Is Bill Cosby Right?: Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind

Dyson, Michael Eric

ISBN 10: 0465017193 / ISBN 13: 9780465017195

Published by Basic Civitas Books, 2005

About this Item

Item in very good condition! Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc.

Seller Inventory # 00085503599

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Is Bill Cosby Right?: Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind
• Publisher: Basic Civitas Books
• Publication Date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0465017193
• ISBN 13: 9780465017195
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

The acclaimed "hip hop intellectual" exposes the raw nerve of class and generational warfare in black America with this provocative defence of impoverished African Americans Nothing exposed the class and generational divide in black America more starkly than Bill Cosby's assault on the black poor in spring 2004 - an attack which has become infamous throughout America. The comedian-cum-social critic lamented the lack of parenting, poor academic performance, sexual promiscuity and criminal behaviour among what he called the "knuckle-heads" of the African American community. Even more surprising than his comments, however, was the fact that his audience laughed and applauded. Best-selling writer, preacher and scholar Michael Eric Dyson uses the Cosby brouhaha as a window on a growing cultural divide within the African-American community. According to Dyson, the "Afristocracy" - lawyers, doctors, intellectuals, bankers, civil rights leaders, entertainers and other professionals - looks with disdain upon the black poor who make up the "Ghettocracy" - single mothers on benefits, the married, single and working poor, the incarcerated and a battalion of impoverished children. Dyson explains why the black middle class has joined mainstream America to blame the poor rather than tackling the systemic injustices that shape their lives. He exposes the flawed logic of Cosby's diatribe and offers a principled defence of the wrongly maligned black citizens at the bottom of the social totem pole. Displaying the critical prowess that has made him the nation's pre-eminent spokesman for the hip-hop generation, Dyson challenges us all - black and white - to confront the social problems that the civil rights movement failed to solve.

About the Author

Michael Eric Dyson is the author of the best-selling Mercy, Mercy Me: The Art, Loves & Demons of Marvin Gaye and I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King Jr. Now Professor of Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania, he lives in Philadelphia, USA.