Barbara Ehrenreich weighs in:
As for the black youth who so exercise Cosby, their pregnancy rates aren't "soaring," as he reportedly claimed; in fact, they're lower than they've been in decades. Ditto with crime rates. And if Cosby's worried about poor grammar and so forth, why isn't he ranting about the Bush 2005 budget, which would end a slew of programs for dropout prevention, recreation and school counseling?Or, if he's looking for tantrum fodder, what about the fact that a black baby has a 40 percent chance of being born into poverty? You can blame adults for their poverty — if you're mean-spirited enough — but you cannot blame babies, and that's, in effect, what we're talking about here.
As the sociologist Michael Males, who monitors youth-bashing outbreaks, told me: "Younger black America today is struggling admirably against massive disinvestments in schools, terrible unemployment, harsh policing and degrading prejudices, and they're succeeding amazingly well. They deserve respect, not grown-up tantrums."
More found here.
You know what? I've been remiss. Probably because on the one hand Cosby is a fraternity brother (didn't stop me with Jesse though), on the other that he's "done so much." Ms. Ehrenreich deserves a thank you for waking me up.
What do the numbers say? Cosby causal claim goes something like this.
Black kids not acting right---->poverty
|
|
|------->Unemployment
But he's focusing on CHILDREN right? The kid who steals the pound cake. The kid who spouts off at the mouth after school. The kid who reeks of hiphop. How in the hell can you blame CHILDREN for their own poverty?
And George has even more figures.
I believe that mathmatical literacy and logic should be added to the old school criteria. By this token, I don't think Cosby has a leg to stand on. He may be old, but he ain't old school.
I made the following comment during a discussion with a black conservative:
This is where I become conservative. I employ a color-blind standard that is extremely high and very objective. You either meet that standard...or you don't. The vast majority of black conservatives don't meet that standard. A significant number of conservative blacks do.
The policy consequences of this ignorance are severe.