Cosby Galvanizes Students at Crampton

Before my current writing life, there was The Hilltop, Howard University’s and the Nation’s Oldest Black Collegiate Newspaper, where many of the questions and themes I still explore first found their voice. What follows are my early published works, preserved in their original form.

From The Hilltop Archives

Originally published in The Hilltop, Howard University — March 26th, 2004

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Cosby Galvanizes Students at Crampton

While many students around campus packed their bags and were preparing for their spring break trip, Cramton auditorium was preparing for a packed house to take students on a trip with actor, philanthropist and comic Bill Cosby on Friday, March 12.

 

"Bill Cosby's here, I can't miss this, it's a once in lifetime event," said Cristina Payne, a senior radio-television-film major. "I knew whatever he had to say would be important and comical."

 

As students slowly filled Cramton, they read the screen on stages: Back in the Day: Repaying Your Debt. Debbie Allen, Howard alumna and Board of Trustess member, along with her sister, actress Phylicia Rashad, took to the stage and prepared the audience for what was to come. "I hope your hearts and minds are open so you can receive everything," Rashad said. 

 

Donning a Howard University hat and sweatshirt, Cosby began to speak and captivate his listeners.

 

"Wake up and smell what college is suppose to be about," Cosby demanded. "Think about how you worked hard and earned your way to be here."

 

"Our surrogate father spoke to us as if we were right in the Huxtable living room. So we listened," Payne said.

 

It wasn't just a lecture; he was also bestowing knowledge. As Cosby talked, he flipped through slides of lynched black people and the white people below them smiling and posing for the camera. 

 

Said Cosby, "If you knew how you got here from back in the day, you wouldn't ... accept such degradations as black men calling black women b****es and h**s, black people addressing each other as 'nigga' and the creation and usage of Ebonics when we have yet to master English language."

 

"I just put the feeling in you," said Cosby. "It's not about those evil forces, but what we can do to them."

 

For some students, these pictures sparked something deeper than anger. 

 

"Anger is a phase, a temporary emotion," said Olu Burrell, a Masters candidate in English. "We fail to turn those phases into a focus."

Burrell said that if we look at those pictures and situations and succumb to anger, we're focusing on the problem, focusing on being the victim.

 

As Cosby moved from still pictures to movies, the tension built in the auditorium as clips from lynching victim Emmett Till's open casket funeral and the trial verdict of not guilty were played.

 

Cosby warned, "Don't be angry at those white people. Look at what you're accepting. It's not what he's doing to you, it's what you're not doing."

 

He continued with clips from Eyes on the Prize to show the sacrifices our ancestors made. 

 

"Back in the day, they [black people] weren't thinking about themselves. They didn't even know us, but they were thinking about the future."

 

"We're taking advantage of the position we're in. Our ancestors struggled to put us where we are and we're being lackadaisical in our attitude," Burrell said.

 

Payne, who is one of the students leading a movement to boycott BET programming, sees a strong connection between Cosby's presentation and the "Cut Uncut" campaign. "The Back in the Day revival session was so on point and on time," Payne said. "It was right in line with the BET protest, Tavis Smiley's 'State of the Black Family', Georgetown and Columbia University's racist gestures..." 

 

And her response is, "Cut Uncut is about getting people to think outside of the box, outside of Uncut, outside of BET and outside of these four (Howard's) blocks; and to consider not just right here and now, in this second, but the future, our future and our children's future. We need to see ourselves through the eyes of those who are looking in at us as a whole. 'These are strange times we are living in,' this is what the older generation is saying and what we permit in this generation will only get worst in the next."

 

Cosby said that it's up to us. We have to turn out, study and become.  

"The tab has been paid for, all you have to do is pick it up," Cosby said. He further cautioned students, saying, "Procrastination is the devil's cousin."