In his new book, University of Pennsylvania professor Michael Eric Dyson takes Bill Cosby to task for his criticisms of the Black poor.
By Ronald Roach

Since the 1990s, Dr. Michael Eric Dyson has emerged as one of the most visible and widely read scholars on topics relating to African-American life and society. The Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania, Dyson counts himself as one of many African-Americans who found comedian Bill Cosby’s May 17, 2004, tirade against the Black poor demeaning, misleading and destructive. 

Ever the socially engaged public scholar, Dyson has recently authored Is Bill Cosby Right? Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind?, whose publication comes just one year after Cosby’s infamous speech. To produce Is Bill Cosby Right? Dyson interrupted work on a book on pride, which will be part of a series on the seven deadly sins to be published by Oxford University Press.

Since late spring, sales of Is Bill Cosby Right? have catapulted the Basic Civitas Books-published volume onto the best seller lists in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Dallas Morning News. Dyson reports that the book has gotten him the widest media exposure he’s ever received for one of his books. Other popular Dyson books include Holler If You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur and Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X.

In the current bestselling tome, Dyson analyzes Cosby’s speech and provides an assessment of the cultural and social obstacles confronting the Black poor in America. Black Issues talks to Dyson about how he envisions the controversy shedding more light than heat.

BI: Why did you deem it necessary to respond to the Bill Cosby comments with a full-length book?

MED: The reason I felt it was necessary to respond to Mr. Cosby is because I knew he wielded such a huge spotlight in the media-scape and furthermore his bully pulpit was of such inordinate influence that the poor would be squashed and quelled in their ability to respond to him in any significant way, especially those who disagreed with him. And so, I felt it was incumbent upon a person like me, who wanted to engage Mr. Cosby in dialogue, debate and conversation about these issues, to put forth an argument in the form of a book that would capture attention, present arguments, and distribute some facts and figures and statistics that were significant counterweights to his opinions and beliefs.
 
BI: How would you describe public reaction to Is Bill Cosby Right? compared with that of your other books?
 
MED: Well, my most popular book in terms of sales, of course, remains my book on Tupac Shakur, Holler If You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur, especially among young people. However, this book has probably generated a wider range of response from the general public and Black communities than any other book. And it’s perhaps my most controversial book, arguably with the exception of I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr.