The Cosby Effect: What's wrong with the approach
Cosby's whole rant is this internalized feeling that black people should somehow achieve perfection. That we all need to "stick together" like the Jews. Which is insane. Jewish social life is riven with debate. There is nothing like the ideological conformity common in black political life. What's the old joke, if you have two Jews, you have three arguments? So this demand for perfection seems to arise from time to time, driven by myth and unrealistic expectations.
…What most disturbs me is the way Cosby is SO eager to cut the black middle class slack for abandoning it's brothers and sisters, building gated communities, and still lagging behind in test scores. There is still a gap in achievement even when economics is not a factor. And it isn't because blacks are stupid, we know they aren't. Racism might play a role. The black middle class got their money and they ran to suburbia, even when racism limited their options. Look at Long Island. The most racially segregated place in America. You can tell if someone is black by the town they live in, Hempstead, Wyandanch, Freeport, Roosevelt. The same crappy school districts, same poverty you get in the Bronx, except people are far more hostile to change. Before he lectures the poor on their shortcomings, he might want to lecture his peers and the middle class on theirs.
