Bill Cosby's Not Funny: Questions for Michael Eric Dyson

• Originally published in the New York Times Magazine on March 27, 2005 [here]

 Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON
 

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.

You, yourself, as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, know that Cosby's following is hardly based on his wealth. Why do you think the black middle class has been so moved by his call for individual responsibility?

Of course, taken in one sense, a lot of what he said we can agree with. None of us want our children to be murderers or thieves. But Cosby never acknowledges that most poor blacks don't have a choice about these things.

So, then, how much do you think individual will counts for our success or failure in life?

I don't believe in that kind of American John Wayne individualism where people pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Someone changed your diapers. And if that's the case, you ain't self-made.

You seem to be of the Hillary Clinton ''it takes a village'' school of thinking.

Yes. But Hillary borrowed that from black people! In fact, it's an African proverb. And my ambition didn't grow out of nowhere. It was planted in me by a community that nurtured me.

Can you tell us something about that community?

I'm 46. I grew up in Detroit. I was a teen father. I lived on welfare for three years. I have a brother serving life in prison, though I believe he's innocent. He's in for second-degree murder.

Why do you think you were able to succeed when your brother could not?

My talent was more easily identifiable.

Which talent is that?

My talent for oratory, for running my mouth.

In light of that, might you arrange to debate Cosby publicly in the near future?

He doesn't do that. And that, to me, is part of the problem.

Have you ever met him?

No. I talked to him one time on the phone, and it was not a hateful conversation.

Will you send him a copy of your book and inscribe it affectionately?

Sure. As our friends in the Cosa Nostra say: This is business. It's not personal.