The American Spectator

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The Cosby Cause

5.28.04 @ 12:01AM

FATHER KNOWS BEST
Re: jimi izrael's Bill Cosby's Show:

Jimi Izrael's article was fair enough with respect to Cosby, but there is one troubling aspect of it that is characteristic of so many liberal critiques of public statements critical of libertine aspects of our culture. That aspect - the litmus lest of whether there is 100 percent consistency between the message and the life of the messenger. If the messenger fails the test, pile on him and forget about whether there is any truth to the message. Maybe Cos isn't the best messenger for advocating that young black men take responsibility for their children, but maybe he got tired of waiting around for someone else to do it. He may have marginally hurt some people who look up to him, but what of those men who abandon their children -- the hurt they cause goes far deeper. But rarely is it censured.
-- John Hatch

Jimi Izrael's lame article on Bill Cosby was well below the normal standard for TAS. Mr. Cosby was a young enlisted medical Corpsman when I was a young enlisted Marine and we Marines love our Corpsmen. Thus I rise to his defense.

He was honest then and he is honest now. He has been saying exactly what he said the other day, perhaps in slightly more delicate words, since even before he got his doctorate in education from Tufts. In fact, as I understand it, his dismay at the lack of regard for education among young blacks was the reason he pursued his advanced degrees.

He has lived this theme by example and built his very successful career around the mission of bringing blacks fully into the halls of the academy, In both his modern era television series the importance of education was driven home with good humor and panache. The high point of the Cosby Show was Theo conquering his learning disability and going on to become a teacher himself. And his college series ranks in my top five all time series favorites. Set on the campus of mythical Hillman (Spellman?) College, the show again stressed Cosby's emphasis on education for black Americans.

It seemed at one time, that in every article I read about these shows, and even his Jello commercials, Mr. Cosby stressed the responsibility parents must assume for seeing that their kids were properly educated. There was nothing new in what he said. It was true. And as a former school board member in a lily-white Connecticut town, I will tell you that many white parents need to hear the same message. Lack of parental involvement in their kids' educations is the real problem in American education today, and Mr. Cosby should not be faulted for devoting his life to eradicating this problem.
-- unsigned

Jimi Izrael writes, "Good fathers know when children need tough love and when they need an advocate that will fight for them unequivocally, without judgment or reprimand. The young, black and poor need such an advocate -- sooner than later -- not admonition."

The young black have had advocates that choose not to admonish or reprimand. They have had this in Rev. Jackson, Rev. Sharpton, and others. This is the problem. This isn't just a problem with young blacks. Parents make this mistake with their children all of the time. Just ask any teacher how many times parents confront them based on their child's misrepresentation of the facts or the parents perception that their children aren't responsible for their actions. As a parent of four, I can say unabashedly that children need advocates who will not only fight for them, but keep them accountable. When kids can only speak the "black vernacular," and not something that resembles proper English, then they will fail in this world, and they need to be told that. They need to be told that fighting, stealing, and generally bad behavior will damage their futures. Not everyone has the musical talent to make their bad behavior the latest style.
-- J.D. Ryan

Your "take" makes sense if you want blacks to victimize themselves as they have been doing.

Cosby is right. Blacks are their own worst enemy. They seek victimhood and wallow in it while falsely accusing others of racism and discrimination.

It is past time for blacks to quit setting themselves apart, and it's counterproductive too.
-- G.B. Hall
Marietta, Georgia

I was waiting for a response such as this one to the Cosby speech. I seriously doubt that Mr. Cosby has forgotten what it is like to be young, black, and poor in today's America. I strongly suspect that he remembers all too well. Mr. izrael's problem with Mr. Cosby's observations would seem to be that Mr. Cosby also remembers what it takes to alleviate that poverty. His refusal to pander to professional Black Men such as Mr. izrael, Mr. Jackson, Mr. Mfume, et al. is what irks. Way back when "acting white" became the worst sin a black teenager could commit, it became obvious that many Blacks were going to look for another way out of the poverty that Mr. izrael talked about. The fact that asinine dress fads, ridiculous coded speech, and rampant irresponsible promiscuity would only deeper entrench black youth in the aforementioned poverty became something that "Black Leaders" were never to talk about. No! Affirmative Action Quotas, WIC Fund, Section 8 housing, AFDC handouts, General Relief, and Welfare. These were the beacons that would lead the black man out of poverty. Talk about plantations, here is the granddaddy of them all, and it is being maintained by "Black Leaders," "Community Activists" and "journalists" like Mr. izrael.
-- Joseph Baum
Newton Falls, Ohio

Jimi "Hendrix" Izrael, in his criticism of Bill Cosby's views regarding the state of the poor black youth of America, falls into the same trap that the liberal apologists, both black and white, in this country always do. For a political block that considers themselves so much more enlightened than their slovenly uneducated conservative counterparts, their myopic view on how to address this problem boggles the mind.

Bill Cosby, and Tom Sowell for that matter, are refreshing voices that take the "black" out of the equation and examine the causes and effects based on the destructive behavior they witness. Like most conservative postures, it's not about excuses (there are no opportunities for poor urban blacks) but about creating opportunities. That is difficult to do when the family has been blown apart from it's traditional role. Instead of making excuses like the traditional black leaders, Cosby logically points out the flaws in the fabric that the typical black urban child is raised under, and to address the bigger issues of achievement, we must first fix the attitudes that begin at home.

How does Izrael square his observation that Cosby is out of touch -- "Like so many of his generation -- people who obviously never been young, poor, or made a single bad choice--....while failing to see the broken legacy he and his kind have left behind" -- with the fact that Cosby did have a poor urban upbringing in Philadelphia?

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