Evin Cosby: Black, not Hip-Hop Black(?)

Evin Cosby made an off-hand comment for the NY Daily News that, while very telling, struck me weird.

She said, at the opening of her store called “PB & Caviar” (an impossibly unclever name) she can relate to Sen. Barack Obama having his black credentials questioned because she’s always had hers questioned as well. “Everyone has their way of speaking and living their life. No one should be judging and assuming that because I’m black, I have to speak in that hip-hop way. That’s something I prefer not to do.” She feels disconnected from people who didn’t grow up privileged.

Right.

Nevermind that some “privileged” white people these days sound more”hip-hop” than black people–I guess it’s not surprising to hear this kind of bullshit fall out the mouth of one of the Cosby kids—the only one to have risen their head from the sand, albeit for PR purposes . What’s troubling is she’s propping up the myth of Black, not Black: the idea that there are two types of black people, and she prefers to deal only with her types of people. Evin’s got the ‘Itis–no, not THAT Itis, Cosbyitis, the self-deluded affliction of the Black middle class who believe because believe they have a certain amount of money or influence, they are somehow better than other black people, and can’t relate to “those” kinds of black people. Evin says she feels Obama’s pain. Evin–while exceptionally cute!—needs a better publicist. Evin Cosby is out-of-her-mind crazy.

It’s funny and ironic that her Dad, who once described himself as “off the corner,” made his mail talking what she calls “hip-hop,” or what linguists call African American Vernacular English and what most of shorthand as “Ebonics.” Funnier still that she says she doesn’t talk to those type of people, that she doesn’t have them in her circle of friends. She brags about it. It’s funny, but I pride myself on having friends in The White House and in Jomo’s House of Ribs: on my ability to walk through any ghetto or golf-course in America unshook. Some call it my ability to “code switch:” I call it being Black in America. To be Black in America, you better know how to get down with everyone, in every situation, because, truth be told? You never know what kind of situation you’ll end up in, and you’d better be able to talk or fight your way out, in any scenario. Black people can survive, but they can’t thrive in a vacuum. Because you may not always have money and the (white and boujie) friends that come along with it. But you will always be black, and there will always be black people who are far more willing to help you than your country-club cronies. You can’t roll talking ill on your folks and not think it’s going to find you, bad. How do you imagine you are better than people that look like you?

I don’t think because you’re black, you owe it white people—or black people, for that matter—to shuck and jive in a way that makes them comfortable. I refuse to, and that’s part of my problem. Note to Evin: I think if you want to survive in America, you’d better know how to related to everyone, or else all that pricey education doesn’t mean much. Because if it didn’t teach you how to relate to people—real people, not just the people playing Bid Whist on Daddy’s yacht—then you got cheated. Just remember when you have to shutter up your little boutique in a year or so that even Da Little People spend money. Best not to dis them.

There are two kinds of people in this country: winners and losers. And you can’t always tell who they are by how they talk. Square biz.

August 12th, 2008 | Uncategorized

4 comments

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I’ve got to be honest. I registered to comment because I so disliked your article on this issue. I felt it was snarky and closed minded. It’s clear that you feel she broke some unwritten code of silence, when she may have been inarticulately trying to praise Obama. I particularly liked your jibes against her so called wealth, I forgot how being middle class or even rich insulated you against your race.

Just addressing your actual comments, you actually contradict yourself fairly openly in your article. This is where this debate drives me crazy. One on hand, you claim there is no ‘hip hop vernacular black america’, this is the myth that this stupid rich girl (I’m paraphrasing of course) has bought into, probably as a way to differentiate herself from the black mass to white people (right?). Great. Pile on some criticisms of her father – apparently it’s totally ok to criticise someone based on what their family has said and done, maybe I could poke into your family, look at their lives and then call you a hypocrite. Sound fair?

But then we start praising your ability to code switch – But what’s code switching? Adapting to different ways of expressing yourself or speaking. Like hip hop vernacular? Don’t look now, if we admit that hip hop vernacular has any prominent place in black communities, the terrorists win! You seem able to congratulate yourself quite loudly about ‘being able to relate to anyone through code switching’, but then point to Evin’s inability to do the same as ’some ignorant untruth about the black community’. Maybe she should be able to relate to anyone, maybe she is in the wrong, but your pointlessly snarky comments about her being rich put you in the wrong. And pointing out that she cannot relate to X community, even her own is a valid comment. Also I love the nice comparison between ‘country club white people’ and ‘honest to goodness black people’ – why not just go all out with the ludicrous characterizations: racist evil corporate white people vs Martin Luther King and Jesus.

Why don’t you just call Evin an uppity, acting white uncle tom and be done with it? It’s clear that for all your ‘wit’, this is your underlying sentiment.

Comment by pololly — September 10, 2008 @ 12:40 am

dcrockett17:

Your commentary was exceptional, but quite telling. A generation ago (I’m speaking for those of us who are over the age of 40), the Black working class, the Black middle class and the Black upper class spoke the same language because there was a general consensus that to speak clear english, to strive for better education, etc. was something that we all could do to improve the chances of all members of the race. We lived in the same multi-classed neighborhoods. Many of us, like myself, still do.

While I agree with you and with younger brother Jimi that it is important to be able to speak to and connect with all segments of the Black community, it is also important to be able to see what aspects of our culture that are counterproductive.

Your insightful comments about the similarities between the Blues and Hip Hop are largely correct except for one important thing. Unlike too much of Hip Hop, the Blues never called our brothers and sisters out of their names. The Blues never resorted to overt profanity to make a point. Blues legends never resorted to calling their own people b*****s and n*****s to sell CDs.

You are right when you say that many Black contemporary elites have no particular vision. Yet I would really like to know what vision or plan Hip Hop has offered to the Black masses that is better than the worst visions of past and/or present Black elites?

Comment by Eljay — August 17, 2008 @ 2:01 am

This hip hop/conspicuous consumption issue seems to be yet another instance of the class- and generation-oriented battle that continues to rage in black America.

The stuff we hear in contemporary rap music is little different, if at all, from the same themes that resonated in the blues. Blues artists sang openly about getting paid, getting laid, getting high, and souped up cars (and not necessarily in that order). And they were roundly chastised by the black establishment of their day, indicative of the not-quite-fully-developed class conflict forming inside black America even then. So what’s really changed?

The parallels between rap and the blues are many, but one important difference between that time and now is that class conflict in black America isn’t so nascent anymore. It’s fully-developed now. For the first time in American history, it is possible for the children of the black elite to be personally disconnected from black popular culture, particularly black institutions. Persistent and staggeringly high levels of housing segregation mean that the overwhelming majority of black people still live in black America, but even still, it’s now *possible* for the small handful of Evin Cosbys to say without a trace of irony, “I don’t speak the way they do.” A generation ago that was barely possible and practically unheard of.

Of course that raises all kinds of questions. The black bourgeoisie and the working classes have always struggled for control over the primary narrative about black life. That’s not new. When I hear the Cosbys, what I hear is pushback or resistance to their perceptions about what that narrative has become. Cosby becomes less compelling when forced to move past the low-hanging fruit of the most dysfunctional features of black popular culture and must offer a narrative of his own. He doesn’t have one. At least the black bourgeoisie that E. Franklin Frasier critiqued way back when had a narrative. They had a vision for black institutional life, one where they tended to appoint themselves as its guardians (naturally), but at least it was a vision you could support or critique. These contemporary elites have nothing to offer other than, “All black people are not alike, and by the way I’m not like them.” What are we supposed to do with that?

Comment by dcrockett17 — August 13, 2008 @ 1:02 pm

[...] the poor elite, who we invariably associate with hip-hop culture. Broke people who front rich. As I mention on my personal blog, Bill’s daughter Evin Cosby confided recently that she doesn’t get dow….” Evin has issues.I’m always fascinated by people who decry the present state of hip-hop’s [...]

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