Bill Cosby’s “Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed”
As we close out Black History Month, Hip-Hop Wired evaluates Bill Cosby’s Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed’ and takes a look at how Cosby tried and helped change the way African-Americans are portrayed on television starting with this documentary which went against the grain and could have ruined his carrer in the 1960’s.
But if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything so take a look and read about a militant Bill Cosby.
“Now, this country has a psychological history – there was a master race, and there was a slave race – and though there’s no political slavery anymore, those same old attitudes have hung around,” determined a socially-conscious Bill Cosby during his revealing documentary.
It gets deeper after the jump!!! [More]
At the time ‘Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed’ was aired on July 2nd 1968 – rebroadcasting 3 weeks later – it was hosted by the first Amerikkkanized-Afrikan to be featured in a lead-role on TV. Cosby, and Robert Culp, co-starred in the top-rated ‘I Spy’ – a globe-trotting espionage series on NBC.
This exposure afforded the Philly-native the opportunity to utilize his star-power and influence to produce and air an informative film which daringly challenges the lies that the establishment has been indoctrinating millions of people with.
This is not the funny man, stand-up comic Cosby. Nor is it the animated one from Fat Albert cartoons or the Jello pudding commercials with the various facial gestures. It’s not even the well-disciplined, family-oriented “Cliff Huxtable” from the award-winning Cosby Show. Rather this is a younger, serious-minded, rebellious Black man speaking during the climate of the turbulent Black Power era.
Clip From ‘Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed’
“Why is it that my-story is a mystery, while his-story is believed to be the truth by the masses?” is often asked by many who seek their Afrikan ancestry. That question is answered easier after the blood-sucking systems of capitalism and white supremacy is better understood – which the conscious comedian touches upon.
“Now, if you turn the history of slavery right, you have a big problem on your hands. The slave-trader didn’t take some savage out of Afrika, he took a human being… sold him – like an animal – and separated him from his family,” Bill reveals.
“And although Amerikkka gave us slavery, they kindly gave us religion and a lik or two of education – and when we get more jobs and more education… up from slavery!” Cosby sarcastically comments. “.…but we had something before we left Afrika, more than just rhythm. We had a high culture.” He then displays the blatant plagiarism of Afrikan art by Europeans.
“The strange thing is, how little there is about us in the text books. Napoleon once said… ‘history is a fable agreed upon’, and the fable agreed upon up ‘til now is that… Amerikkkan history is white-on-white,” Cosby concurs.
The video delves into the origin of, and psychological effects caused by, the demeaning and demoralizing portrayals of Original people that are consistently being reinforced; not just by the propagandized media at-large, but also by the slave-producing mis-education system as well.
“Whoever controls the images, controls your self-esteem, self-respect and self-development. Whoever controls the history, controls the vision,” asserted Dr. Leonard Jeffries – President of Afrikana Studies at Harlem’s City College.
In this Emmy award-winning documentary video, an introspective Cosby lays out how Caucasian jews financed certain Hollywood-made movies depicting Amerikkkanized-Afrikans as slow, bumbling, non-educated buffoons; who were… “typical negroes – lazy, stupid and happy the way he was,” according to Bill. Negative movies like D.W. Griffith’s ‘Birth Of A Nation’ and ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ are referenced here.
“By the time they made a movie of it, in 1903, Uncle Tom was just the white man’s idea of a good ni*ger!” Bill points out. “You might say that he was what H. Rap Brown ain’t!”
He names some of the usual suspects, mainly – Amos & Andy, Aunt Jemimah, Stepin’ Fetchit, and white people wearing blackface. Those subservient characters helped to refortify certain myths about, and instill fear in, some Black men. The movies always portrayed Caucasoids as ‘mighty whitey.’
“The tradition of the lazy, stupid, craps-shooting, chicken-stealing idiot; was popularized by Lincoln Monroe Andrew Perry. Cat made 2 million dollars in 5 years, in the mid-‘30s, and anyone who ever saw a movie, laughed at Stepin’ Fetchit!” indicated Cosby.
“The character he played was planted in a lot of people’s heads and they remembered it for the rest of their lives. He played the part most Amerikkkans considers typical negro- he was afraid of most everything.”
“Producer’s were trying to make money. Nobody was sitting around like… ‘Hey, let’s go take care of the ni*gers!” Cosby explains.
He’d go on to compare the ‘master and pet’ relationships white entertainers, like Shirley Temple, enjoyed with their “yessah boss” cohorts. “If you weren’t Black, they were funny, I guess.”
“When you look back at these old films, the patterns come jumping out at you. The most consistent thing about them was the attack on the Black man. He was never even given the privilege of being a man, he was a boy! You know, like – ‘Here boy!’” assessed Cosby.
He also details how significant contributions by some not-so-prominent people throughout history have been omitted from the text books. During the video, Cosby narrates, uncovering distorted facts regarding Black history, naming-off numerous inventors, such as: Norrbert Rillieux, Jan Ernst Matzeliger, James Beckworth.
“The 186,000 soldiers who fought on the Union side. How about Teddy Roosevelt’s charge up San Juan Hill, it wasn’t just the Rough Riders who made it… 4 Black regimes made it up with Teddy. They didn’t get lost going up the Hill, they got lost in the history books. Mathew Henson, 1st man to the North Pole.
He was Admiral Perry’s navigator, and although he made it first to the Pole, he never quite made it to the history books. Daniel Hale Williams, first performed open heart surgery, successfully… now this list could go on forever… Blacks who made it, Blacks who made history but who didn’t get into the history texts at all.”
‘Black women on the other-hand were sturdy and unperturbed. They stood like a rock and faced things that scared Black, men!” he warns while displaying the footage. “Everything suggested the Black man was nothing!”
In John Churchill’s Black pre-elementary school, he challenges a youth, asking him, “How are you going to get your freedom?” The 4-year-old responds, “I will use any means necessary to get my freedom now!”
He surmises,
“Amerikkka invented the cruelest slavery in the history of the world, because it broke up Black families, and after slavery was over Amerikkka kept breaking up the Black man’s family. Now that’s some awful history to teach, but if you look history straight in the eye, you’re going to get a black eye. Because it isn’t important whether a few Black heroes got lost, stolen or strayed in Amerikkka’s history text books, what’s important is why they got left out!”
After viewing Black History, you’ll understand why the powers-that-be stopped him from purchasing NBC because he was projecting positive images of Blacks, across Amerikkka’s airwaves.
Cosby concludes,
“It’s 300 years we’ve been in this Amerikkkan melting pot, and we haven’t been able to melt in yet, and it’s a long wait. We’ve been trying to play it straight and white, but it’s been just bit parts. From now on, we’re going to play it Black!”
Order your cop of Bill Cosby – Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed Here:
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