Heard the one about …?

Most Americans familiar with Bill Cosby consider him a jokester, a reasonable characterization considering our knowledge base of him springs from his stand-up comedy or his notable sitcom successes. So when Bill Cosby began speaking out ever so seriously recently about America’s social pathologies, people didn’t know whether to applaud with laughter or bow their heads in middle-class shame.

Disclaimers and explanations flew across thecountry quicker than you can say Heathcliff Huxtable, with editors and producers handing out the same assignment: Create a controversy where there was none.

If you read what Mr. Cosby said, you can easily get his drift and it is God’s truth.

The setting: the Daughters of the American Revolution’s Constitution Hall, a venue that refused impresario Sol Hurok’s staging of a 1939 performance by Marian Anderson because of the color of her skin.

The event: the May 17 commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision.

The audience: NAACP officials, Howard University notables and a rock-solid representation of middle-class America.

The quote: “Ladies and gentlemen,” Bill Cosby said, “the lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal ? These people are not parenting … They are buying … $500 sneakers for what? … They’re standing on the corner and they can’t speak English … I blamed the kid until I heard the mother … the father … Everybody knows it’s important to speak English except these knuckleheads … You can’t be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth.”

Bill Cosby articulated his message in a style and language that we all understand. It was the same style and the same language that garnered him Grammy awards for his comedy albums and Emmy awards for his acting. Yet that Monday night in Constitution Hall, with America’s ancestors waiting with baited breath, and in front of all those black and white folks, liberals and conservatives, all those folks who were there to say, “Right on!” Bill Cosby took them on a heavy guilt trip.

Pointing out that poor folks are shucking their responsibility was oh so appropriate for the setting, the event and the audience. After all, the current generation is the very generation that by now, 50 years after Brown and 40 years after the enactment of the Civil Rights Act, ought to be the most promising.

Instead, America is facing the dreaded consequences of the highest dropout rates ever, rising crime rates with teens and young adults as both victim and perpetrator, and increasing numbers of child-bearing and child-rearing without benefit of adulthood or marriage. Indeed, in unbelievable numbers, far too many teens and young women do not even know who their own father is, let alone the father of their children.

“These people” and those pathologies are not getting America’s undivided attention. While politicians recite the statistics when campaigning and nongovernmental poverty pimps use them as props, the sad reality is that all Americans should be ashamed of what we have wrought.

“These people” are underinsured because they are unemployed. “These people” are unemployed because they are illiterate and unskilled. While Bill Cosby exaggerated about the cost of the sneakers, “these people” can easily be spotted buying sneakers and brogan boots that cost $100-plus per pair. “These people” do the same for their tykes, too — paying as much as $60 for sneakers that are barely four or five inches long.

Don’t expect to hear the John Kerrys and Teddy Kennedys, and the Marion Barrys and the Eleanor Holmes Nortons admonishing them for dropping out of school or making babies that someone else has to raise. They make excuses for “these people” and secretly give each other high fives off the stage of public opinion.

There is no shame in the liberal media’s game either. Both the American and foreign press covered Bill Cosby’s commentary as if poor white, Hispanic or other “lower economic people” are indeed holding up their end of the bargain.

Ever the cross-over artist, Bill Cosby is a humorist who draws on everyday foibles and family situations and makes us laugh out loud. His comedic routines, albums and books are neither profane nor profound, but always funny and often insightful. (Check out my favorite spoken-word album of his, “My Brother Russell.”)

Bill Cosby’s serious commentary turned on class — the haves and the have-nots — and traditional family values. He clearly pointed out that the knuckleheads and the other have-nots “are not holding up their end of the deal” — and, obviously, neither have the upper classes.