Struggling To Face Reality In the late nineteen eighties and the early nineteen nineties, I remember watching the Cosby Show. I laughed along with the rest of America at the strong lessons that were being taught with a comedic outlook. One of my favorite episodes of The Cosby Show was an episode that aired around the second or third seasons of the show. This episode has Theo thinking that he can make it in the real world. In that episode, one of the funniest in the show’s eight year run, the entire Huxtable clan ban together to teach Theo what the real world was really like without the proper education. The goal of that episode was to teach young and eager minds like Theo that he was not going to make it in the world on wit and sheer “know it all” alone. It was going to take smarts, education, determination and the urge to succeed to make it. One of the lifelong lessons of that show was to teach young black people that you can become a doctor or lawyer, astronaut or physicist. It was a show that taught kids like me that it was OK not have been born into a mountain of wealth, but, that with the right mind and drive to get to where you want to be, to where you know you can be and to where you are comfortable and successful, you can achieve anything your heart desire. The recent criticisms of Dr. Bill Cosby in the last several weeks have been making headlines all across America. Many people say that he has been badmouthing the black community because he has money, fame, success and respect. Others say that Dr. Cosby is a man who sees the community for what it is and doesn’t want to sugar-coat it anymore. I have my own take on it. I first heard about his comments on the black community, particularly on the poor black community a couple weeks ago while listening to a talk radio program. The host, a black woman named Wendy Williams, said that his comments, however true they may be, were out of line and badly planned by way of the forum that he chose to explain what he had been holding inside of him for so long. In his remarks back in May, Cosby upbraided the blacks in poor or poverty stricken communities for not “holding up their end of the bargain” and teaching their children the values that they so desperately seek in their youth to further themselves and make the absolute most out of their lives. Cosby attacked blacks in lower class neighborhoods because of their poor use of the English language, their poor grammar and for “squandering” their opportunities that were given to them by the civil rights leaders of the past like Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior and Rosa Parks. Dr. Cosby said that his detractors were trying to silence him by keeping the “dirty laundry” of the blacks in the closet, hidden away from the rest of the world. “Let me tell you something,” Dr. Cosby said “Your dirty laundry gets out of school at 2:30 everyday, it’s cursing and calling each other niggas as their walking up and down the street,” Dr. Cosby spoke sternly and angrily during an appearance at the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition & Citizenship Education Fund’s annual conference. Cosby continued “They think their hip. They can’t read; they can’t write. They’re laughing and giggling and their going nowhere.” In his remarks last May at a commemoration of the anniversary of the Brown V. Board of Education desegregation decision, Cosby denounced lower class blacks and said that those who commit crimes and go to jail “are not political prisoners.” Bill Cosby then began to mimic they way many blacks speak and said that he could not even speak the way they do. He went on to say that he blamed the child until he heard the mother speak. Bill Cosby was interrupted several times during his speech late last month when he elaborated on his speech back in May. He indeed spoke the truth when she said that “the problems facing the black community today cannot be blamed on white people.” The problems that is far too realistic in lower-class black communities such as teen pregnancy, high school dropout rates and robbery cannot be blamed on anyone other than themselves. The question that many people are asking themselves is “Do I agree with him.” Does Bill Cosby have a point in what he is saying or is he just trying to down the poor community because he has been far too rich for far too long? I must say that although Dr. Cosby could have picked a better time to speak his words last May, that he does in fact have a very real, true and valid point in bringing to light the major problems and devastating realities that are facing the black community today. I have lived in the slums of the now developing and reinventing Bedford Stuyvesant. I have seen first hand exactly what he is talking about I know what it is like to look down with shame at my fellow man because of his total lack of education and common sense. I have looked down on my own people for many years because I knew that they were destined for nowhere. I have looked down on my own people for years because I knew that they were just going to end up a loser on welfare or a common criminal specializing in the art of selling illegal drugs or petty theft. I agree with Dr. Cosby a thousand percent. It is urgent that we wake up and see the truth for what it is. We are, as black people, looking for far too many scapegoats to blame for our issues. We are looking for far too many solutions to come from politicians and not from out own community. We are looking for quick and easy answers to out problems and not looking within ourselves for the solutions. I have seen what family values are in these lower class communities. I have seen the children who eat cheap Chinese food for lunch and dinner outside on the bench instead of inside at the table as a family. I have seen mothers who are more concerned with what their children are wearing rather than what their children are learning. I have heard the thirteen and fourteen year old boys brag about how many girls they have been with and how many pairs of sneakers they have. I remember one of my enemies tell me that I was nothing more than a “wannabe” and a “sellout.” That boy, what was a classmate of mine and also a neighbor, is now serving time for larceny. There are people on my own family who fit perfectly into the demographic that Bill Cosby is fingering, however, they are not from the slums of Brooklyn, rather the middle class of Queens. I have two aunts that have lived with my grandparents for all their lives until the home was sold. These women, my aunts, never knew what the real world was like because my grandparent’s never taught them. The lessons that were taught to Theo on the Cosby show was not taught to my aunts, and sadly, they are now both parents of one child and living off of public assistance. Laziness can have a domino effect; it is a cycle that can be taught with the right teachers. My grandparents taught my aunts that it was OK to live at home until you absolutely have no choice. Now my aunts are teaching their children, my cousins, that it is OK to live off of welfare your entire life is need be. In doing research for this article, I went back to my old neighborhood and asked a few questions to a couple of the people sitting on the bench outside the building. One lady, a sweet old woman named Mary Stewart, said to me candidly that she agreed with what Cosby said. “I have to agree with him,” Mary said “He is talking about out children, these children, the little ones who have a chance to leave here and use their lives to their advantage.” Mary is an eighty-three year old retired Nurses Assistant. She was visiting her sister Virginia who lived in public housing for over fifty years. In my reporting, I also interviewed a girl named Laqweesha, pronounced, Lah-quee-shah. Laqweesha, a mother of two from Harlem but relocated to Brownsville with her mother said that she disagreed with Cosby on everything he said. “I ain’t got no more respect for him,” sixteen year old high school dropout Laqweesha said, “I used to be a fan of his show and stuff, but now I ain’t even watching his show no more. He is a traitor to the black race, like one of them uncle Tom niggas. He needs to remember where he came from and instead of putting niggas down; he should be donating to us. Building libraries and shit and telling us that he does care. I know I ain’t going to the library because they ain’t got one here. What the hell is I’m supposed to do, go all the way to the city. Man, I ain’t got time and libraries ain’t that important. Dr. Cosby, I hear you loud and clear. Jeffrey Lee Williams, Junior
Copyright © 2004 Skyler Drevan |