Prometheus 6

Which is to say don't think this is some kind of victory. The one potential benefit that actually materialized from the Imus mess was the widespread recognition that Black people have been trying to deal with the ills of the communities all along. The only change this represents is that it's getting some press.

Apparently, if the Michael Vick case is any indication, you have to be a dog to get anyone to care. If you want jail time, kill a dog.

But black folks? Nobody seems to care that they are being killed every day. There's no outrage from our public officials, not from our residents, not even from the disproportionate number of African American men the violence affects.

But the unfair rhetoric continues, especially when Dr. Cosby is in the story.

There was outrage; it became resignation. The police are as untrusting as they are untrusted. The community has no support from the legal system. I mean, we're talking Philly, the city that bombed MOVE. And I don't know if that's the extreme example or if Jena, LA is. And talk all you want about morality as long as you recognize X-class ethics require X-class wealth and lifestyle. 

In the absence of a legal/semantic-based power structure, the default is a physical/somatic-based power structure. People in this situation must respond to physical need and threat in order to respond to sematic enticements. And to respond to those sematic enticements they have only the resources left to them after dealing with the physical stuff.

How do you get people to commit to the sematic structure? By insulating them from the somatic one. This is also called "buying them off" and it worked great on white folks after World War II.

This is not what Dr. Cosby is championing. His position is, in essence, to make the most of what you have...and who can argue with that? As an answer for the Black communities though, it's incomplete, as would be whatever other response you try if you get rid of the "Cosby component."