Before we knew that Bill Cosby was a sexual predator, his story was considered the pinnacle example of a black rags-to-riches story. So it was no surprise that he was tapped to deliver the keynote address for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund's award ceremony in 2004.
Cosby's speech, known colloquially as the "Pound Cake Speech," came under sharp criticism because it condemned the Black community in the United States.
He attributed societal ills to factors like single-parent households and alleged negligence in parenting. Cosby criticized cultural elements like naming conventions and the use of ebonics. He also complained about a perceived emphasis on frivolous and conspicuous consumption at the expense of necessities and taking care of responsibilities.
Finally, Cosby summed things up by saying that African Americans should no longer blame discrimination, systemic racism, or segregation for the racial achievement gap; rather, Black people needed to hold our own culture of poverty responsible.
In 2004, I felt the same way about this speech that I do now. This speech is what happens when you bring together internalized oppression, internalized hatred, and the capitalistic fever dream that the system is not to blame if poor and unemployed. The true source of your poverty is your personal failings —your inability to work harder, better, faster, smater, etc.
I thought we were done this idea like most of us are done with Cosby. So you can imagine my surprise when I heard a similar sentiment coming from one of the host of the Earn Your Leisure (EYL) , an iHeart radio podcast, last week.
EYL is one of the most popular Black brands out right now. The founders, Rashad Bilal and Troy Milings, have extensive reach with their podcast, merch, online courses, and conferences with keynotes by Tyler Perry, Steve Harvey, and P Diddy.
The name of their podcast, EYL, is problematic for me, but like Issa Rae says, "I'm rooting for everybody black." So I pushed that aside and was generally excited for them until I saw this Instagram post:
In the post, Rashasd Bilal goes on to say this:
The top 81 billionaires in the world have more wealth than the world's population combined?…So it's pretty amazing and discouraging when I go on social media, what I see is debates about fantasy football, said rapper having beef with said rapper's husband, fashion debates, and a bunch of other random nonsense that has no real significance in life…[Y]ou're being consumed with so much nonsense that you don't even have any concerns or cares about it at all…So when you're looking at your life, and you're not where you want to be, well, that's the reason because you're making conscious decisions to consume things that are taking you away from any level of productivity…[W]hen you make a decision to consume this content, that's a decision that you're making because there are alternatives. So, at some point, you have to take self-accountability and realize that as the world changes, and as we insert a new world…You will, you will be a digital slave. And this time, your slavery will be voluntary. (emphasis added) You signed up for it, and you gave no fight. And you will continue to stay at the same level that you're at, potentially even worse, your children also, and that's a decision that you have to make.
This post is the Pound Cake speech updated for the social media generation. He blames individual choices, specifically those of black people, for broader societal problems. At the same time, he gives no critique of the system.
It's the system that causes wealth imbalance. It's the system that designs social media to be addictive. It's the system that encourages us to blame ourselves for an environment that was set up for us to fail.
Simultaneously, Bilal reinforces the idea of exceptionalism. The idea that the only path to excellence is to somehow rise "above" and be the "exception" to what people of color are capable of.
There's danger in this line of thinking. It's akin to handing someone a broken tool and blaming them when they can't complete a task.
Just as it's harmful to say people of color need to meditate their way out of systemic oppression, telling us we need to work harder in a system designed against us is misleading.
We don't need more Pound Cake. Liberation doesn't come from productivity. We will never outwork oppression.
The REAL magic happens when we confront and liberate ourselves from internalized oppression and work collectively to end systemic oppression. That’s the fight worth pursuing.
In power and solidarity,
Toya