Bill Cosby---> Your View?

COMMENT: Understand Cosby's criticisms
Key is to help lower economic people, not just scold them
May 27, 2004
BY JOE RODRIGUEZ
"Hey, hey, hey, it's Fat Albert," and now we know how he got so big and lazy. And why his good-for-nothing pals, Mushmouth and Weird Harold, turned out the way they did.
Blame their parents.
Comedian Bill Cosby was never funnier than when he was the voice of Fat Albert and joking about growing up in 1960s Philadelphia. I saw him once in Las Vegas. Every other comedian on the Strip cussed, threw the finger or degraded women for laughs. Cosby always was too good, too intelligent and good-hearted for cheap laughs.
So when he recently blamed low-income parents for their failing, misbehaving or violent children, I was surprised. I cringed. Not because he's wrong but because the wrong jokers will embrace the punch line. There's a tendency these days to blame parents and culture -- black culture, Mexican heritage, Puerto Rican biculturalism or whatever invented pathology serves their purpose -- for academic failure, low employment and high incarceration rates among poor blacks and Latinos.
"The mother and the father born here didn't learn to speak standard English -- or math," Cosby said in a speech last weekend at Stanford University. "I don't know where we lost it, or how we lost it, but people are not parenting. . . . Some of these children have been raised like pimps."
Days before, Cosby spoke at a Brown v. Board of Education gala covered by the Washington Post: "Ladies and gentlemen, lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal. . . .
"They are buying things for kids -- $500 sneakers for what? And won't spend $200 for Hooked on Phonics."
You could imagine the tuxedos and evening gowns squirming in their seats. Fat Albert never talked like this. Neither did Cosby in his warm and fuzzy, best-selling book, "Bill Cosby on Fatherhood."
But is he telling the truth?
You can never go wrong blaming parents, especially single mothers.
So what if their neighborhood schools didn't have the latest textbooks, why didn't these parents come to the rescue with a $50,000 bake sale?
Too many gangs and drugs in the neighborhood? Just say No.
Poverty got you down? Just get married.
If you got married and you're still poor, then don't have kids until you can afford them.
See, when everything from local law enforcement to the federal safety net breaks down, you can always blame the parents for not seeing trouble around the corner or lacking the moral strength to make things right. People of color once had to overcome injustice. Now they must overcome themselves.
Bill Cosby may rue the day he singled out "lower economic people." He could find himself in a bear-hug with moral conservatives who want to eliminate social programs and scorned by liberals who misunderstood his message. Which was?
Let's help poor black parents overcome the failings of society and government. Let's help low-income Latino immigrants learn English. Let's help "lower economic people" fight racial injustice but also accept personal responsibility. And let's help most by talking about it loud and clear.
The working word here is "help."
How do I know this? No black celebrity has raised more money -- tens of millions over the years -- for black colleges and minority scholarship funds and education programs.
For example, he may have put his foot in his mouth at Stanford, but the event also raised $1 million for future teachers of low-income students. The preachers of individual responsibility don't offer concrete help like that. They preach.
Why Cosby vented against poor parents is anyone's guess, but we can be sure he wasn't the first or loudest. People of color were already talking -- and arguing -- about personal responsibility and that the breakdown of families needed attention.
That discussion hasn't produced clear answers or a new social movement. It's too early. What should be clear is that parenting is under siege from all sides. But when it happens to poor blacks and other minorities, the breakdown tends to produce racial isolation and exacerbate inequality.
I don't have all the answers. But we can start by helping the poor to help themselves. If it's at church, fine. If it means more government assistance without fostering dependence, so be it. After the rhetoric is gone, it's our own actions that will make the real difference.
JOE RODRIGUEZ is a columnist for the San Jose Mercury News. Write to him at [email protected] or at San Jose Mercury News, 750 Ridder Park Drive, San Jose, CA 95190-0001.

Posted by Janet (not written by Janet)