Jewish World Review Jan. 25, 2005/ 15 Shevat, 5765

Rochelle Riley

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Consumer Reports


In Motown, Cosby preaches responsive message: Stop blaming white people and take back your lives


http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Bill Cosby has come and gone. In his wake, he left Detroit the challenge to pick itself up and stop focusing on the racism that helped create its problems.

He acknowledged systemic racism, saying "Of course it exists," but pleaded with the city's parents to focus more on improving their children's lives.

Hope hung in the night air after Cosby's conversation. I felt it as I sat in Sweetwater Tavern downtown having ribs with friends who came from Cleveland and Washington to hear him. A woman sitting at a nearby table of beautiful black women turned to me and said, "What's the plan? What are we going to do next?"

As I left, another woman said, "What are we going to do now?! What's the next step? Let me know!"

Those women understand that we have a window of opportunity in Motown, a moment when people are focused and excited and ready to work. It's time to recruit the army, before we lose that window.

I also was encouraged, no, actually overjoyed, to get a call recently from Shaton Berry, who is in her first year as president of the PTSA (Parent Teacher Student Organization) at Western International High School in Detroit. She brought a busload of 76 parents and students from Western to hear Cosby. But she wanted hundreds more students and parents to see the event. So she asked for a tape for her school.

Berry, 26, knows parenting, though she has never had a child. Since she was 18, she has been raising her two brothers, Anthony and Deontae, now 15 and 13. Her mother is a recovering drug addict who has been clean for a year. Her father is in jail. And her brothers' fathers? "One is dead and the other is a deadbeat," she said.

Berry enjoyed Cosby, but is more focused on what to do post-Cosby.

"He hit on some very good points," she said. "I hope that this fuels our city to step up and take over our kids and win them back."

That's what needs to happen. Cosby's speech reminded me of the heating-oil man. You know_the guy and the truck that used to come around the neighborhood to fill up the drum in the back yard.

He brought the fuel. Now it's up to us. We can continue to be poverty pimps (Cosby's phrase for people who thrive on other people's poverty ) or we can stop blaming white people for every problem in black communities and focus on the problem.

Cosby spoke truth when he reminded us that Detroit is more than 80 percent percent black and at some point, we have to know that black folks are not a minority.

Detroit can't blame white people for drug-related murders.

Detroit can't blame white people for children flunking school because they sit and watch TV for hours.

Yes, systemic racism created some of the circumstances in which many black people live. Cosby acknowledged that because it is true. But the issue is how poor people choose to live and whether they choose to fight for more. We need to raise victors, not victims.

It's time to focus on the fire.



Rochelle Riley is a columnist for the Detroit Free Press. Comment by clicking here.

Up



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08/31/04: Child's world has lessons worth sharing
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© 2005, Detroit Free Press. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.