First, I want to deal with Mr. William H. Cosby, Ed.D. 

At 9:50am  on Sunday morning I rolled over and immediately turned on the television station that I get the clearest and I saw a black face.  Regardless of who it was, the fact that there was a black person on a Sunday morning news show was stunning enough to me.  So I watched, and quickly the mention of statistics of black youth in jail let me know that it was Dr. Alvin Poussaint.  And I was expecting to see him in a round table surrounded by other political pundits or various people from academia and much to my chagrin I saw my drunken uncle Bill Cosby. 

I almost flipped the channel. 

As I was preparing for the 11 o’clock service I listened to what Bill blathered and blustered about for the next thirty or so minutes before I rushed out the door wondering who was preaching the morning’s sermon.  And the overwhelming thought that kept playing over in my mind was not whether or not Bill Cosby had told one to many anecdotes on national television (because the one with him in the Navy and the one-eyed drill sergeant informing Cosby that he was “not  his mother” was more than the last straw for me) or whether or not Dr. Poussaints presence  validated Cosby’s rants, but actually it was the fact that these two were the poster children for “When Elitism Goes Bad!”  (Think Dave Chappelle “When Keepin’ It Real Goes Wrong”) 

First lets analyze this. 

These two have now garnered the attention of Tim Russert who is famous for being hard on his guests, and now have a brilliant news journalist walking on eggshells lest he fall victim to being compared to a Cosby story of growing up on the streets of Philly.  Now, most people I know, most, don’t wake up on a Sunday morning and watch NBC “Meet the Press.”  Most people I know are preparing for church, usually listening to a Gospel music station or watching some religious programming on television.  Secondly, your treatise on personal responsibility was written in book form, scolding the less privileged of Black America. 

Now, how “uppity Negro” is appearing on a show that much of the people you discuss in the book don’t watch—furthermore, Cosby implies that these very same people are not the most literate of people, by telling the parents that they need to buy “Hooked on Phonics,” yet you write a book who’s targeted audience is not the people who you criticize.   This book will be read by the middle class moms who have 14 minutes at the end of their day to cram a book in, while they watch their husbands fall asleep after they’ve put their children today and the let the dog roam out in the back yard.  This will also be read by the Black Intelligensia who very similar fashion spout rhetoric from both sides of argument in favor and not in favor of Bill Cosby.  However, this book will NOT overwhelmingly be read by the same people that Cosby criticizes!  Is this not the main criticism of the black middle class that we always and only talk amongst ourselves as though “their” problems are not “our” problems? 

Although the Dysonites have a point whereas it appears that Cosby has mostly negated the white power structures of this country, similarly I believe in personal responsibility, which leads to me say that…. 

One Clifford “T.I.” Harris should be damn ashamed of himself.  I personally feel let down that on Saturday, October 13, 2007 I was forced to send out a mass text message that T.I. had been arrested at the Walgreens on the corner of Piedmont and North Avenues in downtown Atlanta as he was en route to the Civic Center to participate in the buffoonery that is/was the BET Hip-Hop awards.  T.I.’s arrest is the result of the failure to be responsible for one’s person.  If ANYONE allows the words “Free T.I.” pass the barrier of their lips then I will be forced to cuss them out.   

Again, lets analyze this. T.I. or TIP (I’m still unclear which one was arrested, hmmm, might do a blog on all these lil’ boys running around here with these dual personalities based off of T.I.’s bi-polar nature) was arrested because of weapons possession while still on probation.  Probation by nature means that the federal and state authorities are watching the individual under probation.  why do the obvious?  He knew better, but he didn’t do better.  And sadly, yet another rapper who I respected both as an artist and as an individual has succumbed to the failure of being responsible for one’s person. 

Maybe if Bill Cosby’s book had been released a week earlier and maybe if T.I. had passed Borders and saw the release and went and bought a copy then….nahhhhh, I’m just daydreaming there. 

Grace, peace and luv, JLL