Friday, November 30, 2007

Blogging Cosby (4 of 5)

"Thank God for the community college!"

Most of Bill Cosby and Alvin Poussaint's Come on People is a familiar sermon. This is not an academic book; there are almost no numbers in it, and little that is new. The main self-help themes of the Booker T. Washington school of black self-help are repeated, updated for the times.

One important updating is their extensive praise for community colleges as a second chance for people who blew off high school (or even elementary school). They talk about the many kinds of vocational training that community colleges offer. Beyond those offerings, Cosby and Poussaint point out the community colleges are a discrete way for those who got socially promoted through high school but can't really read a chance to actually learn the skills they missed. Likewise, students can often "go to college" to get their GED.

Cosby and Poussaint's main message is that black people with no guidance and no goals will lead destructive and self-destructive lives. Community college offers some human guidance and many reachable goals for people who missed all that growing up in stunted families.

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