Faking The Funk - Huxtable Style

In an article on BlackCommentator.com, Dr. Mark Lamont Hill takes Bill Cosby to task for his apparent denunciation of anything and all that is urban-centered. It is an excellent article and gives its readers a microcosmic insight on the chasm sized dichotomy that exists between what I shall now term The Cosby Generation and their apparent nemesis, the Hip-Hop Generation. Hopefully I can shed some light on what I believe is the root cause of this schism.

The problem (as I see it) lies primarily with the Cosby Generation and other liked minded individuals insistence on verbally assaulting the urban poor while either ignoring or not fully "overstanding" the issues that Urban America is dealing with. It’s as if there is some type of disconnect between the reality that is Urban America and the causes that brought Urban America to its current reality.

The causes that precipated the reality that is post-modern Urban America lies directly at the feet of and primarily resulted from The Cosby generation abandonment (physical and social) of the Urban African American Community shortly after the various Civil Rights bills were passed by Congress and signed into law in 1964 and 1965. During the decade of the 60's, 70's, and 80's, urban flight by African Americans precipitated the destruction of historical black communities. Jobs, schools, and businesses left urban communities in droves.

After the Black Exodus, what were then large pockets of poverty spread throughout and eventually became entrenched within urban America. At the same time that this was happening, African Americans who were able to take advantage of the few crumbs that integration and affirmative action programs had to offer forgot about or ignored what was happening in Urban America. The brothers and sisters within our poorer communities were essentially left to fend for themselves with no infrastructure and with absolutely no support from the greater African American community.

This poverty was exacerbated by a welfare program which was a de facto money machine that created free multiple streams of income primarily to African American women to a.) Stay single, b.) become totally dependent upon the government for their needs and c.) have children out of wedlock. We are now witnessing the results of urban black flight and the welfare system; and that is widespread ignorance, mayhem and violence within and against our own people by our own people.

What is remarkable is that our urban brothers and sisters had enough moxie and determination to make it through relatively intact despite all of the above and the dysfunction found within Urban America. They created their own variant of the English language which we misnomer Ebonics. They created a globally accepted, lucrative, and often copied musical art form called Hip-Hop. They became highly expressive in giving their children a distinct and unmistakable identity with names like Shenikua, Latavia-Deshell, Shaheem and Royhame. They did all of this in spite of being abandoned by their educated and upwardly mobile African American brothers and sisters.

The question that should be asked is what was Bill Cosby and others in his generation doing when our poorer communities were being ripped to shreds by the Post Civil-Rights Black Exodus? What were these folks doing when schools were closing in Urban America and valuable educational resources were being shipped to suburbia? What advice, programs, or support, were they giving to the young teen aged girls who were contemplating or actually bringing out of wedlock babies into this world? And which Black celebrities, ministers, counselors, or so called black leaders were mentoring the young men that were impregnating and then abandoning these young girls? The Cosby Generation failed our communities when we needed the most help. And now they want to complain about and bemoan the results of their failure? That is the lowest form of hypocrisy in my book!