The Cos: "Mr. Dyson is not a truthful man."

And Dyson's not a hustler, and it pisses me off when people say this about academics who circle around African-American studies, because part of what's fascinating about the whole field is that it's an academic specialty that's actually of personal interest to lots of non-academic black people, which means that people like Dyson and West and Gates run an interesting double duty in terms of maintaining academic work while at the same time actually trying to bring that work to laymen outside that circle -- that's not hustling, that is in fact something most people spend a lot of time hand-wringing and wondering why academia can't accomplish.

Dyson's also perfectly right, in large part because he's talking from a whole different role as Cosby. Cosby takes the role of an angry coach, telling folks to shut up and get in the game and win, no excuses. And that makes Dyson's role a lot more like color commentary: explaining why sometimes the team isn't winning, and explaining something Cosby could never address flat-out -- the question of why his conception of getting in the game and winning seems to hold a lesser (or at least more complicated) appeal to people of younger generations. The funny thing is that both of these viewpoints can mesh very handily -- it's actually really easy to find people for whom understanding the kind of stuff that Dyson talks about leads to exactly the kind of motivation and will that Cosby's cheerleading for.

Unfortunately, instead of addressing that, they both seem to circle around details that aren't really the issue, and make both of them look bad to the other's idea-base. Cosby's apparently too old to go distinguishing light cultural signifiers (like baggy clothes and, sometimes, slang) with actual lack of will and motivation, in a way that's purely time-based. (Though clothes are interesting here, because Cosby's from a whole generation of black people who spend half their lives overdressing to prove their own dignity to others.) And Cosby's easy to pick on around this point, the way he's had his black culture and isn't interested in letting the young folks have theirs until they've accomplished the things he's been waiting on.

But really, in the end there's no reason the crotchety straight-talking old-man exhortations can't fit perfectly with the inquisitive more relativist probing of someone like Dyson -- who, if you asked him about the practical everyday things he'd like to see black people accomplishing, would surely say the same stuff as Cosby: get educated, be economically successful, have strong communities and families; everyone agrees on the script.

And Dyson's kind of right that Cosby of all people should sort of understand that -- he's right to bring up Fat Albert, which you could easily see as having to do with that burden lifting, and the celebratory (and just as often exploitative) black culture of the 70s. I mean, this was Cosby being able to offer a vision of "black culture" that wasn't self-consciously proving its own dignity, right? (Versus, ha, I Spy?)

Nabisco, I've wondered before: are you black? Because you're all over every racial post offering your insights into black psychology. I'm hoping you are and not some cracka upper middle class african american studies major.

http://neon.mems.cmu.edu/photoalbum/images/Picnic%202_jpg.jpg

nabisco on the right, spencer on the left.

I mean, if you're just pissed that I called you a jerk for calling Cosby nuts, I'd suggest that you take that "jerk" about as lightly and non-personally as you'd want Cosby to take your "nuts" -- i.e., no big.

but seriously: Cosby is a little unhinged. Most comedians are. And come on, have you seen any of Dyson's appearances on Politically Incorrect or Bill Mahar? The guy's full of it, a blowhard who oozes meglomania, who pays more attention the cadence of his language than the actual content.

and nabisco, I have a bug up my ass about you jumping to a conclusions because I think Cosby's gone dotty in his autumn years.

xpost Shookout I didn't jump to any conclusions other than I disagree with you and I think you're a jerk for saying that -- Cosby's views on this aren't particularly different from a hell of a lot of black people his age, so if you think they're nuts you're attacking a pretty broad strain of thought.

I think you're greatly over-estimating Dyson's intellectual contribution. My problem with him has nothing to do with whether or not he's a professor, it's just that what he SAYS is usually not that deep or interesting.

(Which, by the way: I'm not "overestimating" Dyson, I'm saying I don't see anything in his professional history that makes me take any less seriously the arguments he's making on this immediate topic -- as a person to speak here I really don't see what in his history makes him any more shallow or blowhardy than any of the other folks who regularly talk about these things.)

/oldthreadref

exactly! see "fat abbot" from south park.

How apt, given the forthcoming DVD release of this. (His character was a more laidback coach, though.)

Shout! Factory Reintroduces Everyone's Favorite Phys Ed Teacher

THE BILL COSBY SHOW (1969-71)

http://www.tvparty.com/bgifs7/cosbyshow1.jpg

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=5600