Bill Cosby is fired up.

[lookout123]

i heard about cosby's rant at the brown vs. the board celebration, but looks like he is not through.

this was reported in the AP

Cosby's Harsh Words
Friday, July 02, 2004

CHICAGO — Bill Cosby went off on another tirade against the black community Thursday, telling a room full of activists that black children are running around not knowing how to read or write and "going nowhere."

He also had harsh words for struggling black men, telling them: "Stop beating up your women because you can't find a job."

Cosby made headlines in May when he upbraided some poor blacks for their grammar and accused them of squandering opportunities the civil rights movement gave them. He shot back Thursday, saying his detractors were trying in vain to hide the black community's "dirty laundry."

"Let me tell you something, your dirty laundry gets out of school at 2:30 every day, it's cursing and calling each other n------ as they're walking up and down the street," Cosby said during an appearance at the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition & Citizenship Education Fund's annual conference.

"They think they're hip," the entertainer said. "They can't read; they can't write. They're laughing and giggling, and they're going nowhere."

In his remarks in May at a commemoration of the anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education desegregation decision, Cosby denounced some blacks' grammar and said those who commit crimes and wind up behind bars "are not political prisoners."


"I can't even talk the way these people talk, 'Why you ain't,' 'Where you is' ... and I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk," Cosby said then. "And then I heard the father talk ... Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth."

Cosby elaborated Thursday on his previous comments in a talk interrupted several times by applause. He castigated some blacks, saying that they cannot simply blame whites for problems such as teen pregnancy and high school dropout rates.

"For me there is a time ... when we have to turn the mirror around," he said. "Because for me it is almost analgesic to talk about what the white man is doing against us. And it keeps a person frozen in their seat, it keeps you frozen in your hole you're sitting in."

Cosby lamented that the racial slurs once used by those who lynched blacks are now a favorite expression of black children. And he blamed parents.

"When you put on a record and that record is yelling `n----- this and n----- that' and you've got your little 6-year-old, 7-year-old sitting in the back seat of the car, those children hear that," he said.

He also condemned black men who missed out on opportunities and are now angry about their lives.

"You've got to stop beating up your women because you can't find a job, because you didn't want to get an education and now you're (earning) minimum wage," Cosby said. "You should have thought more of yourself when you were in high school, when you had an opportunity."

Cosby appeared Thursday with the Rev. Jesse Jackson (search), founder and president of the education fund, who defended the entertainer's statements.

"Bill is saying let's fight the right fight, let's level the playing field," Jackson said. "Drunk people can't do that. Illiterate people can't do that."

Cosby also said many young people are failing to honor the sacrifices made by those who struggled and died during the civil rights movement.

"Dogs, water hoses that tear the bark off trees, Emmett Till," he said, naming the black youth who was tortured and murdered in Mississippi in 1955, allegedly for whistling at a white woman. "And you're going to tell me you're going to drop out of school? You're going to tell me you're going to steal from a store?"

Cosby also said he wasn't concerned that some whites took his comments and turned them "against our people."

"Let them talk," he said.

[Elspode]

I wonder how long it will take before some other black leader calls Bill an Uncle Tom?

It *is* hard to look at one's own image in the mirror of self-reflection, and it *is* a lot easier to blame others for your own woes. I think his comments are right on, though. I compare it to my own situation when someone finally told me, "look, you're a drunk", and I actually got it and did something about it.

[ladysycamore]

The truth fucking hurts. Didn't hurt ME though. I heard about this this morning, and I applauded...loudly!

My whole family would also be clapping and agreeing because we were ALL raised by "old school" black folk. Practically all of my relatives on both my Mom and Dad's side of the family were born at the tail end of the Depression Era and at the beginning of the 40s (as far as the adults; aunts and uncles). They all raised their kids the "old fashioned" way: rewarded if we did good, and the ass-beatdown if we got out of line. Where the neighbors got involved and told on your ass if they saw you doing something wrong. Where you had to be inside the house when the street lights came on and you could not play out of sight (or at least, yelling distance) from your house (and boy do I remember many days where my Dad would call me from the other side of the damn neighborhood and you had better be home within MINUTES!). When parents kept track of your progress at school, and went to pratically every PTA meeting (and you had to go with them!). Basically...when parents were parents.

It is sadly not like the "good old days" anymore (hm...sound familiar), and that's a shame because it only hurts the future generations of blacks.

Everything that Cosby has said has been "on point". Too goddamned bad if other blacks can't see that. They need to stop whining and start listening to what Cosby and countless others have been saying for decades now!

And I also wonder, Elspode, how many will see Cosby's remarks as "betraying" the "race". Such complete and utter bullshit.

I'd love to see/hear what Tavis Smiley, Dr. Cornell West, Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Micheal Eric Dyson has to say about all this.

[lookout123]

looking at his comments in general, i think they could be applied to non-black americans as well. when did it become acceptable, or worse - admireable, to not speak intelligent english, to act like a criminal in training, etc...

Cosby will catch some flack for this but he is obviously a big man and can take it.

good job bill.

[blue]

You know this really has nothing to do with nothing, but are you the only black on here (on at least a regular basis) Rho? Not tying it into this thread, but I just thought of it and was curious.

[elSicomoro]

I believe she is. Saraax is black, IIRC, but she doesn't post that often.

[elSicomoro]

Oh...there's also felinesarefine, who is interracial, but I think I scared her off.

[Elspode]

Originally posted by ladysycamore
...When parents kept track of your progress at school, and went to pratically every PTA meeting (and you had to go with them!). Basically...when parents were parents.

This is the key, and as alluded to by others, this is not a racial problem...it is a universal problem. The black community may be manifesting some of the more objectionable outward signs of lack of involvement from the older generations, at least to the casual observer, but parenting is rapidly becoming a lost art...period.

We work hard at it, and we *still* have mondo problems at my house, so it is no easy task. However, my kids are smart, very polite to adults, and quite loving, so we must have done something right along the way.

[blue]

Hmm, never heard of Saraax.

Don't really remember felinesarefine that much either, but with a username like that I figure we should thank you.

[Undertoad]

From where I sit it looks like all of you are black. Lettering, that is, on grey background.

[blue]

it is a universal problem

I agree, but I think part of the point was so many were blaming whites for it.

[blue]

Originally posted by Undertoad
From where I sit it looks like all of you are black. Lettering, that is, on grey background.

I'm white (little european, little indian)but I was born a po black child.

Edit: Oh yeah, I'm blue too.

[Elspode]

Originally posted by blue
I agree, but I think part of the point was so many were blaming whites for it.

I'd really like to think that anyone capable of rational thought would have a hard time believing that at this point in history, but I suppose that denial is still a functional coping mechanism in today's world.

[richlevy]

What you all did not know is that Bill Cosby is the real 'dark horse' candidate for Kerry's VP and this is his way of claiming his moderate credentials and getting some free publicity.

The announcement will be made next week.

[richlevy]

Originally posted by blue


I agree, but I think part of the point was so many were blaming whites for it.

You mean because we took a whole race of people, kidnapped them, sold them into slavery, and purposely attempted to destroy any culture or sense of community they may have brought with them?

And because when we freed them we made promises for reparations in the form of land and equipment so that they could work themselves into our society but then withdrew the offer?

My European ancestors came here because they wanted to. While some may have deliberately assimiliated themselves, they did so by choice. Noone beat them for praying in their own religion, trying to educate themselves, or speaking in their native language.

Something similar was tried with native Americans, although it was a little more subtle since they were not technically slaves.

BTW, I do not think reparations are the way to go, since every single ex-slave is now dead, but let's acknowledge that the original problem is one that Americans deliberately created, and that we spent most of the 20th century in self denial over this and allowing segregation, de facto and de jure, to keep an entire class of people in a system of schools and jobs which were inferior.

Yes people need to meet us halfway, accept personal responsibility, and rebuild their own community ties and supports. But let's not kid ourselves - a big part of the problem is still with 'the system' and not with the people caught in it.