Bill Cosby's comment

[lawrocket 3]

He's catching some hell for his suggestion that poor class blacks are not holding up their end of Brown v. Boward of Education.

My view? Cosby should be applauded for having the guts to point this out and for taking a stand on what he believes are destructive values.

Was Cosby wrong in his opinion? Was he wrong in saying what he said? Should he have shut up and "kept it real?"

Quote

New York Times
After making inflammatory remarks Monday about the behavior and values of some poor blacks, comedian Bill Cosby said that he had made the comments out of concern and because of his belief that fighting racial injustice must also include accepting personal responsibility.

Cosby spoke Friday after a week of discussion on the Internet, on talk shows, on the radio and in newspaper columns about his comments Monday night at a gala at Constitution Hall in Washington commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education desegregation decision. He has been attacked and applauded for saying that "the lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal."

He was also reported to have said: "These people are not parenting. They are buying things for their kids -- $500 sneakers for what? And won't spend $200 for `Hooked on Phonics.' ... They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English."

Cosby said Friday that what was left out of those comments, first reported by The Associated Press and The Washington Post, was that he began his remarks by talking about what he said was a 50 percent high school dropout rate among poor blacks. The National Center for Education Statistics, a federal agency, says that in 2000 the dropout rate for blacks was 13.1 percent. Cosby's publicist, David Brokaw, said it was Cosby's understanding that the rate was 50 percent in some inner-city schools.

Cosby's remarks, which also included the observation that not all incarcerated blacks are political prisoners ("people getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake, and then we run out and we are outraged"), were meant to frame the complexities of black struggle 50 years after Brown, Cosby said, when so many legal barriers have fallen.

Some people said Cosby's comments simply brought to the surface long-simmering generational and class schisms among blacks. Some applauded him for using sharp language to reiterate a long-running debate among blacks about the direction of the black struggle. Still others said they feared that his remarks would become fodder for racists or conservatives who believe that blacks alone avoid personal responsibility.

"Mr. Cosby was addressing the 50 percent dropout rate that he knows to be true," Cosby said of himself in a telephone interview from San Francisco, where he was raising money for a program to get teachers into low-income schools.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[Gravitymaster 0]

Sometimes the truth hurts.

[CrazyIvan 0]

Some people just "Can't handle the truth".

__________________________________________
Blue Skies and May the Force be with you.

[billvon 3,131]

Good for him! It's good to see him both pointing out some problems that blacks have with education _and_ working to correct them.

[Kennedy 0]

I'd break bread with Bill Cosby any day, or first round of Jello shooters is on me



.

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*

[Muenkel 0]

I think Mr. Cosby hit a bullseye with his comments. He and his wife have my respect.

_________________________________________
Chris

[meltdown 0]

Go Bill! If more black leaders had the balls this guy does, maybe some problems would get solved. The blame game only takes you so far. Unfortunately, nobody but a "person of color" can say such a thing without instantly being dubbed a racist, facts be damned.

[TheAnvil 0]

Somebody had better stand behing $harpton and Je$$e Jack$on with a fire extinguisher - they're going to spontaneously combust when they hear/read this!

Vinny the Anvil
Post Traumatic Didn't Make The Lakers Syndrome is REAL
JACKASS POWER!!!!!!

[billvon 3,131]

>Unfortunately, nobody but a "person of color" can say such a thing
>without instantly being dubbed a racist, facts be damned.

Yep. I always liked the song "rockin the suburbs" as a commentary on that sort ot thinking.

"Y'all don't know what it's like - being male, middle class and white"

[aprilcat 0]

I'm waiting for Sharpton and Jackson to say something negative about this too. Its sad that those guys show up AFTER a person gets in trouble and tries to blame society for bad behavior. They don't do enough pro-active advocacy for the people they 'help'.

Cosby is right. Its bad when a free education is offered and deemed unimportant. They have laws now (well, they do in NY) that if your kid is under 17 and not in school parents are held legally responsible (which they SHOULD be, anyway). If this were a national law, perhaps that would help.~~April

Camelot II, the Electric Boogaloo!

[Kennedy 0]

Rockin' the Suburbs
Written by Ben Folds
From the album "Rockin' the Suburbs"

    C                F      G

In a haze these days

C                 F    G

I pull up to the stop light

C                       F   G

I can feel that something's not right

C               F             G

I can feel that someone's blasting me with hate


C     F   G

And bass

C                F      G

Sendin' dirty vibes my way

C                       F      G

'Cause my great great great great Grandad

C                       F        G

Made someones' great great great great Grandaddies slaves


C   F   G


C   F   G        C

It wasn't my idea

C   F   G          C

It wasn't my idea

C   F   G          C

Never was my idea

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

Quote

Somebody had better stand behing $harpton and Je$$e Jack$on with a fire extinguisher - they're going to spontaneously combust when they hear/read this!

Wait -- are you implying that somebody should try to put that fire out??

-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[meltdown 0]

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In Reply To
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Somebody had better stand behing $harpton and Je$$e Jack$on with a fire extinguisher - they're going to spontaneously combust when they hear/read this!

Wait -- are you implying that somebody should try to put that fire out??

---Jeffrey
______________________________________________
Hey, here's a hose....oh sorry, that's a can of gas.