There's been a weird line of argument that Barack Obama will have a magical role-model effect on the black urban poor, and I think it's this flawed line of thinking that caused David Gregory to say the following yesterday:
The president-elect, his father wasn't around. He left when he was two years old. Raised by his mother and his grandparents in Hawaii. The idea of the president-elect as a role model, you write about that in the book, and this is what you say: "For many black males, chances for success seem slim in many fields because they lack role models. ... These kids see all the bad role models you can imagine--drug dealers, pimps, you name it. But positive role models do exist. We're talking about ordinary black men doing an honest day's work as cab drivers, counselors, bus drivers, doctors, lawyers, and businessmen." And now we add this, president of the United States, as we take a look at, at the first family.
Now, thankfully, neither Dr. Alvin Pouissant nor Bill Cosby took the bait here. But the important part of Cosby's observation is that he's talking about role models in proximity to the youth he's referring to. He's not talking about having black people on TV that kids can look at and admire. It's as though people like David Gregory heard Obama say that parents need to "turn off the TV" and thought he meant "let's change the channel from BET to C-SPAN." There is no way for Barack Obama to have the kind of effect on the young people Cosby is talking about the way that people in their immediate life can.
Pouissant outlined, at the beginning of the interview, that we are facing dire economic circumstances in which increased crime is likely to be a peripheral effect. The sub-prime crisis has effectively devastated the cornerstone of middle class black wealth. Absent careful management of the economy at the national level and changes to the way we approach law enforcement, things are likely to get worse before they get better. All this argument does is provide a rationale for dismissing black problems as uniquely intractable after the fact.
-- A. Serwer
