http://www.michaelericdyson.com/points.htmlAn excerpt from the NY Times...
March 27, 2005
QUESTIONS FOR MICHAEL ERIC DYSON
Bill Cosby's Not Funny
Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON
Q Your new book is a rhetorical screed against Bill Cosby, and the title alone is not exactly subtle: ''Is Bill Cosby Right? Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind?''
When a comedian throws a pie in the face of a powerful person, it's funny. When he throws a pie in the face of a homeless mother with three kids, that's not very funny.
You're referring to Cosby's recent harangue about lower-income black people, whom he faults for neglecting their children, wasting money on expensive sneakers and glamorizing ghetto culture.
It's his Blame-the-Poor Tour. He should pick on someone in his own class. If he had come out swinging at Condi Rice or Colin Powell, they could defend themselves. But he's beating up on poor black people, the most vulnerable people in this nation. And why jump on them?
On the other hand, many of us feel that his comments represent an admirable attempt at self-criticism and apply not only to blacks but also to whites in a consumer culture that has run amok.
Here's the irony: Mr. Cosby has been a supreme pitchman for American corporate capitalism for nearly 40 years. Had he come along now, he himself might have been promoting some gym shoes.
I actually found your book alarmingly unbalanced. How can you write 200-plus pages on Bill Cosby without detailing the millions of dollars he has donated to colleges and other good causes?
I think I mention his $20 million gift to Spelman College. It's a well-known fact. There's no need to repeat it.
But he has given to so many other black causes.
There's a dark underside to philanthropy. People who give a bunch of money are deferred to, even when they are wrong. The emperor cannot be shown to have no clothes.
-----
I heard this guy on the radio during the past week promoting his book which attacks Bill Cosby's comments about the problems in the black community.
Dyson claims that Cosby is attacking the poor and that he "doesn't understand" the poor and therefore has no right to comment about them.
The question for the debate is:
Does Dyson make valid points? Is Cosby out of line for criticizing the underclass and their behavior?