TA-NEHISI COATES COMMENTARY: Ebonics! Weird Names! $500 Shoes!

Commentary (Village Voice)

The ultra-liberal Mr. Coates slams Bill Cosby's controversial comments about some low-income blacks at last week's NAACP dinner, calling it a "classist diatribe" and "condescending lessons on ethics and etiquette." Yet he says we're not to be surprised by Cos's comments, as "over the past couple of decades, he's played one ugly role that his activist friends like to ignore--patron saint of black elitists."

We believe Mr. Coates is way off base about Cos, because he told the truth. It is classist to not preach what one practices, which is what "leaders" regularly do by tooting the victimology horn -- believing ordinary folks to be incapable of changing their actions -- when their own lives were forged through hard work, perseverance, and creativity. Where we do agree with Mr. Coates is his following quote: "The civil rights crowd has had a rough 30 years as the old tactics of marching and boycotting have come up lame. Its leaders, like Cosby himself, are in winter, and having beaten Bull Connerism, they now stand befuddled and silenced before their greatest new adversary--class. Race still matters, but largely the problems of black people today are the problems of poor people."