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By Ellis Cose
Newsweek
Dec. 27 / Jan. 3 issue - You would think the story would have died by now. What's the big deal, after all, about Bill Cosby's blasting a bunch of poor kids and their parents? While the initial salvo was fired months ago, the aftershocks are still being felt. Columnists continue to harp on Cosby's statements, and the comedian has gone on a crusade, sermonizing across the land—and being received like a revered Biblical prophet.
"It is not all right for your 15-year-old daughter to have a child," he told 2,400 fans in a high school in Milwaukee. He lambasted young men in Baltimore for knocking up "five, six girls." He tongue-lashed single mothers in Atlanta for having sex within their children's hearing "and then four days later, you bring another man into the house." "The audience gasped," reported The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
People have been gasping since May, when Cosby blasted "lower-economic people" for "not holding up their end," for buying kids $500 sneakers instead of "Hooked on Phonics." His words (and tone) set off a raging discussion over whether Cosby's comments make sense and whether they can do any good—over whether the problem resides in the poor people he criticized, or in forces largely beyond their control. No group has a larger stake in that debate than the poor urbanites Cosby presumably is trying to save. Yet they don't exactly seem to be rushing to Cosby's church.
Kenny, 17, a onetime stick-up man, puts it plainly. "Cosby is ... talking about me holding up my end of the bargain. Listen ... I robbed 'cause I was hungry. If he's going to put food on my table, if he's going to give me time to pursue education vigorously, then fine. But if he's not, then I'm going to hold up my end of the bargain and make sure I get something to eat."
Kenny was one of several young offenders called together, at NEWSWEEK's request, by the Fortune Society, a nonprofit that works with at-risk youths and ex-cons. None saw salvation at the end of Cosby's crusade.
April, a 16-year-old Latina from the Bronx, scoffed at the notion that poor mothers were buying $500 shoes. The only people she knew with such pricey sneakers were those "on the block pitching [dealing drugs]." "Times are different" than in Cosby's heyday, said Sonia, 20. "Back then even if [men] worked at a factory they'd get up every day and go to a job in a suit. Nowadays ... most black males don't have good enough jobs."
But even the most hardened delinquents don't dispute that there is some truth in Cosby's message. When young black males (15-24) are murdered at 15 times the rate of young white males, something is seriously wrong. Cosby, to his credit, has said no to complacency.
In "Code of the Street," sociologist Elijah Anderson wrote eloquently of the war in inner cities between "decent" values and "street" values. That is the war into which Cosby has leapt mouth first—and into which Ameer Tate was born. "I grew up in a bad neighborhood ... and I always had to fight... My grandmother was on crack ... Both my uncles were pimps. My father was never here ... [I remember] being beat up as an 11-year-old by this 36-year-old fresh out of prison just because he wanted to put his hands on my mom," recalled Tate, an 18-year-old San Franciscan.
Telling people born into such circumstances to shape up is not much of a plan. Combating "a history of inequality and disadvantage" requires "systematic solutions," argues Stephanie Bell-Rose, president of the Goldman Sachs Foundation, which funds programs targeting achievers in poor communities. She believes Cosby has an obligation to be "more thoughtful."
Many of the kids Cosby criticizes are totally cut off from the larger society. Or they see it as a kind of distant fairyland filled with goodies they can never have unless they take them. "One of the prevailing sentiments of youths is that 'I see no future for myself—so I have to get what I want now'," concluded the marketing-research firm Motivational Educational Entertainment in a study looking at urban poor youths.
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In a world where no-talent nobodies quickly become somebodies on TV, it's not surprising some folks conclude that school is a joke. "Kids watch MTV reality shows ... [where] a normal person is elevated to fame ... The prerequisites of those jobs are not academic," observed Tajai Massey, a rap artist who lives in the Oakland, Calif., area and works as a substitute public-school teacher in his spare time.
The problem is compounded by inadequate parenting. More fathers are incarcerated than at any previous time in American history. And many not in prison are unavailable to their kids. In four decades the percentage of children raised in single-parent households has more than quadrupled. Among the group of young offenders called together by Fortune, not one had been raised in a household with a father.
Cosby is fed up with "knuckleheads" who don't speak proper English. But the issue is not just language; it is also, fundamentally, one of identity—and therefore race.
Teenagers today belong to America's first transracial generation, a generation that wears race as lightly as a summer jacket. Radio personality Tom Joyner recalled, with wonder, attending a concert where an interracial audience enthusiastically recited rap lyrics: "Blacks, whites, Jews and Gentiles get together at a Jay-Z concert and say 'nigger this, nigger that'." But even though racial boundaries have blurred, racial preconceptions remain—as Lucas Hardeman has learned.
Hardeman, 16, participates in a Los Angeles-based college-preparatory weekend program started by the 100 Black Men organization. Early on, his parents filled his head with thoughts of scholarly achievement. And that has led some to question his racial bona fides. On one occasion, "I was jumped after school for answering too many questions," recalled Hardeman. His dad gave him some hip-hop clothes to help him fit in. "That made it worse," he said. "People hated me." Even his music—the likes of Britney Spears, 'N Sync and the Backstreet Boys—got him into trouble. Bullies shattered one of his CDs at a school function, and one told him, "Dude, you're whiter than they are."
Hardeman's conundrum is one of the supreme ironies of his generation. It is easier than ever for people of different races to be accepted as brothers and sisters. Yet stereotyping is rampant.
Mileidi Jimenez, a 16-year-old New Yorker of Dominican heritage, regularly gets accused—even by white students—of acting "white." Ida-Rochelle Holloway, a black 17-year-old Harlemite, is similarly criticized for not acting "black." If avoiding unsavory activities is "'white,' then, oh well," said Holloway, who, like Jimenez, participates in I-LEAD, a college-prep program for inner-city Catholic-school kids.
William Hambrick, a 17-year-old black San Franciscan, recalls having to battle his way into advanced-placement courses. "Even my counselor didn't want me taking them. It was like ... 'Don't you want to play sports?' "
"Your African identity has to be defined by ignorance," observed Edad Mercier, a junior at the Dalton School in New York City. "Caucasians don't have that pressure," she added.
Somewhere along the line street culture became confused with black culture, which became confused with black (and, to some extent, Latino) identity, which created a set of expectations that dooms many young people to mediocrity, that makes them, in short, become the "knuckleheads" who get Cosby so riled up.
The ubiquity of such narrow expectations explains why so many kids don't look past basketball or rap. For the images nurtured in the 'hood are reinforced at school and in popular culture—by young people trying to "keep it real," without pondering what form of reality they are embracing.
"Children don't get out of that by themselves. They have to have somebody," insists Spencer Holland, a psychologist and founder of Project 2000, an after-school program in Washington, D.C.
Ameer Tate found his somebody at the Omega Boys Club—an organization started and run by Joseph Marshall, Ph.D. "Until I saw Dr. Marshall I never saw a truly positive role model outside of the movies," said Tate, who proudly rattled off some recent accomplishments: "I'm in City College, I just got an A on my psychology test, an A on my African-American-history test. I'm on track, I'm going to try out for football in January ... I box. I'm an actor." Kenny, the erstwhile stick-up man, will soon be entering college—thanks in part to Fortune's guidance.
In many respects, those young men are exceptions. But there is no reason why they have to be. Most people of Tate's age and station don't exactly aspire to be knuckleheads. So many kids on the block would like nothing better than to fulfill Cosby's middle-class fantasies, but they also don't want to be seen as suckers itching to abandon childhood friends and ways for dreams that can never come true.
At some point Cosby's crusade either reaches the level of the street, of people like Kenny and Tate, or it will come to be seen as little more than sound and fury signifying nothing more than the power of an outspoken celebrity to get people talking.
What should Cosby do? He might try shoring up the work of those who have shown they can make a difference in the lives of inner-city youths. Marshall and Holland are splendid examples; but in any large city, there are heroes dedicated to helping young people make wise choices—one crisis at a time. Those who do such work are always chronically underfunded and tragically underrecognized. For Cosby to publicly join forces with them would surely help their cause—and his.
The comedian already has indicated that he would like this crusade to become something more than a one-man roadshow. He has aligned himself with Ras Baraka, the deputy mayor of Newark, N.J., to launch something called "Hip Hop for the PEOPLE" (Providing Education Opportunity, Prosperity and Life Eternally)—an entity that will urge rappers to focus on subjects other than sex and bling.
It's wonderful Cosby has involved himself in a war that has consumed so many young lives. But this war's most meaningful battles will not be fought from floodlit stages. They will be fought in inner-city streets, and in schools and clubs, where souls are saved one at a time, and where the applause of a star-struck crowd is rarely to be found.
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