Our Purpose: Respond to Cosby

Our purpose is to consider a response to Bill Cosby’s recent campaign to revive a culture of personal and parental responsibility, especially in poor communities. Cosby is a comedian but he is making people mad. He is a consummate entertainer but is decidedly not attempting to amuse us now. He has indicted some African American adults for accepting a culture of mediocrity, materialism, and moral indifference. He has scolded the churches for failing to regard this crisis as a threat significant enough to radically change business as usual. He has chastised the American middle class and institutions of civil society for not being sufficiently angry to coalesce and change this situation. He acknowledges that government and the market could do more to support fragile families and promote better citizenship, but he places the weight of his analysis on individual and community self determination. In essence, the wonderful statement made by Rabbi Joachim Prinz at the historic March on Washington in 1963 captures Cosby’s outlook. In reference to the holocaust, to slavery and other historical outrages, Rabbi Prinz declared, “few were guilty, all are responsible.”