Is Bill Cosby Right?

by Dyson, Michael Eric

• ISBN13: 9780465017195
• ISBN10: 0465017193
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-04-26
• Publisher: Basic Books

Summary

Nothing exposed the class and generational divide in black America more starkly than Bill Cosby's now-infamous assault on the black poor when he received an NAACP award in the spring of 2004. The comedian-cum-social critic lamented the lack of parenting, poor academic performance, sexual promiscuity, and criminal behavior among what he called the "knuckleheads" of the African-American community. Even more surprising than his comments, however, was the fact that his audience laughed and applauded.Best-selling writer, preacher, and scholar Michael Eric Dyson uses the Cosby brouhaha as a window on a growing cultural divide within the African-American community. According to Dyson, the "Afristocracy"lawyers, physicians, intellectuals, bankers, civil rights leaders, entertainers, and other professionalslooks with disdain upon the black poor who make up the "Ghettocracy"single mothers on welfare, the married, single, and working poor, the incarcerated, and a battalion of impoverished children. Dyson explains why the black middle class has joined mainstream America to blame the poor for their troubles, rather than tackling the systemic injustices that shape their lives. He exposes the flawed logic of Cosby's diatribe and offers a principled defense of the wrongly maligned black citizens at the bottom of the social totem pole. Displaying the critical prowess that has made him the nation's preeminent spokesman for the hip-hop generation, Dyson challenges us allblack and whiteto confront the social problems that the civil rights movement failed to solve.

Author Biography

Michael Eric Dyson, named by Ebony as one of the hundred most influential black Americans, is the author of sixteen books, including Holler if You Hear Me, Is Bill Cosby Right? and I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King Jr. He is currently University Professor of Sociology at Georgetown University. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Introduction An Afristocrat in Winter	1	(14)
Speaking of Race --- Or Not	15	(42)
Classrooms and Cell Blocks	57	(46)
What's in a Name (Brand)?	103	(38)
Family Values	141	(40)
Shadow Boxing with a Scapegoat? (or, Do White People Matter?)	181	(58)
Afterword ``Niggas Come in All Colors''	239	(4)
Acknowledgments	243	(2)
Notes	245	(28)
Index	273