I should have been clearer, although I didn't think I would have to be.

I meant recent American black culture, and obviously it does not include every single black born in America.

Put dates on all the positive black-instigated events you listed. Any in the past thirty years?

When you see blacks in movies, in magazines, in music videos, or on TV, do they look like Bill Cosby, Colin Powell, Reverend King, the black heart surgeon at your local hospital, or the black entrepreneur running the local electronics company?

Or do they look like illiterate punks? When was the last time you saw James Earl Jones' FACE in a movie? Please don't make me whomp up a list of recent movies with black stars. The stereotypes in many of them would make Stepin Fetchit puke. I've been to two movies in the past couple of weeks, and had to squirm through previews of "White Chicks."

Remember when you thought about Sidney Poitier when you thought about black movie stars?

When a black kid goes to school, how is he encouraged to behave by his peers? Are high grades a value? Or is that "acting white?"

Look at the list of black people I put down above. When they are referred to by the major black cultural influences in this country, is it in a positive way? Is Bill Cosby a hero to the typical black kid? Martin Luther King Jr. is probably the only black man in modern history who wore a tie who gets any respect at all.

When those white punks come through your library, look at how they're dressed. Are they wearing leiderhosen? Are they dressed in American Indian leather and headgear? Overalls and plaid shirts? Mennonite outfits? Leather jackets and greased hair?

Or do they have hats on backwards, jewelry, and pants that look like what Dick Van Dyke wore doing the Penguin Dance in Mary Poppins? How are they talking? Are they using Russian gang slang like Alex? Or something else?

There is a real cultural problem here. It is a relatively recent one in American history, And I'm sorry, but it is does originate in a portion of the American black population that has a cultural influence far beyond the numbers of black people who actually subscribe to it, and far beyond black Americans. Obviously, this isn't the sole source of cultural problems in America. Equally obviously, there would be punks in America if there were no black people here at all. Heck, maybe they would be wearing leiderhosen. But that's not what we're talking about, and that's not what Bill Cosby was talking about.

I could make a good case that the destruction of the black American family and the resulting cultural decay could be laid at the feet of the welfare culture constructed in the 1960s, but that's a whole different story.