Lee Bey: The Urban Observer

The general reaction to Bill Cosby's transformation from lovable funnyman to pointed critic of negative social behavior within black America fascinates me.

But you pay attention to Cos' history and workand you realize there is no transformation at all. Here's a man who has always wanted to see his race uplifted--and by its own hand. The signs were there. He donated millions to black universities and black causes, no doubt more than all of his present-day critics combined. Look at his 1980s sitcom "The Cosby Show." Watching at the time, I oogled over Lisa Bonet and laughed at the jokes. Seeing it reruns, something more profound strikes me: Here was self-sustaining black family who stressed love, education, history and tradition. If there were lessons learned, it was a black person that provided the wisdom. Excellence was expected. College was a must.

What's got me worked up again is a very good piece about Cosby written in The Atlantic this month by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Coates examines what Cosby's been saying, makes it plain, and shows how what he's saying is not alien to black ears and actually speaks to traditional social conservatism within black America. (I should add its a conservatism that is honest and straight up. It recognizes and fights against racism on one front, while demanding self-reliance on the other. It is not the smug, hectoring, and divisive gasbag-ism of this kind of conservatism. Or this kind. Or this kind.)

Last year, I bought a DVD of Cosby's first sitcom, the Bill Cosby Show, from 1969-1970. Seeing it now is a revelation. Within the context of a comedy, Cosby gives us a complete man--an intelligent, aware, black man--who is on equal footing with the whites in his world. He has frustrations, he falls in love, he handles his business and he makes us laugh, all without resorting to ugly cheap stereotypes about his race.

Looking through the present-day haze of the low-grade, loudmouth chitlinesque black cast comedies on television now, the two Cosby shows are revolutionary. And in that context, heck yes, Cosby would be angered enough to speak out against what he sees and dream to want something better for black America. Others want that, too.

(BTW: Given my two excursions into social commentary in recent weeks, there may be the making of another blog for these musings. I'm not sure, yet. I had the same internal struggle when I was architecture critic at the Sun-Times. You write about the physical aspect of the buildings and neighborhoods, but at some point you want to go a little deeper...)