i have had moments of wanting to hide under the seat on the bus , when a group of black kids get on, and in a bus loaded with mostly whites and latinos, begin filling the air with mothafucka-n-word style - loud! - patter, partly calling attention to themselves this way because they are denied what a previous generation may have had...and that is a far more conservative and self respecting, at least in language, home style that was carried into public...
things have grown much worse over the years...i grew up in the projects, what seems like hundreds of years ago, in what used to be called east harlem, and in those days, no kid would dream of speaking the way kids do now...i'm talking about black kids, and these/we were project dwelling, working class folks, not educated class, middle or upper middles, obviously...
but the savagery of the most recent social-political-economic reality has made the projects far, far worse, far more segregated, far more mothers without fathers, and the people confined to them far more cut off from anything remotely mainstream - except when they watch tv - and this is dealt with by market culture by glorifying the most dreadful aspects of ghetto life, and making it a palatable commodity for silly white wannabes from the suburbs...
but the fact remains that a host of people are being shafted by white racism, and they'd be far better off if the black muslims stepped in to offer them some form of discipline and organization, which is to be almost prayed for, unless the cosby class steps in and follows up its criticism with some action to offer something substantial in the way of help, guidance, role models, rather than simply mouth off...
but his mouth will help in the long run, even if dumbass whites and their black servant class treat him simply as politically incorrect...too many kids and young people have absolutely nothing in their lives to indicate that there is any other way but degradation, and the class that left the ghetto, or was never there in the first place, has been almost totally useless for them...maybe, up to now, because of his big mouth and small, relatively, perspective...
fs