"The opportunity to earn a dollar just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera house," Washington said.
Today, Washington is often depicted as a race-traitor. But at the time of his Atlanta speech, most blacks heralded his remarks as wise and practical. Even Du Bois, then a 27-year-old professor at Wilberforce College in Ohio, sent Washington a telegram of congratulations. Du Bois, of course, would later become Washington's chief nemesis, faulting him for accepting second-class status for blacks. In his landmark 1903 book, "The Souls of Black Folk," he wrote that Washington was a man who "apologizes for injustice" and "belittles the emasculating effects of caste distinctions" and therefore should be "unceasingly and firmly" opposed.
Cosby entered the fray of this long tradition with a late-night riff last May at Constitution Hall. He was at a 50th anniversary celebration of the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, but he wanted to get something off his chest.
In the neighborhood that most of us grew up in, parenting is not going on. . . . I'm talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit. Where were you when he was 2? Where were you when he was 12? . . . And where is his father, and why don't you know where he is?
He continued.
Looking at the incarcerated, these are not political criminals. These are people going around stealing Coca-Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake! Then we all run out and are outraged, "The cops shouldn't have shot him." What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand?
Cosby went on.
Five or six different children, same woman, eight, 10 different husbands or whatever. Pretty soon you're going to have to have DNA cards so you can tell who you're making love to.
He had even more to say.
The white man, he's laughing, got to be laughing. Fifty percent drop out, rest of them in prison.
Ted Shaw, director-counsel and president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, was backstage that night preparing to deliver his own remarks. He had a script on the teleprompter and was just waiting his turn. But Cosby got his attention. The evening, a fancy black-tie to-do, was sponsored jointly by his organization, the NAACP and Howard University. They had agreed to honor Cosby.
Shaw had grown up admiring Cos. In the 1960s Cosby was the first black actor to star in an American TV drama series, "I Spy." Cosby and his wife of 40 years, Camille, also have a distinguished record of philanthropy, donating time and money to African American causes and organizations, including to the legal defense fund.
Roger Wilkins, a history professor at George Mason University, tells the story of Cosby quietly hosting a dinner for Lani Guinier in 1993 after President Clinton abandoned her as his nominee for the Justice Department's top civil rights post. The dinner was at the Watergate Hotel, and Cosby even flew in friends and supporters of Guinier's from out of town. "It was not a cheap dinner," recalls Wilkins. "He didn't do it for publicity sake. He just did it because he thought a good black woman had been screwed."
So, understandably, Shaw wasn't looking for a fight with his hero. Still, he was bothered. So when he took the stage, Shaw responded to Cosby, saying that while he believed in personal responsibility, not all wounds are self-inflicted.
"My grandmother was a single black woman who did domestic work," Shaw said later in an interview. "She struggled and did the best she could. My concern was it sounded like an attack on all black poor people."
A few days later, Shaw called Cosby's agent and said he wanted to chat with the entertainer. Cosby promptly returned the call, and they talked for nearly two hours. Cosby assured him it was not his intention to tarnish all poor blacks with his critique. And Shaw let Cosby know that the comedian had not been precise, not careful enough.
Shaw's other concern was that right-wing ideologues would embrace Cosby, the same critics who are the enemies of civil rights. Cosby let Shaw know he couldn't be concerned with that. There were several lengthy follow-up conversations. Shaw agrees Cosby is onto something but believes that what he's onto is more complex than Cosby has articulated.
"There already is a class divide in the African American community," Shaw says, "and we should be conscious of how we talk about these issues. Not that we shouldn't talk about them."
Parents' Plight
At the Cora L. Rice Elementary School in Landover last week, the issue was car theft. A forum sponsored by the Prince George's County Police Department and WPGC-FM was aimed at discouraging youth from stealing cars. The kind of event Cosby would endorse. At one point, someone in the audience shouted out, "Where are the parents?"
And 15-year-old Tyrie Wilson took the mike. Her mother was working overtime, she said, to pay $1,700 in restitution because Tyrie's brother had been convicted of car theft. "Kids have a lot of pressure on them today," she said, not to excuse her brother's crime, but "they do what they do to have fun. My brother is not a bad person. My father is incarcerated. He wouldn't do this if he had his father in his life."
