I [Dr. Marc Lamont Hill] didn’t bother to ask how Bill Cosby, who I was sure wasn’t in Atlanta, knew that I was on the radio discussing him. Instead, I asked what he was saying about me. He replied, “He’s calling you a liar and a hustler. He’s saying that you have a ‘hip-hop website’ and that you can’t be trying to help Black people with a ‘hip-hop website’”[sic]
Now “Da Cos,” as one of my great friends calls him, has gone and done it and personally attacked one of my friends. Which puts him high up on my you-know-what list.
It’s obvious from Mr. Cosby’s rants and ravings that he can’t with civility or aplomb deal with people who have intelligent, principled disagreements with him. Instead he throws tantrums like a child who he can’t get his way. I can understand his antipathy for Dyson, who wrote a book and is admittedly fair game. But my man Dr. Hill wrote an op-ed that gave a reasoned argument against Cosby’s “lightly dipped in truth” (I love that phrasing) self-help philosophy. He then followed up with a blog entry that gave Cosby respect and admiration for his philanthropy, but reiterated his issues with Cosby.
Instead of confronting Dr. Hill directly, Mr. Cosby chose to personally attack a young, untenured professor by denigrating his character and assaulting his work. To add insult to injury he attempts to intimidate him by calling his superiors! These aren’t the actions of someone I can respect. In his self-righteousness, Mr. Cosby seems to expect that those around him (less wealthy? less influential?) to just bow down no matter how stupid he behaves or how vicious his rhetoric. He resorts to baseless character assassination when he can’t deal with opposing points of view esp. when they are cogently presented. Talk about leading blacks vs. black leaders…