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Ron Jackson's Perspective
Ebony Voices
June 1, 2004
Bill Cosby could
say much more |
Ebony Voices
Ron has begun submitting
articles & editorials for online publication at Ebony Voices.
We plan to make these documents available on Ron's website, since we
cannot link you to his material on their site. |
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The hoopla over Bill
Cosby’s poignant public pondering about a specific class of blacks
has subsided. Now is a good time for Bill or anyone to say so
much more.
There are other sects of the black community that
should be noted for their contribution to the decline of black
America. Most notably, when speaking of parents of black
children, church-going parents are not holding up their end of the
deal, especially black preachers.
It’s not a secret. Black church-going folks have
the most ill-behaved kids in town. Everybody knows some
preacher’s kid who is the town hell raiser. When folks in the
church get a title like deacon, usher, board member, church van
driver, choir director, or Sunday school teacher, oh Lawd, look out.
It suddenly becomes their sole function to discipline everybody
else’s kids but their own.
Church titleholders can tell you how short your
16-year-old daughter’s dress is, but they won’t admit their own
child is selling dope or sleeping with the deacon’s son or the
deacon.
Have you ever noticed church kids at the local
all-you-can-eat diner on a Sunday afternoon? Of course you’ve dined
with dressed up Ba-bay kids running around the place like they own
it. Although there are several signs on the wall that state children
under age 10 must be accompanied by an adult, little sneezing,
snot-dripping, undisciplined runts are sticking their dirty fingers
in the peach cobbler, touching tomatoes then putting them back on
the platter, coughing all over the macaroni-n-cheese, and touching
every fork in the dispenser. During this time, the adult in
the group is too busy stacking her plate to notice what is going on.
Thinking all-you-can-eat means all
you-can-pile-on-your-plate, they fill their plates and then decide
they don’t want it, returning for another plate full of sweets.
On the way back, they drop cookies and Jell-O all over the floor as
they bump into other patrons and staff without saying excuse me.
After stuffing themselves, they turn the joint into a playground,
using the Walk-Don’t Run sign as first base, while the adults in the
group discuss all those “bad” kids at the junior high.
As the adults enjoy their meal, the little destructive
devils run rampant. Everyone else in the place seems to notice
this but the parents. The wait staff follows behind them
picking up their constant mess, too afraid to say anything out of
fear of a racial discrimination suit.
When it’s time to leave, someone with an irritating,
altar call sounding voice yells across the establishment for each
kid by name. Sure enough, more than one of them will grab a
handful of cookies on the way out, although the rules don’t permit
this. Their area is left a mess with wasted food all over the
table and just as much on the floor, and not one copper-coated penny
left as a tip.
Cosby also commented on how many blacks are in the
prison system. Well, a lot of them grew up in the church, and
many of them were fathered by preachers. Oh, yes, many a black
preacher’s kid has made crime a career choice, and every “playa” in
the hood knows the preacher’s daughter is prime picking when the
Rev. Daddy ain’t around.
Bill Cosby could make a new album talking about black
folks who ain’t holding up their end of the deal. There are
thousands of black churches that have decades-old building funds and
just as old red carpet with no building permit or plans and no
education fund. There are the black landlords who will rent
property in poor conditions in communities where they wouldn’t live,
teachers who will teach in public inner-city schools but send their
kids to private schools, and the uppity entrepreneur who plays golf
at the country club but won’t mentor or tutor a youngster from the
old neighborhood. Let’s not forget about the articulate
African-American who thinks nothing of sharing his cell phone
conversation with the entire restaurant or movie theater.
This implied “deal” of the black American community
consists of many partners. It’s not just the poor folks who
are not pulling their weight. |
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