There has been some good, nuanced coverage of Bill Cosby's "lower economic people" remarks by bloggers such as Earl Dunovant, George Kelly, Lester Spence, and Kim Pearson.
In the mainstream press, coverage of Cosby's remarks are the closest we get to coverage of social and economic issues in the African American community. In an election year especially, good journalism in this area ought to be ongoing. Without such coverage there are no terms for a proper debate and the candidates get a free ride on important domestic issues. It's been heartening to me to see gay and lesbian civil rights issues covered as election year issues—but what about African American civil rights issues? African American issues aren't covered as part of election year politics because the press does not consider them news and because the press does not provide the context we need to understand current African American realities. Kim Pearson breaks it down with some good analysis and a some questions journalists ought to asking.
The major problem that black writers, artists, intellectuals, activists, parents, preachers and teachers face in trying to get control of their families and communities is that the institutions that transmit ideas and values to black youth and adults are perverted by the corporate commodification of blackness. Rather than having their self image and goals shaped by the authority figures in their own homes, neighborhoods, schools and religious institutions, they are being molded by an amoral popular culture that will use anything to sell products.
Right now, that popular culture, which has been driven by an appropriation and caricaturing of African American culture since the days of Stephen Foster, teaches that authentic blackness includes a disdain for formal education, hypersexuality, and mindless,amoral acqusitiveness. This picture of who black people are and what we value is a cynical lie that a few blacks participate in perpetuating, because the corporate marketers figured out that the suburban kids whose dollars fuel hiphop don't want to hear from people with a mentality like Chuck D's:
I didn’t want to rap about ‘I’m this or I’m that’ all the time . . . . My focus was not on boasting about myself or battling brothers on the microphone. I wanted to rap about battling institutions, and bringing the condition of Black people worldwide to a respectable level."
To turn the tide, here are some of the questions I want to see journalists asking:
(3) We need press coverage of some of the initiatives that have worked and are working! For example, while there is a dearth of black scientists, there are also programs such as the Cooperative Research Fellowship Program and the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, which have helped dozens of blacks get Ph.Ds. in mathematics, physics and other scientific and technical disciplines.
(5) Let's have some reporting on the state of the institutions that some successful blacks have created to reach back into their communities. Where is the Coalition of 100 Black Men these days? Where's BEEP? What about the the various ethnic affinity groups in the nations top corporations? What are they doing to address these problems? What do their successess and failures tell us?
(6) Conservatives seem to think they have the answers to the problems Cosby outlined. Between faith-based initiatives, school voucher programs, and the No Child Left Behind Law, conservative approaches have received substantial support over the last several years. If Cosby's charges signify the need for a close examination of what parents are doing, don't they also suggest the need to scrutinize these programs as well? Yet I'm not aware of any comprehensive examination of this type?
Read the whole thing.
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