Michael Eric Dyson (27 page)

One of the most dishonest effects of elevating Cosby as a spokesman of black interests is that conservative commentators pretend that he is the first prominent black leader to call for personal responsibility. By being portrayed as distinctive in his views, Cosby is made morally exceptional, and hence viewed as an exemplar to the masses of black folk and our leaders and used to chide those who haven’t caught on to the need for personal responsibility. One conservative white columnist praised Cosby’s bravery for airing dirty laundry while decrying the “complete breakdown of leadership within the [black] community,” claiming that folk like Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan and Jesse Jackson have “spent the past 20 years telling the black community that their problems are due to the white man keeping them down.” He asked, when “was the last time any of those men looked within the black community and said there is a problem?”
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Black conservative activist Star Parker asked, “If Cosby’s appeal for personal responsibility among African Americans is not news for black leadership, then one must ask why this leadership opposes every reform that attempts to recognize these points, turn back government and return choice and responsibility to black citizens.”
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Farrakhan, of course, has been promoting a gospel of black self-help for decades, and while he assaults white supremacy, he recognizes the virtue of black folk, including the black poor, assuming responsibility for their destinies. After all, the call for a million men to converge on Washington, D.C., a decade ago rested on the argument that
black males should take greater responsibility in their homes and communities. Sharpton has constantly applauded the virtues of hard work and self-determining action for black folk. And Jesse Jackson is in a long list of leaders who have understood the dynamic relationship between personal and social responsibility.

It may be because many black leaders and thinkers have been unwilling to blame black people, especially the black poor, for their problems, even as they value personal responsibility—and social, intellectual, moral, immediate and ultimate responsibility as well—that their contributions are so easily ignored. At their best, black thinkers and leaders have rarely isolated self-help philosophy from a simultaneous damning of the white supremacy that makes it necessary. Marcus Garvey, the Jamaican-born activist who organized and led the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), the largest black nationalist movement in the nation’s history, emphasized political resistance and a brand of self-reliance that might have made Emerson proud. Garvey deplored the systemic racism that prevented blacks’ flourishing.
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Acknowledging that black folk are treated equally to whites “nowhere in the world, with few exceptions,” Garvey argued that “there should be an equitable distribution and apportionment of all such things, and in consideration of the fact that as a race we are now deprived of those things that are morally and legally ours, we believe it right that all such things should be acquired and held by whatsoever means possible.” At the same time, Garvey and the UNIA promoted “self-help and self-reliance,” eschewing slavish dependence
on other races, with the admonition that “[p]rayer alone is not going to improve our condition, nor the policy of watchful waiting,” thus encouraging black folk to take their destinies into their own hands.
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W.E.B. Du Bois, an advocate of engaged thought and aggressive social action, agreed in principle with Garvey’s move to join sustained resistance to white supremacy and racial self-help. Du Bois linked self-help to self-regard, and to the willingness to associate with other blacks, cautioning blacks against “affront[ing] our own self-respect by accepting a proffered equality which is not equality, or submitting to discrimination simply because it does not involve actual and open segregation; and above all, let us not sit down and do nothing for self-defense and self-organization just because we are too stupid or too distrustful of ourselves to take vigorous and decisive action.”
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Martin Luther King, Jr., the most valiant freedom fighter of the twentieth century, argued that “if first-class citizenship is to become a reality for the Negro he must assume the primary responsibility for making it so.”
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King contended that the Negro “must not be victimized with the delusion of thinking that others should be more concerned than himself about his citizenship rights.” King was quick, however, to insist that black folk “must continue to break down the barrier of segregation,” and to “resist all forms of racial injustice.” Nonviolent social resistance was the collective expression of black self-help, as King urged black folk to “take direct action against injustice without waiting for other agencies to act.”
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At the same time, King insisted that one of the “sure signs of
maturity is the ability to rise to the point of self-criticism.”
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King admitted that some blacks had “lost that something called
initiative
,” and that some had used their oppression to excuse mediocrity. But King anticipated the racist use of his words, concluding that the “only answer that we can give to those who through blindness and fear would question our readiness and capability is that our lagging standards exist because of the legacy of slavery and segregation, inferior schools, slums, and second-class citizenship, and not because of an inherent inferiority.”
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Finally, Jesse Jackson, the most gifted social activist and public moralist of our times, has consistently over his forty-year career in public service sought to eradicate racism and economic inequality while preaching a gospel of self-help. As head of Operation PUSH, and then the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, Jackson has encouraged his followers to reject alcohol, teenage sex, and drugs (“get the dope out of your veins and hope in your brains”); to war against misogynistic lyrics and violence in hip-hop culture; and to become deeply involved in their children’s education. In the 1970s, Jackson launched the Push for Excellence (EXCEL) program, devoted to bridging generational and cultural gaps by bringing together parents, students and teachers in pursuit of educational excellence across the nation. Over five hundred public school districts invited Jackson to help them implement his program. When Jackson appeared on
60 Minutes
, the program recorded his intriguing mix of self-help philosophy, down-home vernacular, and folksy-country-preacher-meets-big-city-activist as he chided and challenged his black listeners in a speech.

Nearly two decades later, after a murder outside of his kitchen, the shooting of his grocer across the street, a triple murder down the block and the burglary of his house while his mother-in-law was present, Jackson launched what he termed a “victim-led revolution,” which brought together a network of local churches to provide mentoring to first-time offenders who had no family to guide them. Jackson has also worked tirelessly to erase social injustice and the structural inequalities that prevent blacks and other poor people from enjoying the opportunity to exercise their full citizenship. Jackson, for example, appeared before the National Press Club in 1994 to criticize President Clinton’s budget plans, which, during a widely touted economic recovery, slashed crucial programs for young people, the working classes and the poor.

Jackson’s latest venture, termed the Wall Street Project, combines his fight for equality with the intent to democratize capital, an extension of his belief that black folk and other oppressed peoples must demand a fair share of the economy. Jackson contends that “urban America has been redlined,” and since the government hasn’t offered tax incentives for inner-city investment, as it has “in a dozen foreign markets,” it is time to boost the economic health of black America by encouraging major financial forces to take the ghettos seriously. “Clearly, to break up the redlining process, there must be incentives to green-line with hedges against risk,” Jackson says. “When you place a car dealership or a drugstore or a movie house in these areas, you increase the tax base for the school—that enhances the quality of life. We’ve been so preoccupied with getting the government to behave in a fair and democratic way, we were not able to focus on the private sector where most of the jobs are, where most of the wealth and opportunities are.”
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Many leaders have had far more understanding than Cosby has shown for the complex variables that make, and keep, folk poor. That is why it is probably best that he explore his gifts for comedy and leave the social analysis and race leadership to those better suited to the task. If nothing else, Cosby’s ventures into the realm of social criticism prove the non-transferability of genius; one’s position must be earned in every sphere or else it amounts to little more than concession, or, worse yet, a handout to the fortunate. Cosby’s celebrity has given him a big platform, but he must be much more
responsible with his gifts and positions in talking about the poor than he has yet been.

Even as Cosby further victimizes the poor, he seems to be a victim himself, of compassion fatigue, or what Barack Obama has gracefully termed an “empathy deficit.”
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Cosby does appear to have a crushing lack of spiritual empathy—not to be confused with maudlin emotion, or pitying affirmation, but a willingness to be kept awake in another’s bed of pain before lashing them for being morally asleep. It may be that Cosby has grown weary because he has tried to shoulder more than he can carry, or, perhaps, once he saw that the problems of the poor were deeper than his generous pockets and the will of the state, he got angry
at
them, instead of
with
them. It may do him good to recall that only a handful of black people in history have ever possessed his material blessings, but most blacks have, nevertheless, through faith, or a belief in themselves and one another, conquered slavery and apartheid and self-hate with a spiritual abundance that trumps rational deliberation and common sense.

Perhaps the most damaging consequence of Cosby’s war on the poor is that they are left less defended and much more vulnerable to rebuff, even by folk—policy analysts, public policy makers, politicians—who might be sitting on the fence wondering what to do about the poor, and who now get a huge cue from Cosby that it’s just fine to leave them to sink or swim for themselves. In that sense, Cosby, much more than the poor he castigates, is supremely irresponsible. He has been given to talking about Jesus in his shrill sermons to, and about, the poor. Cosby lambastes the poor for “asking Jesus to
do things for you. And you can’t keep saying that God will find a way. God is tired of you . . . Well, you probably gon’ let Jesus figure it out for you. Well, I got somethin’ to tell you about Jesus. When you go to the church, look at the stained glass things of Jesus. Look at ’em. Is Jesus smiling? Not in one picture. So, tell your friends: Let’s try to do somethin’. Let’s try to make Jesus smile.” What, indeed, would make Jesus smile? The answer is simple: If we “love mercy, do justly and walk humbly with thy God” as the prophet Micah says—and if we “love thy neighbor as thyself” as Jesus says—it would bring a smile to the Lord’s face. I think that the notion that God helps those who help themselves sounds good but is little more than the theological attempt to sanctify American individualism.

The gospels, on the other hand, emphasize our collective responsibility as a community, out of which individual responsibility and standing flow. Jesus’ commitment to the poor is foundational to the gospels, and is a central tenet of the Christian faith. Beyond that, compassion for the poor is the hallmark of true civilization, sacred or secular. Cosby and the rest of us must learn that lesson and do as Jesus did. In fact, in his first public appearance, Jesus read from the prophet Isaiah and used his words to sum up his mission, one that all of us, believer and unbeliever alike, might adapt. As it reads in Luke 4:16-21 of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible: