Today the American-Black community is the envy of the world. The world is envious because introspection and self-criticism takes courage and requires insight that pierces. Both these traits have been possessed through the ages by court jesters and now displayed in all its glory by this comedic genius of Bill Cosby.

Today Bill Cosby is under attack by both Blacks and non Blacks but the most puzzling aspect is the opposition to Bill Cosby’s words from non-Blacks. What is wrong with a man addressing his beloved people? It is not like Hitler asking his Nazi Socialist Party to exterminate the Jews.

Yet, the socialists are afraid of outsiders hearing the critique even as Blacks are most comfortable with Cosby’s words. Socialists, Catholics, Muslims and Orthodox Jews don’t want to air their dirty laundry, they want to keep it within the “family” and they certainly don’t want anyone embarrassing them in front of the guests even if its Bill Cosby addressing a group of Protestant Blacks for lord knows, if the trend catches on then there is no stopping it.

If Bill Cosby is allowed to get away with critiquing his people, before you know it the people of China might begin questioning their socialist brethren on their human rights records. If Bill Cosby is allowed to hold a mirror to his people who is to say that tomorrow the Catholics of Ireland are not going to start questioning the IRA’s tactics? Who is to say what will happen to the immoral family systems prevalent in Southern Italy? If this continues the Muslims might start questioning their brethren for using Islam to spread violence from Palestine to Bosnia and the Philippine and the Jews might decide to stop mutilating their newborn children.

Introspection is enemy of all status quo. It was Martin Luther who shook Europe by nailing that mirror to the Church door, it was King Henry the Eighth who questioned divorce and broke off from Rome, it was Tom Paine and Jefferson and Voltaire who changed the world for the better. It was the self-criticism of the Germans and the Swiss that led to the Rights of Man, Bach’s introspective and harsh music and the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.

Expressing yourself no matter how harsh your words does not make you “inferior” nor does it make you “complexed” nor does it make you a “traitor” entitled to excommunication and exile. Men of intellect and expressive powers should not have to contend to with death sentences and edicts for looking inwards as is the case today with Salman Rushdie and Taslima Nasrin and thousands of poets, writers and artists who have hailed from the most medieval part of the world. Expressing yourself and what troubles your heart makes you great and Bill Cosby is one of the greatest.

Excerpts
"Let me tell you something, your dirty laundry gets out of school at 2:30 every day, it’s cursing and calling each other n------ as they’re walking up and down the street," – Cosby on allegations that he aired Black Community’s “Dirty Laundry”.
"They think they’re hip," the entertainer said. "They can’t read; they can’t write. They’re laughing and giggling, and they’re going nowhere."
Cosby denounced some blacks’ grammar and said those who commit crimes and wind up behind bars "are not political prisoners."
"I can’t even talk the way these people talk, ’Why you ain’t,’ ’Where you is’ ... and I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk," Cosby said then. "And then I heard the mother talk ... Everybody knows it’s important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can’t be a doctor with that kind of cra_p coming out of your mouth."
He castigated some blacks, saying that they cannot simply blame whites for problems such as teen pregnancy and high school dropout rates.
"For me there is a time ... when we have to turn the mirror around," he said. "Because for me it is almost analgesic to talk about what the white man is doing against us. And it keeps a person frozen in their seat, it keeps you frozen in your hole you’re sitting in."
Cosby lamented that the racial slurs once used by those who lynched blacks are now a favorite expression of black children. And he blamed parents.
"When you put on a record and that record is yelling ’n----- this and n----- that’ and you’ve got your little 6-year-old, 7-year-old sitting in the back seat of the car, those children hear that," he said.
He also condemned black men who missed out on opportunities and are now angry about their lives.
"You’ve got to stop beating up your women because you can’t find a job, because you didn’t want to get an education and now you’re (earning) minimum wage," Cosby said. "You should have thought more of yourself when you were in high school, when you had an opportunity."
"Bill is saying let’s fight the right fight, let’s level the playing field," Jackson said. "Drunk people can’t do that. Illiterate people can’t do that."