Last year during the NAACP celebration of the 50th anniversary of Brown vs. the Board of Education, Bill Cosby delivered some very blunt talk about the state of black America. In the intervening months, he has been traveling the country taking his message of personal responsibility directly to the people. In that same time, Cosby’s critics have launched a counter-offensive charging the entertainer with elitism, suggesting that Cosby’s prescription of pulling oneself up by the bootstraps is overly simplistic. The real problem, they say, lies in the failure of government institutions to provide adequate daycare for single mothers, job training and the like.

Among the gems from Cosby’s speech last year, he was quoted as saying: “The lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal. These people are not parenting."

How I wish he had not uttered those words. Whether a poor choice of words or a misguided elitism as some of his critics have charged, the effect has been to sidetrack a necessary conversation about America’s moral decline and obscure it with finger pointing and charges of either blaming the victim or claiming victimhood. There is little talk of solutions and more significantly no mention of hope. Where is the recognition of the strength, resiliency and industriousness of the American people and of black folk specifically?

The problems of out-of-wedlock birth, academic underachievement and imprudence are not exclusive to the lower class. Increasingly, they cross all economic lines. Further, the growing rhetoric of “personal responsibility” tends to cloud the truth that few of us get anywhere in life without help from someone. Few of us shine so brilliantly that we are able to forge a road without the aid of someone. At some point, someone believed in us enough to give us a shot. We all stand on the shoulders of many who came before.

It is also true, as Cosby’s critics point out, that there are those among the lower class who are trapped in institutions that do not teach although they are prepared and willing to learn and who are struggling in communities wracked with violence. However, as Cosby rightfully emphasizes, there are also those who find a way to succeed in spite of such obstacles. They manage the difficult work of putting oneself in the position to walk through those doors others have opened. That is work left to us individually and it is in this sense that we are all charged with taking responsibility of our own lives – making good choices, seeking virtue because it is virtue that leads to happiness.

To merely point a finger as Cosby does highlights the issue but does not move us any closer to solving it. To blast Cosby and continue to portray blacks as victims of government neglect as others are wont to do not only leaves us standing still, it leaves us impotent.

As a way to move the conversation away from finger pointing and forward to some discussion of solutions, I want to use this space to begin a conversation grounded in hope. The institutions are already in place: The family, the church and the school. These are the institutions responsible for our moral education and they are in disrepair. That is the problem and any solution must effectively deal with the rebuilding of the traditional family, the rediscovery of church communities, the rededication of churches to uplifting our moral selves and the rebuilding of our schools.

I have faith in the capacity of people to overcome ignorance and despair. I am optimistic because I am convinced that our success and eventual triumph is merely a matter of rededication to those principles of family and faith that have sustained us for generations.