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Episode #2007
Airing Dirty Laundry
Lewis: Mitchell Lewis
Wiley: Delores Smith Wiley
Michaels: Cash Michaels
M: Actor/comedian Bill Cosby's recent comments in the media have drawn widespread attention, applause, and criticism. Did he have a point, or was he just airing dirty laundry? We'll hear viewpoints from North Carolinians next, on Black Issues Forum.
[THEME MUSIC PLAYS]
Lewis: Good evening, and welcome to Black Issues Forum. I'm Mitchell Lewis. Many of us have heard the now famous quotes from actor/comedian Bill Cosby's speech before the NAACP on the occasion of a gala celebration of the 50th anniversary of Brown v. the Board of Education. If you haven't, let's refresh your memory. Now, please be advised the language and content we are about to share may be considered offensive to some. One quote, for example, says, "These people marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an education, and now we've got these knuckleheads walking around." Another quote says, "Lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal. These people are not parenting, they are buying things for kids, $500 for sneakers, for what? And won't spend $200 on Hooked on Phonics."
We'll share more with you throughout the program. Right now, I'd like to welcome our guests. First, Delores Smith Wiley, President of the Winston-Salem Urban League, and Cash Michaels, editor-in-chief of the Carolinian. Dee and Cash, welcome to Black Issues Forum.
Both: Thank you.
Lewis: Dee, I'll start off with you. Why do you feel that Bill Cosby's comments caused such an uproar in the African American community?
Wiley: Well, first of all I think that if Bill had any kind of knowledge about the black community, he would know that what affects one of us, affects all of us, so it doesn't have anything to do with persons being "lower economic status." Secondly, if he recognized the problems, he didn't offer any solutions.
Lewis: Cash, your thoughts?
Michaels: Well, first of all, I love Bill Cosby, and I think all of us do, regardless of his comments, because he has a long history not only as an entertainer but he's given so much to the community; in particular to black colleges. With that said, though, I was troubled not so much by the content of what he said, because I think behind closed doors, indeed, many of us as African Americans do talk about the problems that we see that are persistent, about the lack of change in our communities some 35, 36 years after the death of Dr. King; that happens to be the marker. But his tone, his tone was one that was rough, it was tough, indeed, he seemed to be saying, "Hey, look, you folks in the poorer communities, in the inner cities, in the ghettoes, you're not doing too good; the rest of us are doing fine, thank you, but you're holding us back." And that simply is not the case. I think all of us could agree that as African Americans, all of us are not as far along as we think we should be.
Lewis: Dee, do you believe that it was an unfair attack on, say, the lower economic class?
Wiley: Absolutely. I think if you were to really take a look at African Americans across whatever your economic status is, there are problems. So it has nothing to do with you being on the lower end of that. It's also wrong because if we have the means, then we have the obligation to help the very people that Bill criticized to get out of their situation. So yes, there are issues, and there are problems, but if he's not offering the solutions, then he becomes part of the problem.
Michaels: Revered Joseph Lowry, the former head of the Southern Christian Leadership conference, he once said that if America has a cold, black people have pneumonia. Very simply, whatever affects the society, affects us even more so. I think that's clearly the case. Look at America, America since the death of Dr. King has actually spiraled down, not up. You have more marriages breaking up, more families breaking up. You have problems galore that you didn't have during those-we've changed as a nation, so I think it kind of makes sense that those at the lower rung of the economic scale are experiencing things at a much harder pace than the rest of us.
Lewis: Dee, do you see any of his remarks that you feel African American should embrace, or else be concerned about?
Wiley: There's one I wish we would get on the bandwagon with, and I wish he would lead it; and that is, "We need to take back our neighborhoods." We need to take back our kids. We have allowed others to lead them astray, and to put them in what I consider to be the alphabet soup, and to rename them "poor pitiful" rather than teaching them "so what."
Lewis: Cash, any thoughts on that?
Michaels: Well, as a matter of fact, just last month, Cosby attacked the rap industry. It's funny now; he's moved from attacking the lower economic rung of the African American community, now he's moved to attacking the rap industry, the music, how they denigrate black women, and now he's getting involved in Massachusetts in the Stop the Violence activity there with parents and also law enforcement. So it seems like he's moving toward what you're talking about, that he realizes maybe that "Okay, maybe I was a bit rough in May, but now I'm going to get involved in some of these activities, and actually put some elbow grease behind what I'm talking about."
Whitley: But our children and our communities is not just that one area. It would seem to me that Bill could be much more effective if he was to pull together the multi-millionaires that he has access to, including the football players and the basketball players, and ask them to start an endowment fund and to look for programs throughout the country that are actually working with African American families and their children and making progress, rather than to try to do a little bit in a little tiny community that's not going to have the effect that it should.
Lewis: Well, do you think that it's fair for, say, him to be the frontrunner in bringing these types of people to try and bring about change?
Whitley: Absolutely. He needs to put his money where his mouth is.
Michaels: It's not that he hasn't in the past, so it's not like it's something that he hasn't already proven he's capable of doing, but since he has decided to put himself out front, and to castigate an entire race of people, namely his own, then he might as well indeed step to the fore.
Lewis: Now you were talking about multi-millionaires, and there was a quote that was used by Mr. Cosby, that says, "Basketball players, multi-millionaires, can't write a paragraph. Football players, multi-millionaires, can't read. Yes, multi-millionaires. Well, Brown v. the Board of Education, where are we today? They paved the way, but what did we do with it? That white man, he's laughing. He's got to be laughing. Fifty percent drop-out, the rest of them are in prison."
Whitley: [SIGHS] I think if I was to ask Dr. Cosby to do anything, it would be to go back and really take another study of his own regarding the problems that we're facing. And if he were to talk with the lawyers that took the Brown v. the Board of Education he would hear them say that Brown v. the Board of Education was not the cure-all, and we dropped the ball too soon; we allowed others to decide what our children would or would not learn. And what we've had happen between Brown v. Board of Education and the civil rights movement is a mis-education, or a lack of education of the majority of black kids.
Michaels: I think those comments also are indicative of what I said before about the fact that America, America itself now has gotten to be a greedier place. Let's be frank about it now. Our culture is driven by money. One could argue that it always has been, but today I think it's as intense as ever. I mean, we've actually broken up the family, we've actually now made not working, not getting an education, being an entertainer, being a sports figure, the highest rung you can reach in this society and receive accolades for it. It's not just a matter of being able to read and write, but if you can perform in this society, hey, then you don't know how to read or write. That's not just the African American community's problem, that's America's problem.
Whitley: But again, I would like for someone to do-unfortunately I'm tired of education-but I would really like someone to do a research on what was the educational level at the time there was segregated education? That which is happening now with our children, now that they have been integrated.
Michaels: Actually I think that's been done, and I think Thomas Soul, who is not one of my favorite people, but nonetheless, he knows a little bit of something; they've already done that research, and during the days of segregation, indeed, black achievement was at its highest. It was very, very good at the time, and look what the teachers had to work with: very little by way of resources, had to second-hand, maybe third-hand books, but you had discipline, you had community, you had love, you had reinforcement of values. Look what you have today: the exact opposite of that in many cases.
Lewis: Now, especially with this being the 50th anniversary of Brown v. the Board of Education, at times some people say that the nurturing that was brought in the segregated schools was a little better than once they moved out into, I guess the white schools, or they became integrated. Do you see that as a point to be considered as well?
Michaels: Well, there's no question that during segregation, when we ran our own schools so to speak, but yes, the values of our community, the leaders in our community, everything there was reinforced. That's the way we survived. We weren't allowed to step beyond a certain line. Once that door was open, once we integrated instead of desegregated, which I think is a big difference, we literally allowed our institutions to fall to the wayside thinking that now we would be accepted. That was a very, very big mistake. We should have realized that we should hold on to our institutions, our schools, our banks, things that defined us as a people, and still go forward in mainstream. That's what every other ethnic group has done; they hold onto their institutions but they send their children to be educated and be mainstreamed, and then come back with the best of what America has to offer, and then build up their community. We did not do that, and we're learning that now.
Whitley: I think we allowed someone else to define what integration was. I think what we meant by integration was really pluralism; that we could still hold onto our Afro-centric values and be American. Instead, we had someone to write that we had to give those values up, adopt the values of a larger society, and obey their laws. So the very things that kept us as a people surviving, we gave up. Like the village concept of family, that everyone was responsible for all the children. We gave that up for individualism, and again, if there's one thing that I agree with Bill about is that we need to take back our children and our neighborhoods.
Lewis: Just how damaging do you believe Bill Cosby's remarks have been on the African American community? Cash?
Michaels: It's a funny thing, and I must say this to make sure it is said, Honorable Minister Louis Farrakahn, Revered Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, you pick the black leader, they've said pretty much the same thing over a number of years. You can't be in leadership without Malcolm X, you can't be in leadership without once in a while looking at your own and saying, "Hey, looking, you're messing up here, you're screwing up! Let's get it together here." So the act itself isn't the problem; it's who did it. Cosby's image is the exact opposite of the person that we're seeing in these last couple of months, someone who is being somewhat reckless in his tone in terms of how he's criticizing what he sees as underachievement in the race. I think that is probably what has caught more people off guard than anything else, and I think probably the downside of it is because he is so popular, because he is America's "favorite father," so to speak. Those forces-and let's face it, you can't remove politics from this at all-those forces that would use a Bill Cosby, whether he realizes it or not, whether he likes it or not, whether he wants it or not. Actually, he's even said whether he even cares or not, those who want to use that rhetoric against our people, who have traditionally wanted to find some way to roll back the gains of the '60s and '70s now have ample artillery and evidence to do so: Dr. William H. Cosby, Jr.
Lewis: But do you see his remarks perhaps as an effort to show some type of tough love, maybe give the community and swift kick in the pants to say, "Wake up!"
Michaels: I think he's just venting.
Whitley: I don't think that was his original intent. I wanted to know, what did he have to eat before he went up to make those statements? Because there clearly was a bitter tone that Bill said what he had to say with-
Michaels: "I've had enough." That was the tone-
Whitley: And the passion, and the words that he used, it was clearly a frustrated Bill. If it has done anything, it has put back on the radar screen, for many African Americans that our work is not done yet, and we've got to reenergize to deal with a new crisis, and that new crisis is, once again, our children, our families, and our communities.
Lewis: I've got another quote here: "Five, six children, same woman, eight, 10 different husbands or whatever. Pretty soon you're going to have DNA cards to tell who you're making love to. You don't know who this is; it might be your grandmother. I'm telling you, they're young enough, hey, you have a baby when you're 12, your baby turns 13 and has a baby. How old are you, grandmother?" Dee, as a-
Whitley: Oh, [SIGHS] you know, he criticized the rappers.
Michaels: [LAUGHING]
Whitley: For calling us the b-word. What is more insulting than Bill's rhetoric? He didn't give any responsibility to the male counterpart; we're not having babies by ourselves, I don't care what our ages are. The other thing he did not see fit to say is that even when an African American female is impregnated at 14 years of age, nine times out of 10 it is an older male that is doing it. So he does not lay any responsibility on black men. I would debate that with Bill. I don't believe that what he threw out there is factual and that he had any right to say it without putting some other kinds of responsibilities there.
Michaels: Ah, but what he left out there, he certainly made up for later on when he accused black men-not poor black men, not rich black men, not middle-class black men, but black men-who are beating up their wives because they're out of work. So whatever onus he did not put on us there, he certainly made up for it with that remark and statement, that's for sure.
Whitley: But it's the same there.
Michaels: Oh, yeah, no, I agree, I agree.
Whitley: We have had history to do a job on black men. They have done, from the time that our people were brought here until now, there has been a thorough job done on black men, and when are we going to stop it? I mean, black women need to stop bashing black men, and so do other black men. So, you know, Bill is in a position to give out positive information. Where are the positive black male images that we need to be giving to black folk? I haven't heard the Alice Walkers didn't bring them out, and the Bill Cosby isn't bringing them out. They're here. We don't tell the story about how black men, after slavery, went looking for their families, and when they couldn't find them, it was not uncommon that he would marry a woman with five kids, they would have 10; he wasn't a step-dad to any of them, he was "dad." And he helped them to-we don't tell that story, and I believe that Bill, of all people as a black man, is in a position to tell those stories.
Michaels: You know, the thing that I thought about, the more I thought about this, probably one of Bill Cosby's greatest heroes was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was a personal friend of his. And I wonder if Dr. King were here today, would he use the same type of language or tone that Cosby use in order to make exactly the same points? I'm certain that Dr. King would be frustrated as to the lack of progress in the 30 or so years since 1968 if he were still here. But how would he express it? Would he express it in your face or in a very slicing and slashing way that Cosby did it? Or would he find some way to move and motivate people as he did during the Civil Rights Movement, to move and motivate people to the next level? I think that's what's lacking here. Cosby, we know him to be a skilled orator in his own way. We know him to be a brilliant comedian and a brilliant writer, yet he didn't use any of those skills to move us forward.
Wiley: The other thing that I think that the Bill Cosbys are in a position to do is to help us build on history. None of what we do in 2004 is new. We're just continuing the work that was done by our forefathers during those three hundred years of captivity. So we need to do that connection point so that there's value placed on everything that's done on behalf of black folk.
Mitchell: Do you see sort of a complacency? Because it seemed like most of the comments were directed towards the lower economic status. Is there some type of division, say, within the race, if you will, between those who say that they've made it of sorts and are in a higher economic bracket than those who are in the lower economic bracket?
Wiley: I think for us to even want to believe that is a fallacy. I still believe that what happens to one black person affects us all.
Michaels: I believe the same thing but I cannot deny that, yes, there is classism in our people. There's no question that there is. I've seen it. And it's unfortunate. There are those, for instance, who are not raised in the black community that don't realize that, yes, they are connected, but that doesn't stop them from feeling that they are better than someone else who has come up per the inner city. It is there. We're people. Let's forget, this is just a color and we have a background but we're still human beings. We're still capable of all of the sins you read about it in the bible and classism is one of them.
Wiley: I think achievement, there's nothing wrong with achievement, but I think again we must connect it to our history. The only way our ancestors survived the cruelty of captivity was that they were supportive and helpful to each other. When we forget that because we have two dollars beyond poverty, it is not to continue to be that collective society that helps us all to survive.
Lewis: But who is teaching our history? And that's a key point. Who is teaching our history?
Wiley: Well, Bill said it. The only thing I can agree with him. He said take it back. We need to take back our children, take back our communities and then we need to have the Bill Cosbys get up at a banquet at the NAACP and anyplace else and tell the history. He has an audience that doesn't know it.
Lewis: How important are the parents? Because some of this was centered around some of the teenagers, some of the younger folks, how important is the parents role in all of this?
Michaels: Let me modify your question: How important is the family, because we're fighting for our families today, literally. Everybody, every American is fighting to hold on to their family. When is the last time the family sat down at the table? Let's remove color for a minute. When's the last time the family has done anything together, that the family as a unit wanted to do? Now bring that to African American community. We may go to church together if all of us get out of bed on time. We might eat together maybe once in a while, but essentially we're off doing our own thing, our individual thing, so to speak. So we have to fight for our families. So parents are important but parents have a lot to compete with today. I daresay it is much harder for parents today than when I was coming up and I'm certain in your generation as well.
Wiley: You know, as a parent I thought that parenting was over when my children reached eighteen years of age. The shocker for me was three years after my son had reached eighteen, he came and asked could he borrow the car to take his girlfriend to the movies. And I wanted to know, what did I do wrong that he was still there? And it dawned on me that no one, the most important role that you will ever play in life is a parent, whether you're a mom or a dad. And yet no one gives you training on child growth and behavior. Even if they'd just tell us how long you were going to be a parent, we'd make wiser decisions. If I had known it was going to be to death do one of us part, I may just now be having children. [LAUGHTER] But we expect that persons will have children and automatically know what to do and how to influence. Our parents didn't have to do it alone. They had an entire community. The wise, the experienced that could tell us how to groom and help us raise our children. We've abandoned that value.
Lewis: We're coming to the end of our program here and final question for the both of you: After all of this has been said and done, what positive effect can be taken from his comments or even the reactions to them. Dee, I'll start with you.
Wiley: Well, I think that those of us that are working with the grass roots have to go back to the drawing board and say, our work is not finished. And we have to struggle to get the resources to continue to do what we've been doing in spite of the fact that Bill couldn't find us. And that is to work with our children and work with our families and to adopt our communities. I think the National Urban League has done a good thing by accepting as its motto: Empowering communities and changing lives. And I think we have to continue to do that.
Michaels: Those of us who have been doing good work in the community know that there's a core of our community that is good. It's strong. There's always a minority of folks who are doing the majority of the work. That's always going to continue. Hopefully, he's brought this to light where what we're doing is more of a spotlight on that and it will get help in doing it better.
Lewis: Dee, Cash, thank you so much for joining us. If you'd like to get in touch with our guests or obtain a copy or a transcript of tonight's show, visit us online at unctv.org/bif. When you visit be sure to give us your comments and program suggestions. You can also call us on the BIF line at 919-549-7167. Be sure to join us each and every Friday night at 9:30 for more stimulating discussion. For Black Issues Forum, I'm Mitchell Lewis. Good night.
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