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Amen Bill Cosby!

By Kellye Whitney

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For me there is a time ... when we have to turn the mirror around. For me it is almost analgesic to talk about what the white man is doing against us. And it keeps a person frozen in their seat, it keeps you frozen in your hole you're sitting in.             

--Bill Cosby

Bill Cosby’s been in the news a lot lately for his allegedly ‘harsh’ words for the black community. Well, I say Amen Brother Bill! On one hand, it’s fabulous that Bill’s common sense, good for all opinions are making their way into the mainstream media. Case in point, this July 2nd story on MSN.com. On the other hand, it’s ridiculous that someone can speak truthfully, without cursing, without exclamation points and with very serious intent, yet be described as harsh. If Bill’s so harsh, how come MSN placed the story in the entertainment section? He made his inflammatory comments at the annual conference for the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition & Citizenship Education Fund…

What is Bill Cosby saying to black people? Don’t drop the N-bomb and think it’s cute because historically the word is synonymous with degradation, cruelty and anything else horrid and debilitating you can think of to enslave a person’s mind and cripple the spirit. Language is important! It’s the foundation of effective communication. Thus, use correct grammatical English and slang where appropriate (see this piece for more on this issue). He says parents, be parents. Monitor your children’s activities and take care to provide a strong example for them, including censoring, if necessary, some of the more graphic music they might be listening to in the back seat of the family car. He says, adults, don’t get mad and stay mad and starting blaming ‘the man’ for your lost way. Value education and the opportunities so many before you struggled to provide, and use what you have to get what you want, the right way.

Now, obviously all of that is subjective. There are different measurements of success and right and wrong because we are a race, and a nation, filled with an ever-expanding and diverse culture. But the point is, change needs to happen, and it needs to happen fast and hard. I could throw quotes around your screen highlighting alarming prison, teen pregnancy and HIV infection rates. I could bounce illiteracy and poverty numbers around like medicine balls, but we already know it’s bad out there. That’s why Bill and I and many others are so fired up!

It’s frightening that the history and struggle of the black race has led to our current apathetic, frequently backward state of being in America. I’m the first to say that we’re still suffering the residuals of a slave mentality and the accompanying educational, economic and social lack typical of an underprivileged class. This country was not built for us. But we did help build it nonetheless. Just as it’s past time for racism to die a natural death, for people to look at one another as individuals and refrain from simplistic, color-based judgments, it’s also past time for black people to take some responsibility for their lives.

No one has to stay in a bad place. We are all capable of pulling ourselves up and doing any thing we want to! You just gotta work. If you come from the ghetto, it will be harder for you than it was for me coming from a middle-class suburb. I can’t imagine how hard that life must be day-to-day, month-to-month. I can only know peripherally the circle of poverty and miseducation that is recycled from generation to generation. I’ve never been hungry, thank the good Lord, and my mother would have cut off her hand before she’d have sent me to school dirty. But that’s the point. There’s water in the ghetto.

If it’s harsh to want the best for your people, to want them to exhibit pride in themselves and each other, in their work, to want them to work and strive and enjoy everything that this country stands for then call me a Brillo pad. If it’s harsh to want my race to stick together and continue to fight for every wonderful, varied thing this lavishly abundant universe has to offer, call me steel wool. I want my people to reap the benefits of the American dream. I want that for myself. I want us to take advantage of every opportunity to experience life to the nth degree and be conscious that every word, movement, thought and action makes a difference. Let’s just get it together. Time’s awastin’…

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Kellye Whitney is a Chicago-based writer and editor. Her work has appeared at web sites like urbanfilmpremiere.com, ediets.com and in newspapers
and magazines. She is currently working on her first novel.  She can be contacted here.

© 2004 Me Three