Even Beneath the Haze, Blacks Used to Do Better

“The difference between then and now is not a matter of either/or, but of degree. Nobody thinks old-time, black culture was a “fount of virtue,” as Coates has it. But there is a stark degree difference between what poor black communities were like before the 60s, and since then.

“This is not mere historiographical hair-splitting, because the charge that Cosby is indulging in nostalgia has larger implications. Cosby’s central point is that what’s happening in black America today can’t be linked to racism, since racism has been receding since the 60s. He thinks, therefore, that we are faced with a cultural problem.

“The objection that old black communities were just like new ones is an attempt to refute that cultural argument. The idea is that black people’s problem back in the day was racism (upon which we all agree), and that if black people today are just doing the same stuff their great-grandparents were doing, then the main problem today is racism too.