It’s been more than two weeks since Bill Cosby created a stir with comments that seemed to demean “the lower economic” African-Americans that he claims are willing to pay $500 for sneakers but not half that amount for educational tools.

Cosby said, “These people are not parenting. They are buying things for their kids – $500 sneakers for what? And won’t spend $200 for ‘Hooked on Phonics.’…They’re standing on the corner and they can’t speak English. I can’t even talk the way these people talk: Why you ain’t,’ Where you is’…And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. And then I heard the father talk…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.”

Ironically, a week after Cosby shocked everyone at a 50th anniversary celebration of the Brown v. Board of Education decision in Washington, D.C., “Sixty Minutes” did an anniversary piece on the “I Have a Dream Program” in which benefactors make an early commitment to poor, inner-city youth by agreeing to pay for their college education if they do well in school.

What the program showed was that the people in the very neighborhoods that Cosby derided in his comments can do well in school, in college and in life, if they are inspired, provided tutoring and other educational assistance. In most cases, the students scored high on national tests, excelled academically and, after graduating from college, fulfilled their childhood dreams.

Rather than wasting so much time criticizing Bill Cosby’s criticisms, let’s take just the tutoring aspect of the “I Have a Dream” program and see how we might use that to impact the lives of millions. While only the Bill Cosbys of the world have the financial means to adopt an entire classroom and pay for everyone’s college education, that doesn’t mean the rest of us are powerless.

We all have talents that we can use to teach and inspire our young people, most of whom will not benefit from an “I Have a Dream” program. In a real sense, if many of us would devote time to regularly tutoring students, we could have an even larger impact on young people than the “I Have a Dream” programs around the country. Ultimately, that’s far more beneficial than the endless discussion about Cosby.

You couldn’t tell it from the media coverage but Cosby’s comments were made in the larger context of our needing to reclaim our community. He said, “I am talking about parenting. It is time for us to turn the mirror around. We have to take back the neighborhood.”

In Washington, Cosby deplored the glorification of the gangster lifestyle, with the fancy clothes and cars, scantily-clad women, and money derived from illegal activities.

On that point, Cosby is correct.

This is the only time in our history that hoodlum behavior – whether it’s dress, language or lifestyle – has been glorified by African-Americans. Look back at photographs from the civil rights protests in the 1960s and you’ll see men wearing suits and ties and women in high heels, knowing that cops were likely to physically attack them. It was a matter of dignity, a matter of pride. It was saying that even though Southern rednecks did not view us as first-class citizens, we viewed ourselves that way – and we dressed, acted and carried ourselves accordingly.

Approximately 72 percent of all rap music is sold to Whites. So Black youth are simply conduits to reach rebellious White kids. But when the rap music stops for good, those same White kids will often go on to join their father’s company or be given a job by a friend of the family while many African-Americans remain unemployed and perplexed. Our young people utter phrases such as “Know what I’m sayin?’” because often, we do not know what they are saying. Sometimes I wonder if they know what they are saying. Furthermore, if I already know what they’re saying, they don’t’ need to tell me again.

This may sound like I am being unduly harsh on young people. I am not. But I know that the world will be harsh on them and the best thing we can do is to prepare them for that world – with our dress, with our language and by example.
And that’s what I think Bill Cosby was saying, even though he chose his words poorly. In this case, I think I do know what he was sayin.’