Ellen Bueno: Cosby, 'America's Dad,' sends a message

Three cheers for "America’s Dad," humorist Bill Cosby, who, at the age of 72 could be enjoying a comfortable retirement, but instead keeps on trying to teach this unruly American household to behave like decent human beings.

On Monday, Oct. 26, Mr. Cosby was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor by the Kennedy Center, which is given to people who influence American society in the manner of Mark Twain: "… a fearless observer of society, who startled many while delighting and informing many more with his uncompromising perspective of social injustice and personal folly."

So, the winner of this award is more than just funny. The winner is someone who can nudge us out of complacency or get us to rethink our assumptions by poking fun at popular ideas. And usually, only comedians can lampoon the powerful and the politically correct. Bill Cosby can say, "The two most important things to the American female are man’s prevention of nuclear war and man’s putting the toilet seat down." A politician or professor wouldn’t dare.

This is actually the third time the Kennedy Center has offered Cosby this award, but being a fearless observer of society, Cosby has declined it twice because he objected to the profanity used by celebrities at the 1998 ceremony honoring Richard Pryor. He said, "I will not be used, nor will Mark Twain be used, in that way."

It’s refreshing to find an entertainer who will turn down a prestigious award in order to make a point about the coarseness of pop culture. Cosby only accepted the prize this year after Kennedy Center officials promised that they would keep the show clean and would give him some control over the content and message of the show, which will air November 4 on PBS.

It’s a testament to Cosby’s personal clout that he can get people to mind their manners — even potty-mouth comedian, Chris Rock, who spoke at the show.

Cosby has gained the nation’s respect by making us laugh at the absurdities of life — especially family life — without being crude. He earned the nickname, "America’s Dad" playing Heathcliff Huxtable on his most popular show, The Cosby Show (1984-1992.) Through this role, Cosby showcased his idea of a good father: a man who provides a nurturing home for his children, listens to them, sets boundaries, and maintains a sense of humor through it all. The Huxtables conveyed African American racial pride in an unapologetic but nonconfrontational way.

But Cosby’s social commentary has become quite a bit more confrontational since then. In May 2004 he startled many by delivering a blistering speech at a Washington, D.C. ceremony celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education desegregation decision.

He railed against the 50 percent high school dropout rate among urban blacks, high teenage pregnancy rates, kids being raised without fathers, black on black violence and materialism.

"We cannot blame white people," he said. "We’ve got to take the neighborhood back. It’s not what they’re doing to us. It’s what we’re not doing."

School desegregation and the civil rights victories of the 1960s were believed to be events fueling a continuum of progress for the black community. It was supposed to keep rolling forward … but it hasn’t, and Cosby points to moral, not economic problems. What the urban black community is not doing, he says, is parenting.

It’s an important message for any community to hear. Neglecting our children causes many more problems than being poor. Cosby knows this. He grew up in the projects of Philadelphia. His parents were poor but they were all over him, teaching him right from wrong. Their imperfections are the subject of many a hilarious Cosby routine, but he seems to have turned out just fine despite the strict discipline and lumpy Cream of Wheat.

Cosby has been around long enough to know what really matters. He knows we will have more than one chance to fix the economy or rescue the environment, but parents only have one chance to raise a child. He reserves the right to deliver a fatherly scolding to any one who would squander that chance, out of compassion for the children and because he knows the success or failure of a community directly follows its success or failure to parent its children.

Ellen Bueno has lived in Baraboo for 21 years and is the reader member of the News Republic’s editorial board.