Is Bill Cosby Right? Michael Eric Dyson Says No

By Tyran Steward

Tyran Steward is an Atlanta-based writer, scholar, activist and cultural critic. Should you have any questions or comments about this editorial, he can be reached via email, TyranSteward@aol.com

If there was ever a book that was destined to incite debate and ignite controversy, it would have to be Michael Eric Dyson’s new manuscript, “Is Bill Cosby Right? (Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind?).” In this nearly 300-page, provokingly-titled analysis, Dyson eloquently and with sharp-witted insight, considers and counters the claims and criticisms made by Bill Cosby last year in his now infamous speech before members of the NAACP.

Dubbing the speech circuit that Cosby went on around the country—to espouse his beliefs and thoughts on the need for blacks, particularly the poor, to take personal responsibility—the “Blame-the-Poor” tour, Dyson negotiates and reconciles the flawed logic employed by Cosby that gave rise to the contentious remarks that he proffered.

In a book that begins with Dyson surveying the vitality and vision of Cosby—everything from his historical retreat from race to his stereotypical portrayals of blacks to his color-blind politics—Dyson goes on a bold “seek and destroy” mission to eradicate the palpable and poisonous biases of Cosby and other affluent blacks that often plagued the critiques of poor black Americans.

Dyson courageously takes on the responsibility of defending those poor and working poor black Americans who are defenseless to the hostile contentions that are often use to indict their realities despite being rampant with contradictions. He brilliantly articulates how poor blacks are too often charged with taking a personal responsibility that is clumsily-framed and, even worse, not in use by members of the black middle class.

To be sure, Dyson prudently makes it clear that there was nothing wrong with Cosby wanting to inspire blacks to become more responsible and take back their communities. As a metaphorical father for black America, Cosby wanted to show some tough love.

Unfortunately, Cosby’s tough love was grounded in an elitism that failed to balance and resolve the complex dilemmas and imperishable despair that shape black life found in our most base communities: economic privation caused, in part, by capitalism and America’s poor distribution of resources; growing violence and pathology, particularly due to social inequality and the competition for the limited spaces of viable existence; substandard education and housing as well as the lack of healthcare; and, the unfaltering distresses engendered by racism, to name a few.

In addition, Dyson effectively reveals that Cosby’s harangue was rife with social bankruptcy, in large part, due his deficiency in comprehensively exploring the problems inherent to black America. To be certain, there is, as Dyson wisely acknowledges, validity in some of the criticisms proffered by Cosby and it would be clumsy not to deeply examine his assertions.

Even more, when you look at the surface—the prima facie evidence available to us—you cannot help but to understand Cosby’s decision to charge black America the task of taking greater personal responsibility for some of the fractious issues we face. 

However, Dyson exhibits how members of what he dubs the Afristocracy—composed of lawyers, physicians, intellectuals, civil rights leaders, entertainers, athletes, bankers and the like—all too often, turn their full attention toward those poor blacks—the Ghettocracy—in the bottom socioeconomic class, who are often vulnerable and not given the proper courtesy to form credible arguments in opposition to the aspersions cast against them. Even more, Dyson astutely points out that Cosby and other members of the black middle class often neglect to take into account the role that they play in engendering some of the economic and social inequity that saturates the lives of poor blacks.

In other words, while Cosby was apt to further denigrate poor and working poor blacks in America, he chose to take no significant aim at the middle class blacks, like himself, who are complicit in helping to design the very tombs of economic, political and social destruction that entomb the poor.

With certainty, this is why Michael Eric Dyson not only wrote this book—of superb articulacy and informed judgments—as a response to Cosby's analysis of the ills of black America, but also chose to dub Cosby's traveling speech circuit the “Blame-the-Poor” tour.

Brother Dyson was able to recognize that instead of being self-critical, Cosby and other affluent blacks often place blame on poor blacks, making the same highfalutin and often exaggerated generalizations that white Americans with ultra right-wing postures tend to make. Furthermore, Dyson understands that it is difficult to improve any situation when the criticisms made are embellished and fail to provide a true insight into the nature of the problems.

Bear in mind, there is a context for criticism for the sad state of affairs that exists in many black communities. It is not difficult to arrive at this realization and I am sure that Dyson comprehends this. But he also is able to realize that affluent blacks are, many times, so disconnected from the realities and troubles that condition the lives of poor blacks that they become too ill-informed to understand the ‘proper' context for that criticism. Many of them, like Cosby, make elitist comments that do much more to betray and further victimize poor blacks than to aid them in becoming viable citizens in the community.

This is what Cosby did and, subsequently, it is the reason that he lacked the proper context in which to explore America's most pernicious social problems.

So was Bill Cosby right? It is clearly evident that Dyson does not believe so. And unless you are married to the same stuck-up notions that Bill championed, you would not either.

Stay lifted and keep it righteous!