Cose, who came to NEWSWEEK in 1993, says, “The wonderful thing about being a writer is that everything you’ve done in your life informs your perspective.” And he brings a unique set of qualifications to the daunting task of giving a multiracial audience some plain-language context to volatile racial issues. He’s been a street reporter, a columnist for a major daily newspaper (at the age of 19) and the chairman of the New York Daily News’s editorial board. What he calls his “appreciation of people at all levels of society, in all kinds of situations” is evident in his often quoted book about the hidden anger among upwardly mobile blacks, “The Rage of a Privileged Class.” Cose’s newest book, “Color-Blind: Seeing Beyond Race in a Race-Obsessed World,” deals directly with the larger conflicts underlying the ebonics controversy. (Due out this month, “Color-Blind” was recently excerpted in NEWSWEEK.) “There’s a whole body of research there that can underpin a quick-turnaround piece,” Cose says. When asked whether the Oakland school board has inadvertently done us all a favor by at least renewing a debate on inner-city education, Cose answers, “That’s a benevolent interpretation. These kinds of debates in America have a tendency to be short-lived, with few lasting results.” But Cose is one man who, in his books and in NEWSWEEK, is working very hard to prove himself wrong on both counts. His colleagues, his readers and the educational establishment are lucky to have him around.
