Bill Cosby:
America’s Uncle (Tom)

2,339 words

Recent weeks have seen a few public figures take some surprising and welcome shifts to the Right.

First, Ann Coulter has started retweeting White Nationalists and hanging out with Holocaust revisionists. The day after Trump’s April 13 airstrikes on Syria, Ms. Coulter let loose a flurry of anti-war retweets from various other Right-wing commentators, including three from The Right Stuff’s Mike Enoch. This caused a media panic and Mike Enoch’s Twitter account was deleted within a matter of days.

On April 17, Takimag columnist and legendary Holocaust revisionist David Cole Stein released the article “Donald Trump: the First Jewish President? ^[2]” The piece discusses the ways in which Trump resembles many of the negative stereotypes normally associated with Jews, and it was inspired, Cole claimed, by a recent meeting he had with Ann Coulter. Queen Ann proceeded to retweet Stein’s article eight times in a row, almost as if to say, “Not only do I not care if you know I hang out with Holocaust revisionists, I actually want you to know.” It’s like she’s never even heard of the Overton window.

This turn of Coulter’s began almost immediately after Trump’s most recent betrayal in Syria. No doubt part of her motive is to send a message to Trump that, should he not correct course and fulfill his campaign promises, she is willing to make common cause with the furthest fringes of the Right to oppose him.

Across the Atlantic, ex-Smiths singer Morrissey came out as a Right-winger. In a very interesting interview ^[3] with fan Website Morrissey Central, Morrissey expressed some very frank opinions on the state of Britain (“civilization is over”), political correctness (“We are all called racist now, and the word is actually meaningless”), and dropped a few dog-whistles that suggest Moz is more red-pilled than he lets on.

But even more impressive was Morrissey’s endorsement of For Britain ^[4], a far-Right (by British standards) anti-immigration and anti-Islamist party led by Anne Marie Waters ^[5]. Waters ran against Harry Bolton for the leadership of UKIP after Paul Nuttall stepped down, wanting to take the party in a more ethnonationalist direction, she but was defeated after the inevitable smear campaign by the entire UK media establishment and her own party. (Although in a twist of karmic fate, newly-elected party leader Harry Bolton was soon himself undone in a scandal ^[6] when some hilariously racist text messages surfaced that had been written by the blonde, twentysomething model for whom Bolton had recently left his wife.)

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It’s interesting to note that Morrissey, Anne Marie Waters, as well as Alt Lite personality and fellow For Britain supporter Tommy Robsinson are all ethnically Irish: Waters is an immigrant from Dublin, while Morrissey and Robsinson are the children of post-war immigrants from Ireland. It is ironic that the only people who seem to care about the survival of white Britons are the “blacks of Europe.”

Although perhaps it’s to be expected that the Irish should become the first people in Britain to embrace white identity. As they were social outsiders in the country only a few generations ago, and having only just recently been integrated into British society, it is unsurprising that the Irish-British would be particularly sensitive about becoming outsiders once again.

Morrissey may not be the biggest star in the world, but his worshipful fan base is notoriously obsessive and hang on his every word. Countless thousands credit Morrissey with inspiring them to convert to vegetarianism or introducing them to Oscar Wilde, or just with helping them get through a rough patch in life. Hopefully, Moz can get similar results in getting people to give nationalism a chance. In the context of fringe politics, someone of Morrissey’s stature and “outsider’s outsider” street cred endorsing the nationalist cause is a huge boon. Your move, Johnny Rotten.

But the biggest swing to the Right we’ve seen recently, and with which the mainstream media has become obsessed, is Kanye West, who, after becoming infatuated with “based black” Alt Lite YouTuber Candace Owens, is now a flamboyant Trump supporter and MAGA enthusiast ^[8]. Kanye has even been trading compliments with the President himself.

As far as I can tell, Candace Owens, aka Red Pill Black ^[9], is your typical DR3 (Democrats R the Real Racists) Republican. She is a sort of black Tomi Lahren, or at least is trying to be. A good-looking young lady who has mastered all the basic Rush Limbaugh-style debate tactics and says things you’ve heard a million times before from others, only better, she still looks a lot prettier while saying them. As long as there are still boomers, you won’t see many of these on the unemployment line.

DR3 is a philosophy which holds that the real cause of black/white disparities are Democrat big-government policies, as well as the black tendency for groupthink. The argument goes like this: Democrats do not believe that blacks are capable of succeeding without all these government programs. We Republicans believe blacks are just as capable as whites and don’t need those programs. Therefore, Democrats are the real racists.

While DR3 is an insufficient, and frankly dishonest, argument (ever heard of human biodiversity ^[10]?), and a cowardly way to avoid having to acknowledge race realism, it is less dishonest and toxic to whites than pure anti-white Cultural Marxism. And thus, it is an improvement on the status quo.

The GOP has been wheeling out based black guys for years: Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, J. C. Watts, Ben Carson, Alan Keyes, and various media personalities. Regardless, none of these people succeeded in converting large numbers of blacks to conservatism. George W. Bush appointed two black Secretaries of State back to back and still couldn’t shake the “racist” label.

Most “based black guys” fail because nobody believes them. Most of them are quite obviously sell-outs, careerists, Uncle Toms, or are middle-class and from economically atypical backgrounds. They lack a certain authenticity. Either you can just smell the suburbs on them, or you can see the dollar signs in their eyes as they recite Republican Party talking points off cue cards. They aren’t authentically black in the eyes of most blacks, let alone in the eyes of more cynical whites.

The thing that sets Kanye West apart from these, however, is that he has serious black street cred. As a rapper, he has dominated sales charts, won nearly universal praise from critics, and is respected by his hip hop peers and aficionados. He famously called George W. Bush a racist on live television ^[11] and has been overtly, consistently, and fanatically pro-black. It will be interesting to see what effect a guy like Kanye can have by becoming a Trumpist. I’ve always felt that if some conservative wave were to crash over the black community, it would have to come from within, not because conservative whites would ever find the perfect black spokesman for their views.

Still, I’m not optimistic. Kanye has always been, if nothing else, fiercely individualistic. Most blacks are aggressively conformist and doggedly enforce conformity on other blacks. You need look no further for an example of this than to consider another big story in the news lately, since just as Kanye West was taking his first steps into “based black guy” territory, another was making his exit.

On April 26, 80-year-old black entertainment icon Bill Cosby was convicted on multiple counts of sexual assault. If ever there was someone who had maximal black street cred, it was Cosby. Cosby was a black trailblazer in the entertainment world. He started his career in the pre-Civil Rights era and clawed his way up from the bottom, starting out by doing stand-up in smoke-filled bars, and reaching the absolute pinnacle of celebrityhood. The Cosby Show, the crown jewel in Cosby’s career, was the number one show in America for five straight seasons. Every black entertainer who followed Cosby owes some debt to him for his normalizing of blacks on primetime television. But in the end, America’s Dad was just another Uncle Tom. Cosby is an example of how becoming a “based black guy” can go horribly wrong.

In May 2004, Cosby revealed the level of power he had attained at an NAACP award ceremony to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Brown v. the Board of Education decision that overturned segregation in public schools. Rather than merely offer some empty platitudes and an inspirational story as expected, Cosby issued a scathing critique of black culture and society which has come to be known as the Pound Cake Speech ^[12].

In the speech ^[13], Cosby made the case that, half a century after the landmark decision, American blacks could no longer in good faith continue to blame their woes and income disparities on white racism. He stated that the more pressing problem was poor parenting in the black community, and more generally blacks refusing to take personal responsibility for themselves or their children. He pointed to the multitude of disparities between the black community’s stated goals and its self-inflicted wounds: rampant single parenthood, the refusal to speak proper English, the nonsensically exotic baby names, the school dropout rate, and its lowbrow pop culture. Cosby argued that these factors were the real causes black/white disparities, and not some shady conspiracy organized by The Man.

It was a fairly “based” speech, in an Alt Lite sort of way. A few bell curves would have been nice, but not blaming everything on whitey was a refreshing change. Cosby was briefly the darling of conservative commentators, who were thrilled to see a respected black figure who actually “gets it” when it comes to race: gets it and is willing to give blacks the sort of tough love that whites are nowadays forbidden from giving themselves.

Needless to say, blacks themselves were not nearly as impressed. They rarely are when they are forced to self-reflect. For them, it was like the Saturday Night Live sketch ^[15] where William Shatner told the fans at a Star Trek convention to “get a life.”

Cosby’s downfall began in October 2014, when black actor/comedian Hannibal Buress was doing a stand-up routine in Philadelphia. ^[16] Buress was doing a bit about the “smug old black man” Bill Cosby talking down to black youngsters and telling them to “pull their pants up.” The bit was clearly referencing Cosby’s Pound Cake speech. Buress questioned Cosby’s license to criticize by pointing to the extensive rumors about Cosby being a serial rapist. From listening to the routine, you would think that Buress was more upset about Cosby telling kids to pull their pants up than he was about women being raped. But a video of the routine immediately went viral, and a flood of accusers came forward. Now, Cosby is going to jail.

I do not doubt that Bill Cosby is probably guilty of most of most of what he has been accused. Even if three-quarters of the women are lying, the remainder would be more than enough to justify sending Cosby away for life. However, you can’t help but notice how Cosby was able to get away with this for forty years – until he made that speech. There had been rumors of Cosby’s proclivities for decades, but powerful forces were always able and (more importantly) willing to protect him while he was breaking down showbiz barriers for blacks in entertainment. But once Cosby had broken all the barriers he was ever going to break down, and then started drifting toward the Right with his “pull up your pants” rhetoric, those same forces suddenly became unwilling to protect him anymore.

Some have speculated that the true purpose of the Pound Cake speech was to rehabilitate his reputation after some embarrassing court settlements that had preceded it. Indeed, it seems that the funnyman was trying to ward off rape accusations by pre-emptively adopting a cloak of moral authority. But you have to wonder what would have happened to Bill Cosby if, instead of telling black kids to pull their pants up, he had gone in the other direction: total Black Lives Matter. Would the media have been so quick to crucify Cosby if he were a reliable anti-white spokesman? Would Buress have been troubled by Cosby’s rapes so much if Cosby had been doing benefit shows for Mike Brown? Would the accusers have come forward if they knew that Cosby was producing a movie about slavery written by Ta-Nehisi Coates? Would the media have buried the accusations if Cosby were an asset to The Narrative? I guess we’ll never know.

But this is something for Kanye West to think about. Once you are labeled an Uncle Tom (which any black person who dabbles in even moderately conservative politics will be), one loses certain protections. You get your ghetto pass revoked ^[17].

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Unlike the unwavering and unquestioning loyalty blacks have shown to the likes of O. J. Simpson and Michael Jackson during their legal troubles, blacks largely abandoned Cosby. Part of that may be due to the sheer number of his accusers, which makes Cosby’s innocence preposterously unlikely. But when has that ever stopped blacks? They stuck with O. J. through all the DNA evidence, didn’t they? And admitted woman-beater Chris Brown still sells millions of albums. But heaven help you if you’re a black man who tells black kids to pull their pants up.

Kanye West is about to learn that Right-wing politics, as blacks themselves might say, “ain’t no muthafuckin’ joke.” If Kanye uses drugs, he’d better quit them. If he has a mistress, he needs to break up with her. As an entertainer, Kanye only had to worry about the critics and his employers. If Kanye wants to step into the political realm, however, the entire Deep State apparatus could be brought to bear on him. And the Deep State has a lot of time and money invested in a particular Narrative, and they don’t like upstarts questioning it. God help Kanye if he actually becomes effective or starts saying things that make sense. All his dirty secrets will quickly become public knowledge.