Posted on 09/25/2007 2:54:07 PM PDT by llevrok
If Bill Cosby walked up to Virginia Smith today, the Roanoke woman would affably extend her hand.
Three years ago, Smith would have given him a piece of her mind.
She was among blacks who condemned Cosby for calling out the black underclass for its troubling ranks of unwed mothers, absent fathers, disengaged parents, high school dropouts and prison convicts.
Smith, 63, was outraged. The entertainment icon was being "uppity," she thought at the time. She stopped watching him on television afterward.
"He didn't understand," Smith said last week, recalling her reaction. She was in the camp that believed Cosby's wealth and success precluded him from saying what many of us were thinking.
"Now, I've gotten older and see more and more of what he was saying. What he was saying was true," Smith said of the comedian.
As Shakespeare wrote in King Lear, "jesters do oft prove prophets."
In recent weeks, a number of incidents and developments suggest people are getting so fed up that they're willing to publicly confront the crisis Cosby saw on the horizon three years ago -- the same one he was lambasted for voicing.
If we can get outraged enough to trek by the busload to Jena, La., then the dysfunction destroying our communities from within should compel the same outrage -- and the energy to do something about this black implosion.
"Bill was sending that message three years ago," said Ingrid Barber, 37, of Clifton Forge. "Now it's reality."
>> Last week, a desperate plea from the police chief went up in Philadelphia. Coincidentally, that's Cosby's hometown.
Beleaguered by a spiraling homicide rate, the chief put out an SOS for 10,000 black men to volunteer on neighborhood patrols to try to reduce violence that has claimed nearly 300 lives this year. Most of the victims have been young black men.
>> Last month, during a meeting with the National Association of Black Journalists, Hillary Clinton broached the plight of black men in this country.
Sure, she was shilling for votes before a captive audience. But how often have you heard a presidential candidate even bring up the issue?
>> In the pop culture arena, during the same convention at which Hillary spoke, NABJ gave Black Entertainment Television its "Thumbs Down" award, joining criticism about the network's portrayal of young blacks as thugs and loose women.
Shortly before the dubious award was announced, I met a young black scholar and dental student from North Carolina, Corey Caldwell, who has started a Web site called betdoesnotrepresentme.org.
>> In Roanoke, Patrick Henry High School educators Fletcher Nichols and Jerel Rhodes were recognized last week for mentoring 10 young black men over the past three years. This fall, all of the students entered college.
These calls to action are what Cosby implored us three years ago to do.
"I totally agreed with what he said," Taisha Claytor-Staples, a middle school counselor in Lynchburg, said last week. "People were upset because the truth hurts. A lot of time, cages have to be rattled."
Boy, did Cosby rattle cages. He made his now-famous remarks during a celebration of the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark ruling that integrated the nation's schools.
He chastised black underachievers for a "50 percent drop-out rate ... and people in jail, and women having children by five, six different men."
America's Favorite Dad cast a harsh spotlight on parents.
"I'm talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit. Where were you when he was 2? Where were you when he was 12? Where were you when he was 18, and how come you don't know he had a pistol? And where is the father... ?
"These people are not parenting. They're buying things for the kid -- $500 sneakers -- for what? They won't buy or spend $250 on Hooked on Phonics."
I recall my own feelings at the time. Cosby was right, but I cringed at his candor. It would only serve to invigorate those who would use his comments to fuel their own divisive rhetoric.
That happened, of course. But who cares? We see the necessity of turning the mirror on ourselves. I'm not diminishing the outside factors that conspire against us. But I'm saying we need to address the issues that we can control.
Black columnists are writing against black-on-black violence. In this space, you've read about the necessity of black fathers' taking their rightful place in restoring the family structure, which would be a balm to reduce many of our problems.
Both nationally and locally, people are fed up and speaking out. The primary worry right now seems to be young black men.
So I drove around Roanoke late last week and happened upon some to get their feelings about being the target and focus of so much discussion.
Michael Davis was at his job at a car wash off of Orange Avenue. He understood why adults are worried about young black men. But he cautioned us not to paint everyone with a broad brush.
"A lot of young black men do a lot of stupid things. I'm just not one of them," said the Patrick Henry senior.
Davis wore a close hair cut, red T-shirt and oversized jeans. He said he carries a 2.8 grade-point average and wants to be a lawyer. But, he said people judge him by how he dresses.
"It makes me upset. Just because I wear baggy pants don't mean I'm a thug.
"I'm staying out of trouble," Davis said, adding that his mother "keeps me in the books. I'm not that unusual. It's a lot of people like me."
At 16, car wash manager Jerome Green was serving two years in juvenile detention on a drug distribution charge.
He got out, graduated from William Fleming High School and took machine and tool courses at a trade school.
The car wash is his day job. He's also trying to make a go as a rapper.
He hopes to go back to trade school, but never back to the life that robbed him of two years of freedom.
Older people, he said, worked hard and endured struggles so young people could have opportunities they didn't.
Three years ago, Cosby caused a furor because he was a prominent person airing our dirty laundry.
It seems a few people are trying to clean it up.
"It makes me upset. Just because I wear baggy pants don't mean I'm a thug.
So wise up and don't dress like one.
Why is Rita Cosby scolding people?
I would dearly love to know what"outside factors" the writer is talking about. And just who in hell is conspiring against them? The only ones who have a vested interest in "keeping the black man down" is the DEMOCRATS and the poverty pimps like Jackson and Sharpton. If the black middle class was to suddenly blossom like a rose in the desert, the Dems and their sorry ilk would be toast................
It seems to me that a general ‘awakening’ is occurring with some of the individuals I meet in Baltimore (city). It could be wishful thinking, but it seems different.
The entitlement programs removed all need for fathers to act like fathers and destroyed the family structure. No need to have it when the government ‘supplies’ everything.
You speak like one.
2.8? So he’s basically a “C+” student?
LOL.
Just bein' *real!*
Blacks don’t want to admit that Bill spoke the truth because doing so would mean that they would have to take responsibility for their existence. The poverty pimps will never let them do that because it would destroy their power base. And it would prove them to be exactly what they are; race baiting, charlatan scam artists that profit from the quagmire that blacks are in. They are absolutely beneath contempt.
Not until blacks finally come to grips with the fact that they are 95% responsible for the quagmire that is their existence will things ever change for them. And that won’t happen until the poverty pimps assume room temperature, which cannot happen soon enough. The problem is not whitey, it is THEM. It’s the old addage that when you point your finger at someone, you have three more pointing back at you.
Please ignore my juvenile comment #2. This is good news and I hope it is indeed the beginning of an awakening.
"Now, I've gotten older and see more and more of what he was saying. What he was saying was true," Smith said of the comedian.
I guess 60 years old wasn't old enough for her to get it (shaking head).
Depends on whether it’s a 3 or 4 scale...........
Doesn't sound stupid enough to do that. Better keep the carwash job.
Great, but spend a bit more time on normal grammer.
Didnt Jessie Jackson just say Obama was acting white?
and why isnt that a racial slur?
I applauded Bill Cosby then ...and now.
Yeah....as if 60 isn’t old enough to know better.....she just got EDUCATED and INFORMED in the past three years, or else she decided to OPEN her EYES!
ahem....it’s “grammar”....LOL
“People were upset because the truth hurts”
Speaks volumes, doesn’t it?
You make a clear point, and a correct one.
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