May 06, 2008
By Froma Harrop
Jeremiah, you're no Jeremiah. Although Barack Obama's controversial
former pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright puts himself at the center of a
prophetic tradition of the Afro-American church, he's not much of a
prophet. The prophet in the Biblical mode often tells his people what
they don't want to hear. Wright only mimics the prophet in his fiery
condemnations of America. When it comes to the feelings of those who
employ him, he's strictly on tiptoe.
Around the time Wright was fluffing his feathers before the national
media, a genuine prophet appeared in Newark, N.J., to deliver a tough
look-in-the-mirror message to fellow African-Americans. The visionary
was entertainer Bill Cosby, and his theme encapsulated in the title of
a book he wrote with Harvard professor of psychiatry Alvin Poussaint:
"Come on, People! On the Path From Victims to Victors."
For his candor, Cosby has been tarred by black and white intellectuals
as "blaming the victim." He's been accused of worse things, but that's
the lot of the prophet. "A prophet is despised in his own country, and
in his own house, and among his own kin," Jesus says in the Book of
Mark.
The biblical Jeremiah launched invective against priests, kings and,
above all, his neighbors. In highly unflattering terms, he tells the
Israelites that their own iniquity would bring about their downfall.
Pur****ting to convey the words of God, he says, "Will you steal,
murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and go
after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand
before me in this house, which is called by My name, and say we are
delivered to do all these abominations?" (Jeremiah, 7:9.)
The public did not respond warmly to this negative commentary. People
in his hometown wanted to get rid of Jeremiah, lest growing anger
toward the prophet be turned on them. The princes put Jeremiah in
prison following one of his bleak prophecies. And according to some
accounts, he was stoned to death.
In America, preachers starting with the early New Englanders rained
brimstone onto their congregations. One of the most famous no-holds-
barred sermons was Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry
God" (1741). "Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and
to tend downwards with great weight and pressure toward hell," Edwards
writes, describing the torments there in excruciating detail.
This is not feel-good religion. Edwards went so far as to publish the
names of some young church members thought to be reading "impure
books." The congregation fired him.
Jeremiah Wright's congregants are building him a $1.6 million house on
a golf course.
Cosby may deliver his message in a more sup****tive manner than the old
Hebrew prophets, but he doesn't do much mincing of words. Addressing
an NAACP gala in 2004, he famously said: "Fifty percent dropout rate,
I'm telling you, and people in jail, and women having children by
five, six different men. Under what excuse?" He goes on: "You can't
keep asking that God will find a way. God is tired of you."
Not surprisingly, Cosby has come under attack -- some pretty vicious
-- by black and white intellectuals who prefer the script that places
all fault for the plight of black America on white America. His
points, however, are being seriously discussed within the African-
American community.
Last week, Newark Mayor Cory A. Booker introduced Cosby at a
conference of community services as follows: "He's speaking to the
heart of the matter, and he speaks to the realities of what a lot of
folks are experiencing."
That's what a prophet does. The real kind.
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-C-
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