The Coz

In response to a question to me regarding Bill Cosby's comments last year about po' black folks needing to get up off the dime and to stop reinforcing bad behavior

Over the years, no one has talked more trash about lazy, shif'less colored folks without jobs than black folks who had jobs. The General Rule was that you just never did it when white folks were around. It was more important to keep up the solid front.

I've been in these conversations. "Lazy, shif'less, etc." 'til Skipper walks into the room, when the comment suddenly turns to, "... and it's all Reagan's fault!"

Cosby probably felt the same way, when he made his comments to a black audience. But it got out into the news and I had a conservative Christian co-worker proudly trump that it showed the triumph of conservative thinking among blacks. Big deal, I told her. I heard the same thing all while I was growing up, right before "be sure to vote Democratic, because the Republicans will send us all back to the plantation if they have their way." Really?, she said. -I- don't hear this, she continued. That's because you're never in the room when it's discussed, I told her. It violates the rules.

This can drive white liberals crazy. "I can never have the same conversation from blacks as you do", one once told me, and I've just got through a big hooraw on another list over a white woman talking about the self-destructive welfare momma mentality among young black women, who was torched as a 'racist.' "How can we talk about race, as good liberals are supposed to do, when we can't talk about race?", he said.

Good question. I personally feel that blacks -should- take the discussion "outside" because it's healthy and politically expedient to do so. Without it, it's easy for whites to assume that How to Be Black 101 starts off with how to find the food stamp line. It also brings in more creative thought than you ever get holding an inside-the-beltway discussion.

Jesse Jackson often says that success is opportunity meeting preparation. It's society's job, pushed by good liberals, of course, to create the opportunity. But it's up to the small actors, the parents, teachers, ministers, business people, and on to insist on the preparation.

Besides, ever since President Clinton's welfare reform, being a welfare 'ho' just ain't worth what it used to be.