Bill Cosby Talking Tough to Black Audiences

Back in 1985 my future wife and I had our first date at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheater where we saw Bill Cosby in concert. For nearly 3 hours he had us absolutely rolling in the aisles. I think my ribs still hurt occasionally as a result of that concert.

Politically, Cosby has always been pretty liberal, but his politics didn't show up in his concerts. Following the loss of his son, Ennis, in a tragic criminal act, his concerts have taken on a much more sombre tone. He's still funny, but there's a lot more pain behind the laughter these days.

Lately Cosby has been doing the Lord's work (in my humble opinion) in confronting black audiences with the realities of what's going on in their communities. He's dared to make a lot of folks mad by disregarding the usual rants from the Al Sharptons and Jessie Jacksons, and has been looking black America right in the eye and telling them what's going wrong. He's taken no small amount of flak because of it.

There's a good article in Newsday which describes Cosby's current crusade. Here's how it starts:

'Let them stay mad," Bill Cosby told CNN's Paula Zahn last week.

He was speaking of the flak he's catching from African-Americans since he criticized the behavior of some low-income blacks last spring during a commemoration of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision. He angered some black folks, who thought his remarks were insensitive and inflammatory, and that he resorted to ugly racial stereotypes.

But Cosby has no plans to shut up. "This is about little children and people not giving them better choices," the 67 year-old actor-comedian told Zahn. "How long you gonna whisper about a smallpox epidemic in your apartment building when bodies are coming out under the sheets?"

Be sure and read the whole thing. My hat's off to Cos for his efforts.

I remember a few years ago, I had an employee who grew up in a predominately black neighborhood back in the 50's. He told me when he was growing up, children were not just raised by their families, but by the whole neighborhood. If he misbehaved at a friend's house, the friends mom would spank him and them send him home to be spanked again by his own mom. As much as I hate the whole "It Takes A Village" mentality espoused by Hillary Clinton, it did seem to work well in this guy's case and he turned out to be a very good man.

It seems to me that the real villains today are not the people who are wrongly accused of keeping African-Americans down as accused by the so-called "black leaders", but the people in their own community who refuse to hold them responsible for their own acts. Until that starts happening again, the rampant crime and general misbehavior will continue.