From the moment Bill Cosby appeared before the NAACP at Howard University in 2004 and threw down the gauntlet against unproductive black behavior, he has not sugarcoated his words addressing the ills confronting black America. He’s been like a father who doesn’t need to be politically correct when telling his family the hard truths of its shortcomings.
Of all the messengers in the black community, Cosby is eminently qualified to tell it like it is. His life’s work, both in the public eye and out of it, give him credibility and the power to speak up. Some have taken umbrage to what he’s said and exception to the solutions he proposes. I am not one of them.
Cosby’s message is that racism is part of the American landscape, and that it will not change overnight. But despite it, black people must work around it, and they must help each other. He laments the negative influence of rap music and a popular culture that degrades women and strips away pride. He points out the deterioration of language in the black community, the disregard for education and self-improvement. Who can deny the tragedy of black-on-black slaughter and the incarceration of an inordinately large number of black youth?
Cosby recently published “Come On, People: On the Path From Victims to Victors.” In it, he and Harvard Professor Alvin Poussaint decry the epidemic of fatherlessness in black families. Many of us learned how to be men at the feet of other responsible men, mostly our fathers. In thousands of black communities all over America, there are no fathers.
How can black boys and girls in these places grow up to be responsible members of society? What pathology gnaws at the souls of children who have been abandoned by their fathers? If it takes a village to raise a child, what happens to the child when the village has uprooted its tents and moved away?
The community has the power to affect fatherlessness. But that hasn’t persuaded every black adult to join Cosby in a crusade to educate, empower and free black youths from the chains that weigh them down. Many would rather stick to their belief that slavery and racism are to blame for every ill that affects black America.
It is sad, because we are all missing a great moment to debate the role the black community must play for its children versus the role of the government, and how the two could act in synergy.
There is a refusal by some blacks to acknowledge that some negative behaviors are due to personal choices, that they’re not dictated upon us by some powerful evil spirit.
We as a race must accept that welfare assistance is a good thing, but it should never be permanent; that material things pale in value compared to a good education — the greatest gift we can give the next generation.
These are the things Cosby has been preaching about around the country. He is saying that the best way to solve a problem is not to deny or ignore it, but to accept it, own it and then solve it.
These are the tenets that successful blacks have adopted: education, durable marriages and responsible fatherhood.
“A word to the wise ain’t necessary,” Cosby likes to say. “It’s the stupid ones who need the advice.” This is true, although we don’t want to admit there are “stupid” black people, just unlucky people who are discriminated against. Cosby’s sin is his bluntness. Yet I doubt that if he would soft-pedal his message, anyone would be listening to him.
I ardently admire him and his message. I thank him for what he’s saying and hope more blacks will take his words to heart, to make the changes that are so necessary to uplift the community.
Pius Kamau is a thoracic and general surgeon in Aurora. He was born and raised in Kenya and immigrated to the U.S. in 1971.
