THE MICHAEL BROWN—BILL COSBY CONNECTION
Published December 9, 2014 | By YW | Edit
YA-O-O-O-W-L!!
THE MICHAEL BROWN—BILL COSBY CONNECTION
Michael Brown of Ferguson, Missouri, Eric Garner of NYC, the 12 year old (Black) boy waving a replica pistol shot dead on a playground by a white cop, the young (Black) father of two in a Wal Mart holding and looking at a toy gun to possibly purchase shot dead by white cops (summoned by a white patron), the newly released Justice Department finding that Cleveland cops routinely use too much force [Duh-h!], …
The sad unraveling of yet another Black man, a national icon, America’s “favorite dad”—William Henry “Bill” Cosby, Jr., a/k/a “The Cos.” (White America [and other colors] must be thinking, “Damn! If we can’t trust Bill Cosby, ….”)
A lot to Yowl about.
Is there a connection between 77 year old Bill Cosby and 18 year old Michael Brown?
Hang with The Yowling Wolf!
UP FRONT CONTEXT FACTS (WHAT IS, WHAT AIN’T) The Yowling Wolf ain’t about tiptoeing bullshit. The Yowling Wolf ain’t about sidestepping and sugar coating the truth. The Yowling Wolf is about THE TRUTH—un(effing)varnished!
So let The Wolf say this at the outset—6′ 4″ 290 pound, 18 year old Michael Brown was no angel. By all accounts, notably video showing him robbing cigarettes in a convenience store less than 30 minutes before he was shot, MICHAEL BROWN WAS A THUG! He might have been nice and smiling at other times to other folk—a “gentle giant,” a friendly teddy bear—, but when he reached in (white) officer Darren Wilson’s squad car and punched him in the face—Yes, he did!—he was a menacing, baleful, bad-ass, young black thug!
Michael Brown in thug mode would have scared The Wolf, he would have scared YOU, he would have scared his momma and poppa. If The Wolf had been packin’, Michael Brown would have been shot—more than once if necessary.
YES, the nation is experiencing a wearying drumbeat of often unarmed Black youth and men (and children) being shot and killed, often by white cops, sometimes by Black cops. It seems the successor to not-so-long-ago lynching by white mobs. There seem to be many more such incidents than The Wolf can recall in over six decades past, including the rebellious Sixties, when (legally) gun-toting Black Panthers and the Symbionese Liberation Army were in Whitey’s grill.
However, there is an obvious reason for the up tick, a reason un-addressed in the tiptoeing, cowardly (yes, often liberal) media. URBAN AMERICAN HOODS THESE DAYS ARE OFTEN POPULATED BY A POOR, BURGEONING BLACK UNDERCLASS, WHOSE YOUTH ARE MORE UNEMPLOYED, MORE HOPELESS, LESS LIKELY TO HAVE A FATHER IN THE HOME, MORE ANGRY, LESS LIKELY TO SEE A WORTHY BLACK ROLE MODEL FIRST HAND, MORE “I’M-GONNA-GET-PAID” ONE WAY OR ANOTHER (usually meaning a Black victim), THAN EVER BEFORE IN AMERICAN HISTORY.
The Black middle class, itself once confined to Black urban neighborhoods, there acting as both role model and tempering influence, is gone—long ago fled to the suburbs and safety. (And having fewer than two children! [As they selfishly indulge themselves and their prosperity? … A fit Yowl topic?!])
Celebrated both in poor, demoralized, Black urban hoods (as well as middle, even upper middle class Black [and white!] hoods), is hip-hop, pants-off-yo-ass, kill/subjugate-the-bitch, take-the-money, kick-some-ass, be-bad-ass, pop-a-cap-in-the-fool culture. (The latter—i.e., “fool”—being law-abiding marks. Meaning The wolf, probably you.)
YOUTH IN THESE HOODS—Michael Brown, his ilk—IS DANGEROUS … To any but their friends, relatives, and allies. (Often to them as well.) Cops, white and Black (and Asian and Latino), are the buffer between these young marauders and predators (celebrated for their BADNESS!),… and US—the law-abiding majority, the goodie two-shoes, the nice people who work for a living (Black, white, Asian, Latino, etc), the fools—the marks.*
[Yes. The Yowling Wolf is aware that we fools, marks, folk with employment (and discipline, manners, etc.), are likely fortunate to have grown up in more stable families, to have more education, etc.]
Black, white, whatever, MIDDLE CLASS (and up) FOLK DO NOT WANT THE MICHAEL BROWNS IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD! THE POLICE ARE THE BUFFER, THE LID ON THE CAULDRON. THEY PROTECT US. WE PAY THEM FOR THIS PURPOSE. WE WANT THEM TO SHOOT THE MICHAEL BROWNS IF NECESSARY! …
Yes we do! Own up to it! … Get effing real!
Except when a white cop shoots or kills a black man, thug or no (versus a Black cop), other passions, agendas, and story lines are unleashed. Damned if you do kill a Black man, damned if you don’t (and he kills or harms one of US).
Again. Please! Cut the crap! Stop the hypocrisy and distortion.
UNPLEASANT TRUTH HAVING BEEN FACED UP TO, …THE YOWLING WOLF DEPLORES THE SHOOTING, THE EXECUTION (!!) OF MICHAEL
BROWN. (Also the deaths of Eric Garner, the lad at the playground, the dad in a Wal Mart, and, hot off the press, in Arizona?—yet another unarmed Black man shot by a white cop.)
THE YOWLING WOLF DEPLORES ANY AND ALL KILLING! (However, The Wolf is also a realist. If dealing with, say, an “ISIS,” … A drone strike
may be the only appropriate option.)
Nor, in response to the chorus from white America—”Can’t you (Black folk) find a more deserving victim to protest about?!”—, is Michael Brown unfit as symbol and catalyst for what is wrong in police-(Black) community relations, and the need for mending and change.
Thug or no, Michael Brown did not deserve to be riddled with bullets, execution style. He did not deserve to have his body lie blood-soaked, unattended in the street for four hours! (As an example to the Ferguson, Missouri Black community? … As a literal stain onA merica’s image in the view of a critical World.)
Michael Brown will do nicely as symbol and catalyst. His life is owed at least that.
The Yowling Wolf notes, however, that of equal, if not greater concern is the grievous injustices perpetrated upon wholly innocent Black youth and men in Black urban communities—in the many hundreds—with seeming impunity, to this very day.**
No question, but lynching of Black men under color of Law continues in America!
THE MICHAEL BROWN—BILL COSBY CONNECTION First off, BILL COSBY WAS AND IS CORRECT! …
IIN CONDEMNING THE CULTURE PROMOTED BY THE LIKES OF JAY-Z (onetime thug of the first order, and proud of it!), and embraced by the American mainstream, white as well as Black, and especially capitalism (which, conscienceless, supports anything that sells. [Yowl topic?]).
IN CONDEMNING THE CULTURE THAT PRODUCED MICHAEL BROWN and probably ensured his demise. (Killed him as surely as police bullets!)
While enriching proponents—rappers, their entourages and hangers-on, their producers, the manufacturers and marketers of their spin-off product lines—hip-hop, thug culture impoverishes Black urban youth. It sucks dollars they don’t have from their pockets (that they get where?!). It poisons the spirit of kindness and compassion toward others and toward oneself. It ridicules and derails modest behavior and ambition (the path to unglamorous, but productive, law-abiding,
fulfilling life work).
Just as Michael Jordan, Lebron, and KD distort focus and realistic ambition with the pipe dream of an NBA career (ditto NFL stars), while at the same time vulturing urban youth with the imperative of $150 athletic shoes, so rappers and drug dealers (they are much the same!) foist an even more negative attitude and unreality on the same target. ($400 FUBU wear for school indeed! Better a pen, paper, and a few
computer skills!)
That’s one connection between Michael Brown and Bill Cosby.
Also, it seems, WILLIAM HENRY “BILL” COSBY, JR, himself a 6′ 1″strapping youth when growing up in the then more peaceful, working and middle class Black urban (Philly) hood (later a track star and varsity fullback at Temple University), DOWN DEEP, STRIPPED OF LAYERS OF SMILES, BONHOMIE, POLISH, SOPHISTICATION, AND WEALTH, IS/WAS, AT LEAST AT TIMES (if reports of 12, 18?, or more women are to be believed) …
ALSO A THUG!
They have that in common.
MICHAEL BROWN AND BILL COSBY AS VICTIMS OF RACISM The Wolf, as will be set forth presently, is not a proponent of the race card as excuse for failings and misdeeds. Mostly, in The Wolf’s view, GET OVER IT, GET ON WITH IT!—One’s life, that is. Nevertheless, there are commonalities between Michael Brown and Bill Cosby, both Black male products of an upbringing adversely impacted by race.
The adverse impact on Michael Brown is more easily seen—poor Black community, limited opportunity, hopelessness, anger, the usual.
The adverse impact on William Henry Cosby, Jr. is less easily perceived. However, what is certain for a Black person, especially male, growing up in the 1940’s, 50’s, and 60’s in America—North, South, East, West—, is that a sharp racial divide disadvantaging Blacks was an omnipresent fact of life.
If the smiling, avuncular “Cos” came to epitomize the Nice Negro, the Acceptable Black, the if-only-all-Blacks-were-like-Doctor-Huxtable-there-would-be-no-problem, potential Negro neighbor, what is certain is that early in his career he learned to tone down, indeed extinguish any vestige of the anger and resentment any intelligent, thinking, especially educated Black man of his era inevitably had to feel after a lifetime of slights—not being served at a restaurant, or being served slowly or begrudgingly; being bypassed by a cab; being discriminated in the job market, buying a house, buying a car, and on and on.
Everyone knows comedians, Black, white, or other, typically harbor insecurity, anger, psychological torment. It is safe to surmise that beneath smiles and jovial manner, The Cos harbored darker emotions, including, if not always, racial anger and insecurity.
Michael Brown’s anger was worn on his sleeve. Bill Cosby’s was/is deeper, well concealed. Both men’s anger can be traced directly back to race. Both men’s anger found expression to their severe detriment. They had that in common.
It may be noted that an advantage Bill Cosby had was growing up in a community with examples all around of middle class Black traditional advancement—business, medicine, law, education, the trades. As a result, Bill Cosby believes deeply in education. He and his wife have established numerous scholarships for Black youth.
As a result, Bill Cosby correctly decries urban Black youth culture and behavior that is antithetical to advancement (for other than those who foist and profit from it).
It bears repeating—BILL COSBY IS NOT WRONG! Do as the man says, no matter his personal foibles and failing. (A very sad ending unfolding to a stellar career.)
WHAT NOW, GOING FORWARD?—SOLUTIONS
The Yowling Wolf does not aspire to, nor intend to simply expose and take shots at prevailing problems and bullshit.
The Yowling Wolf wants, always, to be constructive, to offer solutions. Thus, …
First, NO REMAKING, NO TAMPERING WITH THE GRAND JURY SYSTEM!
[Full disclosure. The Yowling Wolf was once a prosecutor! Yes! Both federal— suing, defending on behalf of federal agencies and the United States Department of Justice (civil prosecutor)—, also county level, criminal prosecutor in (at the time crime-ridden) Brooklyn, similar to prosecutors in Ferguson and Staten Island. The Wolf knows cops first hand, and the criminal justice system.*** Yes, The Wolf is a lawyer. Or used to be.]
The grand jury, same as a “petit jury” (the [non-secret] one in a courtroom at trial) is a bulwark of our nation Under Law (not dictatorship). The grand and petit jury—an accused individual’s peers judging and deciding, versus, say, an appointee of the ruler—is a critical defense against overreaching by government authority.
Not that juries cannot and have not committed grave injustice. A grand jury is akin to an orchestra. The prosecutor is the conductor. The proposed defendant—officer Darren Wilson, for example—is not present, nor his defense attorney. Only the prosecutor and the witnesses the prosecutor chooses. So, sure. A prosecutor can (easily) steer a grand jury to an indictment, or no. The prosecutor has wide discretion, therefore great power.
However, three Black Americans were on the Darren Wilson grand jury. Perhaps there should have been more. Perhaps the (white) prosecutor, whose father was a police officer killed in the line of duty by a Black man, should have recused himself. By not doing so, he opened the process to question. He said, in effect, “Trust my impartiality,” and that was likely error. However, he is an elected official. He is accountable.
GO TO THE POLLS BLACK VOTERS OF THE COUNTY!
No system is perfect, as men are not perfect. However, to remove the say and power from the hands of one’s fellow citizens, one’s peers, is a mistake. What needs to be changed is not the grand jury system, but minds and hearts of one’s fellow citizens, and perhaps change the prosecutor. A world of difference in the lives of predominantly men of color falsely accused and incarcerated has been made in both Dallas and Brooklyn by the election of a Black district attorney (the chief prosecutor).
GO TO THE POLLS BLACK VOTERS OF THE COUNTY!
[NOTE. The Yowling Wolf knew from the git that officers in both Ferguson and Staten Island would not be indicted. The criminal standard for conviction—beyond a reasonable doubt—is a high bar. The American criminal (and civil) justice system is one of America’s crowning glories and the envy of many in the World. It is also a hugely expensive luxury. Taxpayer money cannot be wasted on prosecutions that will go nowhere. READ THE CONSTITUTION! LEARN ABOUT YOUR MARVELOUSLY CONCEIVED LEGAL AND GOVERNING SYSTEM, FELLOW CITIZENS! Be in no hurry to change it, despite current setbacks.]
Second, NO BULLSHIT , NO WHITEWASHING (pun intended) RESPECTING ROOT CAUSES OF THE PROBLEM! Forget white racism! Okay, never forget it. (It exists; it has an adverse effect.) However, respecting communities such as Ferguson, Missouri, they are under the microscope so far as police behavior is concerned. If not, in this age of instant Internet and other awareness, they can easily be placed under the microscope.
BILL COSBY IS STILL CORRECT! Hip-hop, thug culture and all its accoutrements must be unequivocally condemned. Bad, bad, bad for poor urban youth, for any youth! Can lead to being shot by both white AND black cops! (Do what I say, not what I do? Sometimes hypocrisy in the messenger should be overlooked.)
Thus, EFF YOU JAY-Z! … What you stand for, what you believe in, all your wannabes!
[No, no, no! The Yowling Wolf does not mean ban rap lyrics and thug posturing (that suburban Black and white boys also affect). Such (wouldn’t work anyway) would make the lyrics and behavior more attractive as forbidden fruit.
Rather, RIDICULE, BELITTLE THUG-RAPPER CULTURE AS A LOSER/SUCKER PLAY IN A COMPETITIVE GLOBAL WORLD.
Freedom of expression, the marketplace of ideas is yet another great feature of American life. Time, simply, to show America’s feckless youth, of all colors, what the competition globally is up to, and how and why most American youth, and surely those in the urban hood, are falling far behind.]
Third, SHUCK THE I-AM-A-VICTIM-OF-RACISM CHIP! (Well, yes, you are, … And of poverty, no model of a working parent, no father, no this, no that, … Same as the Bangladeshi or Afghan [fill in the blank] refugee kid who came to your broken school speaking no English, and is now graduating as valedictorian with a full scholarship to Yale.)
All of it can be overcome!
AT LEAST STRIVE TO SET ASIDE THE VICTIM, WOE-IS-ME ATTITUDE (because it is altogether an impediment to advancement).
At the risk of being labelled racist (or whatever), The Yowling Wolf, having unabashedly pushed (lashed?) his three children through a minimal-back-talk, no whining childhood (aided by his up-from-little wife/partner), will describe an all-time favorite cartoon.
Imagine two panels. The first shows a (Caucasian-appearing) neighbor saying to another, “Congratulations! Heard your daughter made the Ivies. What’s your secret?” In the next, “We raised her like an Asian child.”
[Simple, yet complex, challenging, rewarding, difficult, requires devotion. Get off the couch, put away the Ipad, pay attention. Partner with teachers, whether urban or ultra costly school. Involve relatives. Perceive abilities. Encourage, demand, adjust. Know that confidence derives from achievement, and all can achieve. If
daughters, one should not hear on a Friday afternoon, “Wonder what (the guys) are doing tonight?” IT IS NOW ABOUT THEM AND THEIR FUTURE, NOT YOU! (The Yowling Wolf is with you Tiger Mom! Full of approval and admiration!)
The Wolf has long thought it a wise investment of funds to transport wayward urban youth (of any color) to, say, the Yugoslavian countryside or some similar place. Let them see, experience true privation firsthand, … experienced by whites! Let them live there for six months with no running water and an outside latrine. Feed pigs, till the soil. DO HARD LABOR!
Or send them to parts of Africa or South America for the same lesson.
Sort of like the transformative, broadening experience of Malcom X going to Mecca, and Muhammad Ali and other Blacks, who abandoned a blanket notion of Whites as evil, privileged, and necessarily prejudiced, when they travelled to remote parts of Europe and the Middle East.
No question, but immigrants come to America poor, but tougher and with the right stuff. TIME TO AFFIRM VALUES AND HABITS IMMIGRANTS BRING
WITH THEM. TIME TO ESCHEW CREDIT-CARD CULTURE OF SPEND AND INDULGE. (Eff the GNP!)
Time to re-emphasize traditional virtues—hard work, delay of gratification, sacrifice, discipline! TIME TO ESCHEW EVERYTHING CURRENT SOFT, CODDLING, YOU’RE-GREAT-BECAUSE-I-SAY-YOU’RE-GREAT CULTURE PROMOTES.
(I.e., repeat after me [American youth], “I AM GREAT!” Say it! … And it is so?…)
[OMG! Is The Wolf a closet republican?!
No. Because republicans, for all their sanctimonious rhetoric, are all about cutting corners and lapping at the public trough. It’s a (modern) American thing! They, too, want something for nothing. They hate competing with the rest of the world … fairly.
Course, liberals sho nuf need curbing as well!]
No question, but if urban youth get an attitude makeover, understand that, YES, LIFE IS UNFAIR! GET OVER IT!, there is less likelihood of being shot by a cop!
OUR JOB, AMERICA, IS TO ASSIST—be big brothers, etc.—BUT NOT TO CODDLE WITH EXCUSES. As is said in the hood (or was), “LET’S KEEP IT REAL!”
Straight up! YA-O-O-O-W-L!
* It may be noted that one reason for The Yowling Wolf leaving Brooklyn in (crime-ridden) 1989 (before Brooklyn became chi-chi) was realizing he might be confronted by a 13 year old (Black) thug with a gun, … And not reacting appropriately—i.e., giving up the wallet without hesitation, without making eye contact.
** Recently (November, 2014), somewhat under the radar of the Michael Brown/Bill Cosby hoo ha ha, one Ricky Jackson, age 57, and one Wiley Bridgeman, age 60, were released from a Ohio prison after 39 YEARS BEHIND BARS!!! … FOR SOMETHING THEY DIDN’T DO!!! Twelve years earlier Wiley’s younger brother, Ronnie, now Kwame Ajamu, age 57, falsely accused of the same murder, was released on parole.
Mr. Jackson and Mr. Bridgeman, Black men (The Yowling Wolf is tempted, cynically, to say, “Naturally!”), reportedly walked into the crisp, damp. cloudy Cleveland air [always damp and cloudy in Cleveland. isn’t it? … in November?] as free men. It may, … no, MUST be noted that both Jackson and Bridgewater were offered plea deals to avoid the death sentence, but declined. They protested their innocence at all times. The only reason they are alive is they were not convicted in Texas, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, or another “red” (also former confederate) state, where appealing a death sentence is given short shrift.
The men were convicted in 1975. Ohio itself, where dedicated liberals and humanitarians have resided and acted in good will since well before the Civil War, declared its death penalty unconstitutional in 1978, just 20 days before one of these innocent men was scheduled to be executed. Moreover, the delay that got him to just beyond his scheduled demise was owing to a “paper screw up” involving one of his appeals.
Vagaries, happenstance under the Rule of Law in America! (Which, yes, it must be conceded, is a whole lot more advanced than most any other nation in the world.) The same as Michael Brown, these men were very young, two of them teenagers (18) when ensnared (noosed?) by America’s arm for keeping bad guys, meaning, especially, Black folk acting up, and especially angry (because poor, neglected, unemployed, devalued, hopeless) Black teenaged males not just at bay, but underfoot. …Indeed, firmly under the heel—I.e., police (Black as well as white), and ambitious (mostly white) prosecutors.
*** And The Wolf tried to do some good. Yes. The Wolf always had conscience and mojo. The Wolf reasoned more good could be done by a brothah on the prosecution side than defense. (Prosecutors help judges control the criminal docket. Police answer to them [very meekly]. Lots of discretionary power.)
As a lowly newcomer (in an office of over 300 lawyers!), The Wolf upbraided superiors for entrapping and criminalizing minority folk with no prior arrest record by posing decoy, apparent-asleep drunks with easy-to-grab dollar bills hanging from a pocket in subways. (Very very effective way to ensnare the momentarily weak willed!) Office policy was changed as a result to permit previous clean-record folk to have the blemish removed after six months of no further offense. The
Wolf presented in a grand jury(!!). Got a Cuban immigrant apartment super, harrassed by Benson Hurst Italian white toughs (think Saturday Night Fever), who brandished and fired a starter’s pistol to scare them off and was charged with attempted murder, off. … No True Bill! Same as Michael Brown’s slayer.
However, woe the prosecutor who begs to differ, who thinks even-handed justice, not the conviction percentage is what matters. There is no future for such a person in the typical prosecutor’s office, however much his actions may be publicly applauded (as The Wolf’s were).
Better move on.