On Monday, May 31, 2004, the National Association of Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) honoured Bill Cosby for his ?massive donations to black colleges?. The occasion was the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Brown V. Board of Education decision which led to the desegregation of schools in the United States.

Mr. Cosby took the opportunity to contrast the activities of the ?60s civil-rights pioneers? with some of today?s African Americans. The following is a sample of his remarks as reprinted from the front page of the New York Daily News.

?These people marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an education, and now we?ve got these knuckleheads walking around...

?The lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal. These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids ? $500 sneakers for what? And won?t spend $200 for ?Hooked on Phonics.?

?...I can?t even talk the way these people talk: ?Why you ain?t,? ?Where you is??

?You can?t be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth!?

The Daily News goes on to quote the Washington Post as reporting that Mr. Cosby?s blunt appraisal left Howard University President H. Patrick Swygert and NAACP President Kweisi Mfume looking ?stone-faced?.

Naturally, Mr. Cosby has been much criticised by prominent Americans of both races. He has also been widely acclaimed. For myself, I believe that his remarks were ill considered.

It is a classic case of blaming the victim ? a trap that one can fall into very easily, particularly, if one was born in the lower income groups and has achieved a large measure of success. Mr. Cosby came from the lower income group and has become very successful and fully accepted into the ranks of the privileged classes. Hence, it is easy to see how he could adopt negative attitudes towards the much less successful African American.

But one must not be deceived into thinking that the Cosby who was the doting, very understanding father in the Cosby show, is the real Cosby. He is not. Mr. Cosby, like many entertainers and politicians (is there a difference?) has two very different personas.

I look back on my own life. My family was very definitely in the lower income category. Fortunately, I had an above average IQ and was able to win a scholarship to Berkeley Institute and eventually attended Queen?s University in Kingston, Ontario.

While at Queen?s, I became friendly with many West Indian students and helped them get settled when they arrived in Kingston, particularly during the time when the offices of the University were closed. My effort was recognised by the University and they authorised me to provide temporary residence for these overseas students until they made contact with the University Registrar.

As a result of this activity, I got to know all the black students that arrived in Kingston and was therefore in an excellent position to assist in the formation of the West Indian Club of Queen?s.

After graduation, I went to work in Ottawa and within three years I was able to purchase a home, new car and repay a student loan. In my newly-acquired relative affluence, I began to accept the flawed middle class notion that anyone could succeed if only they made the effort.

At about this time, I received a call from the President of the Queen?s Alumni Association inquiring about racism in the Queen?s Medical School.

He had been told that I would be a good person to speak with because of my activities in helping the foreign black students adjust to life in Kingston. During the interview, I heard myself explaining why the University had not enrolled any black students in the medical school in over 25 years.

The University would have been proud of me. Dr. Martin Luther King would have lynched me.

The Canadian president of the Alumni Association hung up in thinly veiled disgust. I turned to my Canadian wife and complained: ?I don?t know why that ?white boy? thinks that because I am black, I have to oppose everything that white people do, even when it is quite legitimate.?

Later that year I was invited to Queen?s as a special guest of the West Indian Society in recognition of my contribution to the creation of the West Indian Club during my tenure at Queen?s.

While at Queen?s as a special guest, I had the privilege of attending a reception held in recognition of past and present executives of the West Indian Club. The men and women I met were all graduate students in search of either a Doctorate or a law degree.

I was dumbfounded to find that their conversation varied between the racism at the University or the abysmal lack of opportunity for their fellow West Indians in their respective Islands.

In that moment, I realised that my attitudes had changed along with my fortunes. Yet, the circumstances that created my original attitudes were alive and well. I have never forgotten that lesson.

Back to Mr. Cosby.

There is another Cosby that is very different from the stand-up comic, fat Albert, or the affable, understanding Dr. Huxtable. The other Cosby is a hard-nosed businessman who is concerned only with ?what?s in it for him?.

There is no doubt in my mind that Mr. Cosby?s statement delivered at the NAACP gala commemorating the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education was driven much more by a need to enhance his status as a successful businessman than it was for any real concern about the status or lack of same of lower income blacks.

Premier Alex Scott would no doubt bear witness to this.

In the early sixties, Alex Scott and Bill Cosby were both undergraduates at Temple University and resided on the tenth floor of the student?s quarters that was especially reserved for foreign students and students over age 21.

Mr. Cosby was in the latter category. Alex and Bill had many conversations together and got to know each other really well.

So well in fact that the Black Spy played by Bill Cosby in the in the very successful television series ?I Spy? was named William Alexander Scott. Acoincidence?

Many years later, Mr. Cosby was invited to Bermuda to play in one of those celebrity tennis tournaments. I remember Alex telling me that he was going up to the tournament to reacquaint himself with Cosby. Since I had always enjoyed Bill?s performances from fat Albert to the Cosby show, I too awaited Alex?s report of the reunion with bated breath.

The day arrived and Alex attended the tournament. Later I called him and asked how did it go? Alex said he spoke to the man and he brushed him off as if he had never seen him before.

Former cameraman for ZFB, Mr. George Smith, can tell other unflattering stories about Cosby and they all carry the same theme ? as long as the camera was on him, Mr. Cosby was the TV personality we all have come to love and adore. Off camera, he seemed entirely without a soul.

It is so easy to forget from whence we came!

As blacks, we cannot afford to forget, especially here in Bermuda. It is true that blacks in the lower income categories need to try harder.

However, they need to be encouraged to do so. Berating them for their failures is certainly not the way to do it. As a PhD in Education as well as a very experienced observer of human relations, Mr. Cosby should have known better than anyone else that we can stop a bad behaviour through punishment but if we want to replace the bad behaviour with good behaviour we must balance punishment with reward.

Blacks in the lower income groups are tired of hearing condemnation for their failures. They need to be praised for the positive things they are doing ? like the Bermudian lady who brought a used car so that she would have transportation to work as well as shelter until she could afford to rent a dwelling!