greater high than walking out after the exam and saying, 'How did you answer?' Or being the second or third person out of there.
So, I think that we have not given our children a true picture of our history and that's when I-- I mean, to look at those people, Brown vs. the Board, and then to think about Kenneth Clark and Mamie Clark, deceased, sitting someplace in New York, and Kenneth is a friend of ours, and Kenneth in the last 5 or 6 years would just say, 'What's going on? What's going on?' And he's speaking specifically about these people who are changing the language, who are not studying, who--go ahead.
----------------------Later in the interview--------------------Cosby: You understand? I have a feeling of pain when I hear and watch the 6:00 news, and I hear about somebody holding up a place and being shot, somebody calling a pizza man and then shooting and killing the person and then running away. I have a feeling about a child jumping double-dutch and some people arguing over drug--over turf, and they shoot and can't hit each other and kill a child double-dutching.
How many times--and you ask this same person who's criticizing these fellows--how many times have they heard what I've said? And the reason why these whatever it is, is upset, talkin' about, 'hubba-dubba-dubba,' he doesn't even understand what that was about.
These are 5 guys, 5, African American boys who look nothing like what would be acceptable to teach people that it's what's in here. You understand? With [Fat] Albert, you can't get a character more out of sync coming through the sixties and into the seventies than a fat person. And here's a guy who could play, and he is intelligent, and he has a heart. So these anti-heroes are doing something. 50% dropout--and I'm not saying all of the 50% are gonna be thugs and criminals, but we've missed the parenting. We've missed putting them in a position where they have to do what we say. This is not about 'hubba-dubba-dubba-dubba.' [Fat] Albert and those boys had parents--who parented.
-------------------------------------------------------Cosby: No, if you have a son and you get a phone call and your son is shot by the police--and you say, 'Oh,' and then you say, 'Well, what was it?' 'Well, the cop said he stole a--' The first thing that you're gonna say is, 'He didn't do it,' which means you hope that your child didn't do it.
But I'm saying with the parenting, this force of a child continuing to go out and take something and not realize the value of this. The value of a stolen Coca-Cola bottle is a dead human being. That's the value. The value of a child carrying a gun into a school is the value of 2 lives. One--the person that he may kill, and then his life or her life in prison. And I'm saying that there are parents--there are some parents who don't know what subjects their child is supposed to be taking in school. They don't know what grade the child got. And not only that, but they don't even know if the child had an exam.
----------------------------------------------------Cosby: It was the white man who got the word from somebody who was there, who called the white man, who put it in the white paper, which is called the Washington Post. And from that, they left out Mr. Cosby saying 50%. They left out the part about fathering, and they certainly left out 'We've got to take back the neighborhood and the responsibility--take it back.' Then they added something that I think was incorrect, that the people came out stone-faced, stunned. I don't think they were. And I heard the audience a couple of times saying, 'yes,' people applauding.
Responsibility? No, a pain. I'm really in pain. And I want it stopped. I want people to get together, and I want people to take their neighborhood back. Hey, man, you know, to be--I've traveled around all the different cities, and to turn on the TV or the news at 5:00, and I read that some child, 12-year-old, shot. Whether it's Dayton, Ohio; Wilberforce, Ohio; Pennsylvania, Mississippi. And for me, it's painful. That's a life gone. And then when they catch the person that did it, that's another life gone. Where are we? Who are we? 50% dropout in school. 60 to 70% of our incarcerated are illiterate.
----------------------------------Tavis: Let me ask you about, back to this notion of Cornel's point that you have done this in the spirit of love and that you have earned the right to criticize or to check or to say whatever you want to say in the best interests of black people. Take me back right quick to your growing up, to your childhood. Talk to me about your mother, Anna Cosby. And I ask that because people--you mentioned earlier, I didn't say it--you're a millionaire. You're a multimillionaire. You got your own plane--by the way, how's Camille doing?
Cosby: She's doing just fine.
Tavis: Camille's the name of the plane. You got your own plane. You go where you wanna go. But you weren't born, though, with a silver spoon in your mouth. Your mama worked 2 or 3 jobs--
Cosby: It wasn't even stainless steel.
Tavis: Ha ha. OK, you weren't born with a stainless steel spoon in your mouth. Your mama worked 2 or 3 jobs. Your daddy was an alcoholic, didn't bring home his paychecks. Your mama read you the Bible, she read you the classics. I think that people look at you now and if they call it classist or elitist, maybe they are not aware of the background. But tell me about how you got so passionate about this.
Cosby: I don't have to--to really show these people anything.
Tavis: But how'd you get so passionate?
Cosby: No, no, wait, wait. I have an attitude--not towards you. No, no, not towards you. My attitude is here, is who I am.
I am saying to the people, 'Hey, man, the bridge is out. The bridge is out.' You can drive over there. You can get angry with me if you want to. A friend of mine said--I was sitting with a diabetic friend of mine, and this cat has got to take a shot or else he'll go blblblblbl--like that. So the cat sat down and he ordered a Coca-Cola. And I said, 'Hey, man, what are you doing with a Coca-Cola?' The guy said, 'What you want me--' I said, 'OK, man.' You can go ahead and get mad at me, but you're not gonna get mad at the Coca-Cola. I'm not the one sending--you understand?
Whether I deserve to, whether I have the right to, I'm saying that I see many things. I see those people who did Brown vs. the Board of Education in the room to make whatever it was--separate but equal or to equal, or to show the children--Ken Clark and his wife with the dolls to show that children felt inferior, too. I'm looking at Nashville and the march where people are trying to sit at a counter, and we say, OK, all of that was done for...this! And then here it is--50% dropout. You can't just blame white people for this, man. You can't. Whether I'm right-wing or left, some people are not parenting.
Tavis: But there are a lot of folk who say that, because Cosby said it, the right wing is gonna take it and use it as ammunition--
Cosby: I don't give me a blank about those right-wing white people! They can't do any more to us than they've already started with. They can't try to throw us back any farther than they've tried to throw us back. And they're doing a very good job of it.
But by the same token, for God's sake, turn around and let's have some meetings and say, 'Brother, um, let me explain to you. You're the father of so-forth and so-on. Brother, you gotta rein them in, man. You gotta go talk to 'em.' 'Oh, what do I do, man? I got a son, he won't listen to me, but--' 'Well, hey, brother, that's your son.'
--------------------------------------------Cosby: Ladies and gentlemen, do me a favor. Talk to each other. Talk to each other. I have too many positive stories also. When I said, 'Take your neighborhood back,' this can happen. You have to get out and talk to each other. And you have to realize what is good and what is not good and who's tweaking your children to buy things.
I mean, when girls are beating up other girls because the other girls were virgins, when boys are attacking other boys because the boys are studying and they say, 'You're acting white.' Well, I got news for ya, a guy told me that there were some white kids who attacked other white kids because they were studying and they said, 'You're acting Asian.' So it's a disease all around.
To be honest, I do not see a problem with saying that we in the black community as a whole need to stand up for ourselves and our future. I don't oppose a strong push for much greater levels of participation in the lives of our children, I think it's a critical step toward getting other young black men and women ready for the challenges that face them in the world. The responsibilities of black parents, hell any parents, in the lives of their children is crucial. That fact cannot be forgotten. My sense is that Cosby feels parenting is the strongest force for social change in America, for good or ill. I get the feeling he thinks that by having strong parental forces that guide youngsters to obey the rules and ordinances and laws and customs of American society, we'll be able to better integrate into that society, a Washingtonian point of view. I see the merits of a parenting focus, but...
Cosby talks for one about how he made it despite his father's alcoholism and lack of financial supports as a young person of color in America, and he asserts here that he doesn't have to prove anything to us. The problem I thought of when I saw the Dr. King interview was that Cosby's position in terms of race relations was to focus SOLELY on black responsibility. It wasn't just a plea for some individual blacks to stay with their kids and guide them, as a personal responsibility argument would go. This was a community-wide charge for us all as blacks to take up the mantle of protectors of black youth and maximize their educational attainment.
This is all well and good except that a societal appeal to my ears seems lacking in terms of trying to bridge the racial gap, if we do not even acknowledge, as Dr. King and Judge Waring did in the clips above, the need to directly confront the evils of white supremacy in the same breath that we acknowledge our need to confront our own demons in terms of deadbeat fathers, ever-growing tendencies toward violence, and an alarming anti-intellectualism that threatens to limit black opportunities for future occupational and personal aspirations severely.
The point in the contrast to me is that in the clips above, there is more complete honesty in terms of talking about the social environment in which many people of color live instead of heaping criticism on one side or the other. While the interviews happened in different times, and the actions of Dr. King likely had an effect on the debate Dr. Cosby was engaged in, there is little doubt in my mind that the underlying problem of racial inequality Dr. Cosby was addressing and still does since 2004 and before that even is still not too much altered since the 1960s.
This is not apologetic for malfeasance but rather mindful of the need to demand that those in the bully pulpit more equitably discuss the issues at hand so that we may actually attack the sources and symptoms of such malfeasance. I do not think we really alter the racist system if we do not challenge those in charge of it but instead ONLY ourselves. What do you think?
0 comments:
Post a Comment