It is fair to say that we will not see eye to eye on this subject. However, I believe that my many years of experience gives me the advantage.
Maybe there is something valid in Cosby's message, although, LeBron James and the host of teenage professional athletes who have become multi-millionaires might beg to differ, that still does not make the messenger any less irrelevant. Your claim that in the midst of all the turmoil in the inner-city classrooms some kids still manage to advance, only supports my view. For it smacks of intervention. Not the divine kind but that of a mature responsible adult, whether within or without the family. Someone had to see the humanity in those kids and choose it, over the material. And it is because seldom few in an American culture that upholds selfish materialism make that choice, that we are able to count on a few youths surviving and becoming acceptable to the Cosbys of this world.
Oprah Winfrey is building a school in Africa. How long before Oprah did Cosby make his millions?
Fidel Castro recently presented a plan to the Congressional Black Caucus to provide decent affordable healthcare to the poor. I doubt it would see the light of day. If a poor country like Cuba can provide first class education and healthcare to its citizens how much more can the CBC and BE 100 provide, if they had the desire?
Although, I disagree with the theology of David Robinson I have to admire him. He saw the need for early intervention and used his own salary to build an elementary school for disenfranchised kids. American public schools have been failing African-American kids for decades, its history is littered with pioneers who had to fight or leave the system in order to be effective teachers.
The Black bourgeois class turned blind and deaf and followed the white flight to the suburbs. Their kids are enrolled in private elementary schools or in lilly white suburban public schools.
How dare they criticize when they have done absolutely nothing to stem the tide.