The most interesting aspect of “Cosbygate” the controversial comments Bill Cosby made to the NAACP is the white media’s interest. It is as if Cosby’s comments provide them some sort of relief. I imagine their thoughts ‘…wow thanks somebody said what we have been thinking about black people … what they need to do for themselves’ as if to absolve some sort of entrenched historical guilt associated with slavery, lynchings, and segregation. Even if they were not born then, they are the inheritors of a society in which they do not even see their privilege. These are the same people who see affirmative action as more of annoyance than a necessity, which in its absence would restore America to an essential ‘whites only’ workplace and universities regardless of the qualified Black and Hispanic applicants.

Min. Louis Farrakhan has stated on many occasions for the need for black America to cure the ills it can control from within. Overcoming over a century of poverty and impoverished thinking isn’t so easy. A society and social structure that unconsciously tells you that you are worthless, an education system that is not only under funded but still teaches unapologetic eurocentrism, it all adds up to crime, drug dealing, teen age pregnancy, killing each other. Its all a cycle, a vicious paradigm, a racial caste system that we did not create.

This is not to acknowledge the millions of African Americans who overcame these odds, and became engineers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, nurses and secretaries and even those who became a part of the commonly accepted role of African Americans as entertainers, comedians and athletes.

But in this election year personal responsibility in the black community has become an issue. Barrack Obama mentioned in his great speech that we in the black community need to dispel the notion that a black kid with a book is acting white, that ignorant thinking is destructive and deadly. The civil war which Chris Rock once deemed “black people versus Niggaz” has indeed hit mainstream America. A segment of the black community that idolizes a mythical thug life (not as Tupac would prefer based on knowledge of self, and defense of the black community) but based on drug dealing, robbing, stealing and killing of other black people with the promise of shiny things like in rap videos must finally be dealt with by the community. But what also must be dealt with is the unlawful killing and beating of unarmed black people by police departments throughout this country.

Cosby is right in many respects to many parents do not know where their kids are and what they are doing. This was unheard of 20 years ago. But what is different about this generation of African Americans is that they have grown up in an era of crack cocaine and gang violence which has resulted in the deaths of thousands of African Americans in the past 15 years. In many of these communities hope is not only gone it left many years ago. It is up to us to reclaim that hope in the unseen America’s Dad has thrown down the gauntlet it is up to all of us to rise to the challenge and reclaim all of our children.