is this the letter you were talking about?
http://www.tbwt.org/index.php?option...sk=view&id=263
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Dear Brother Bill,
While flipping through the radio dial recently I heard your name being scandalized by Don Imus, host of the hugely popular radio show “Imus in the Morning,� broadcast to ten million listeners over the powerful sports station WFAN, and simulcast on WNBC TV. My first inclination was to dismiss his comments as just more of the sour grapes that he usually aims at Oprah. You see, Imus is one of those white folks who have trouble dealing with smart and powerful black people. I became really suspicious when I discovered that Imus’s animosity towards you was a reaction to something you said about “poor black people� embarrassing the black community with their behavior.
Imus vociferously argued that your comments exposed you as a pompous, elitist, windbag; but I dismissed his conclusion out of hand, convinced that he was just jealous because you were not a recovering coke head and lush like him, and that he would never enjoy the public reverence that had been heaped on you for years. I remembered how he carried on when you were having your problems with blackmail demands from a young woman who claimed to be your love child with a white prostitute; he had jumped for joy as news of the scandal got around. He argued that it didn’t matter if the girl was your daughter or not, the mere fact that you were sleeping around with her mother while you had a wife and kids at home, means that your image as the preeminent father figure of the nation is a Fugazy. But since I knew that Imus had broken up the marriage of a multiple Emmy Award winning television newsman by seducing his wife, I know because the injured husband told me so - I just dismissed him as the verbose charlatan, amoral opportunist, and drugged out cowboy that he is.
But Imus the ignoramus’s outburst caused me to hastened and find out what you had actually said, since your remarks have sparked a rapidly growing firestorm of impassioned critical commentary. I discovered rather quickly that contrary to much of the criticism, you had not condemned all black youths; rather you had targeted your remarks to the criminals and knuckle heads, who deserved it. Although I would have second thoughts about some of your observations after you began to elaborate on your original statement - especially the bit about the killer cops and the pound cake - at first I didn’t see anything inappropriate about your comments, especially since I had read a newspaper account about a recent trip that you took to Philly.
I know how painful a trip to Philly can be for somebody our age. The elegance of style and manner that was characteristic of young black Philadelphia men of our generation when we were high school and college age – the “Ditty Bops� and the “Spitty Yocks� - has disappeared. In their place are legions of monosyllabic thugs whose idea of jumping sharp is not the Botany 500 or custom tailored suits, freaked off with stingy brim Stetsons, that we were down with; but ill fitting dungarees, basketball Jerseys, rakishly cocked baseball caps, and necks weighted down with bling bling. Clearly, young black males are suffering a fashion disaster that is cause for alarm.
And there is no more compelling evidence that we are in a cultural crisis than the fact that romantic love songs which glory in tender feelings between men and women, sweet soul songs that once routinely flowed from every living room, bar room and car window in black America - have been largely replaced with vulgar raps that celebrate misogyny and ****ography. This has clearly diminished the capacity of young men to converse with girls and win them with sweet talk, an art we learned from listening to silver tongued crooners like Sam Cooke, Jerry Butler, and Billy Eckstine, or soulful beggars like Ray Charles, Lloyd Price and James Brown. Thus the fact that so many youths think it’s hipper to call a young lady a bitch or ho, rather than “Sugar Pie honey bunch,� is a sure sign of cultural deprivation! But that’s not completely the fault of the youths; it bespeaks a much broader failure of our society.
And you were right on the money when you said that much of the bad manners, nihilism, and criminal conduct of lower class black youths bespeaks a failure of home training – however there is also a shocking absence of effective home training among privileged American youths too. Witness the vulgar exhibitionism of Paris Hilton, or the underage drunken revelries of the Bush babes. And sometimes even the best parents draw a blank. For instance, one of your daughters, who certainly had everything the American dream can offer, wrestled with an addiction to illegal drugs for years.
Like all of our generation – except for the most ignorant and besotted derelicts – you were taught never to call anyone a ******, especially around white folks. Indeed, it is widely rumored that you once smacked the taste out of the mouth of big time white comedian, Tommy Smothers, for using the N word in jest. And it is obvious from the anguish in your words that you, like me, are deeply offended by the cavalier way in which too many of our youths hurl this poisonous racial epithet at each other – anytime, anyplace, any where.
Unfortunately, as tragic as the loss of social graces is, that’s not the worst of it. For in spite of all the talk about diminishing rates of violent crime among the statisticians, you and I know that the level of deadly violence in the black neighborhoods of Philly and elsewhere is far worse than it was when we were growing up. Back in the day, you could challenge any tough guy to a “fair one� and he would have to lay his weapon down and duke it out. If he refused he’d be branded a punk, and no amount of guns – which were virtually non-existent in teenybopper brawls – could restore his rep. And, notwithstanding the dropping pregnancy rate for black teenage girls, the fact remains that last year 77% of black children were born out-of-wedlock! That’s close to 50% higher than it was when we were teenagers. I cite these facts because I wish to acknowledge that I understand that the problems you are criticizing are real, and that there is a mountain of evidence to support your impressionistic commentaries.
However I wish to clarify the nature of the evidence in this case not so much for your information – because you seem quite certain of the truth in what you are saying – but for all those skeptics who seem to think that you are conjuring it all up just so you can release your own frustrations by publicly scolding somebody else for their shortcomings. While I have no way of knowing what pressures you may be under, I can say for certain that they would appear insignificant beside the struggles of legions of artists, musicians, blue collar factory workers, downsized corporate managers, engineers whose jobs have been shipped to India, and underemployed parents struggling just to make ends meet - many of whom are married and deeply devoted to their children’s welfare. So I, for one, can find no reason to believe that your cries are motivated by hidden demons.
On the contrary, I believe that you are saying the things that you are saying out of love for your people – the same thing that inspired you to create the Cosby Show that my children were blessed to grow up with. It was right on time. Indeed the Huxtables were the first family on television, of any color, who were raising their kids with the same values that we were trying to impart to ours, and to have such an attractive African American family as TV role models certainly aided in that effort. Your show was so popular with parents everywhere that it was the number one show among white South Africans, even under apartheid!
But creating smart and hip black American characters that transcend the narrow provinces of race or ethnicity has been par for the course of your work. You did it with “The Cosby Kids,� who replaced “The Bowery Boys� and “The Dead End Kids� as popular icons for the wonder and adventure of adolescence in American culture. And in “Uptown Saturday Night� and it’s sequel “Let’s Do it Again,� you brilliantly evoked the hopes and dreams of everyman who is locked in wage slavery, living from paycheck to paycheck, and hoping to get lucky and hit the big time. Furthermore, you began your marvelous, path-breaking career as a standup comic and actor by introducing strong, intelligent black male characters that all Americans could identify with regardless of their class or color. There had never been a black man like Alexander Scott, the secret agent on “I Spy.� This is when I first got hip to you.
As Mel Watkins points out in his definitive treatise on African American humor, “On The Real Side: Laughing, Lying and Signifying,� you were an innovator in a comedic tradition that white Americans had only recently become aware of, but “actually can be followed all the way back to West Africa…� And if black comedians are postmodern Neo-African hoodoo Men, as I believe the best of them to be - inspiring joy and laughter within a veil of pain and sadness in racist America, then you are one of the High Priests of the art
You first rose to prominence during the great Civil Rights struggle of the 1960’s, when many of the Best and Brightest of our generation put promising careers aside and devoted themselves to the freedom struggle. But despite your conspicuous absence on southern picket lines – like Dick Gregory for instance, who put his body in harms way many times and virtually abandoned a career in which he was the highest paid black comic in history - your humor consistently reminded Americans, black and white, that we are all human, nothing less and nothing more. And that was no picayune lesson in those troubled times when the march of events threatened to plunge the nation into race war. And you did it with style and intelligence, real class that did us proud.
Mel Watkins tells us “in projecting an image of a hip, intelligent, black man who had moved beyond racial concerns, Cosby was quietly asserting that there was no difference between the races – a suggestion of equality that would have been instantly silenced. Moreover, he had the temerity to joke openly about it…At a time when racial confrontations were escalating in the streets, his relaxed, chatty style and surface image of a clean cut, sanguine black man was the antithesis of the menacing figures on the Street…The children in his stories for instance, have almost no uniquely black or ghetto� aspects to their personalities. Although listeners know that they are black,� he says the Cosby kids “are appealing because they recall childhood experiences, attitudes, and revelations that are familiar to nearly everyone.�
In other words, Bill, you managed to convey a vision of the universality of African American experience and bring people together, in a time when some whites were murdering our children in order to keep black people separate and unequal. Your subsequent work in television and film upheld this high standard. This is not the first time that I have publicly acknowledged your great contribution to humanizing the Afro-American in the public eye by promoting dignified images and complex characters. In fact, when you were attempting to buy the NBC Network back in the gay “Nineties,� I wrote a major feature story in the Guardian of London titled “The Subtle Subversive.� I argued that while you didn’t advertise it, all of your work was designed to undermine the American racial caste system, which had been the major obstacle to black advancement in America. And I demolished the arguments of black radicals like George Jackson, who insisted that you were “a traitor to black people� because you portrayed a secret agent of a government with whom radicals like brother George, and myself too at the time, considered the enemy.
And I was astonished, like Sister President Johnnetta Cole and everybody else, when you gave Spellman, the venerable black women’s college in Atlanta, a gift of twenty million dollars. Now that’s really putting your money where your mouth is! And it remains the standard for black philanthropy. You have been a great role model; a jazz loving, hip dressing, articulate athlete, who became a fabulous father, husband and entertainer/entrepreneur who consistently did us proud by putting our best selves before the world.
All of this, your sterling accomplishments and your generosity, certainly gives you the right to express your mind about the shortcomings of the race. But it does not automatically make your observations correct. In order to offer this kind of sweeping indictment and be taken seriously, you need to study a little sociology, economics and history. I know that it is fashionable among certain literary types to argue that novels offer more insight into human society than sociological treatises, but I don’t believe it for a minute. Yet, taken along with the sociological data, a street novel like Terry Wood’s “True to the Game� – although innocent of literary technique - can provide enormous insight into the hopes, dreams and life styles of working class black youths trying to get ahead in post-industrial Philadelphia, by any means necessary. You see Bill, we grew up in a very different Philadelphia; we grew up in what our homeboy over at the Times, Brent Staples, calls “the era of industrial prosperity.�
But it appears that you have not perused much of the thoughtful literature on the black urban condition. I can tell from your rap that you have not read the sociological studies of Elijah Anderson on Philadelphia, William J. Wilson’s studies of Chicago, or Terry Williams’ investigations of black youth culture in New York. Had you studied these authoritative black scholars, who have devoted their lives to scientifically studying trends in black America, you would not have said some of the things you said because you would have recognized how silly you sound.
In fact, some of the things you are saying lends credibility to University of Pennsylvania Professor Michael Eric Dyson’s charge that you have been rich so much longer than you have been poor, that you have forgotten what it’s really like to be poor in a cruel American city with gaping holes in the social safety net. And, sadly, white conservative columnists like Bill O’Riley and others of his ilk, have already begun to seize your well intended words and employ them in arguments against public assistance and other government programs designed to provide American citizens with the basic necessities of life. For Jim Haughton, the founder of Harlem Fightback, who has been battling institutionalized racism in the multi-billion dollar construction industry for nearly fifty years, your approach to the problems of poor black folks is “nuts!�
Houghton points out that the black working is class struggling to survive against unspeakable odds: growing structural unemployment, fraudulent schools, increasingly scarce affordable housing, lack of medical coverage, a minimum wage that is unlivable, a variety of debilitating diseases toxic environments resulting from industrial dumping in black communities, police corruption and brutality that promote rather than prevent crimes, etc. Houghton, who is in his mid-seventies, was educated at City College and Princeton, and did a stint as an Army officer in Korea before becoming a protégé of the great labor and civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph. After examining your remarks, this well-educated labor leader who has been actively engaged in fighting for the right of black people to earn a decent living since the middle of the twentieth century, says “Cosby is terribly uninformed. It is scandalous to slam poor black people but say nothing about the political and corporate criminals who are responsible for the conditions they face. These are the worst conditions I have seen working class black folks face in my lifetime.�
If you think this is an exaggeration Bill, just consider the fact that the unemployment rate for black men alone in New York today is 15% higher than the unemployment rate for white workers during the height of the Great Depression! Surely you don’t think these unemployment figures are so high because black men in New York don’t want to work! So many of those frustrated black men whom you dismiss as failures who failed to get an advanced degree, are solid blue collar working men who have been displaced due to radical changes in the American economy that they were powerless to prevent. Thus if you really want to be helpful to African Americans that desperately need help, you must first be willing to do some serious study, then shut up for a minute and listen to some bona fide experts who have studied the problems confronting black Americans.24/7 for years. I hope that you are not so full of yourself that you will refuse to listen to those who can school you on what’s really going down with the lumpen-proletariat, which the establishment has dubbed “the underclass,� who most resemble the characters in your diatribes.
If you are serious about persuading people to your point of view, not just letting off steam in public – which might feel good but accomplishes little because the people at whom the criticism is directed will become enraged and ignore you, and our enemies will use your critique as evidence against us in the court of public opinion – try shaving, dressing up, and losing the sunshades before going on television. And after you clean up so that you don’t look like you just slept off a drunk on a Central Park bench - they way you looked when you appeared on WABC’s “Like it Is�- hosted by the venerable Gil Noble, the most important black affairs program in the most important media market in America.
When I heard that you were coming on the show I was elated; finally I would hear it from the horse’s mouth. From what I had heard about your controversial preachments, I was in your corner. But then you stumbled onto the program looking like you set out to mow the lawn and ended up on television. And you began to mumble when Gil Noble, a highly skilled interviewer who has interviewed many great minds, put questions to you regarding your views. You continued to mumble throughout the program, rarely achieving coherence although Gil provided you a broad platform from which to clarify your views.
Your performance was unworthy of a man who holds a Doctorate from the University of Massachusetts – a great school where I was a professor during the time that you were pursuing your degree in the School of Education. Such a careless performance detracts from your credibility when you preach to the youths about responsible behavior. And that’s a real tragedy Bill, because you have some important things to say even if you have not yet given the subject the attention it deserves.
It is also critical that you, and all of the tough love crew, who have taken it upon themselves to scold the slackers and extol the virtues of bourgeois life, recognize that the poor and powerless don’t just need critics, they need advocates far more. For, as Jim Haughton points out, they are facing powerful, organized, racist and moneyed interests that can buy professors, think tanks, and politicians to design and carry out their class and corporate agendas; hence the poor need well-heeled intelligent advocates more than ever. You are well equipped to play this role Bill. And although affective advocacy will take a lot more time and effort than mere scolding, it will also be a lot more valuable to the poor black folk that you claim to be trying to help. Now that you have engaged the issue I will watch your future activities with interest. And if I can ever be of service in this effort, due not hesitate to call.
Yours in Struggle, Your fellow Philadelphian
Playthell Benjamin
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18-08-05, 07:40 PM
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