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Author Topic: Bill Cosby at it again  (Read 2186 times)

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Offline Trini _2026

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Bill Cosby at it again
« on: November 19, 2006, 09:47:23 AM »
I had never seen the Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson cry in public. And he's seldom upstaged. Until, Bill Cosby came to town.

Last month Jackson invited Cosby to the annual Rainbow/PUSH conference for a conversation about controversial remarks the entertainer offered May 17 at an NAACP dinner in Washington , D.C. That's when America's Jell-O Man shook things up by arguing that African Americans were betraying the legacy of civil rights victories.


"The lower economic people," he said, "are not holding up their end in this deal. 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!"



Thursday morning, Cosby showed no signs of repenting as he strode across the stage at the Sheraton Hotel ballroom before a standing-room-only crowd.

Sporting a natty gold sports coat and dark glasses, he proceeded to unload a laundry list of black America 's self-imposed ills. The iconic actor and comedian kidded that he couldn't compete with the oratory of the Reverend but he preached circles around Jackson in their nearly hour-long conversation, delivering brutally frank one-liners and the toughest of love.



The enemy, he argues, is us:

"There is a time, ladies and gentlemen, when we have to turn the mirror around." Cosby acknowledged he wasn't critiquing all blacks-just "the 50 percent of African Americans in the lower economic neighborhood who drop out of school," and the alarming proportions of black men in prison and black teenage mothers. The mostly black crowd seconded him with choruses of "Amens."



To critics who pose, it's unproductive to air our dirty laundry in public, he responds, "Your dirty laundry gets out of school at 2:30 every day. It's cursing on the way home, on the bus, train, in the candy store. They are cursing and grabbing each other and going nowhere.

And, the book bag is very, very thin because there's nothing in it."



"Don't worry about the white man," he adds. "I could care less about what white people think about me . . . let 'em talk. What are they saying that is different from what their grandfathers said and did to us? What is different is what we are doing to ourselves."



For those who say Cosby is just an elitist who's "got his" but doesn't understand the plight of the black poor, he reminds us that, "We're going to turn that mirror around. It's not just the poor-everybody's guilty."



Cosby and Jackson lamented that in the 50th year of Brown vs. Board of Education, our failings betray our legacy. Jackson dabbed away tears as he recalled the financial struggles at Fisk University , a historically black college and Jackson 's Alma mater.



When Cosby was done, the 1,000 people in the room all jumped to their feet in ovation. Long after Cosby had departed, I could not find a dissenter in the crowd. But in the hotel corridor I encountered a vintage poster for sale that said volumes. The poster, which advertised the Million Man March, was "discounted" to $5: Remember the Million Man March?



In 1995, Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan exhorted "a million sober, disciplined, committed, dedicated, inspired black men to meet in Washington on a day of atonement.



In 2006, perhaps all that is left of that call is a $5 poster. We have shed tears too many times, at too many watershed moments before, while the hopes they inspired have fallen by the wayside.

Not this time!


Cosby's plea to parents: "Before you get to the point where you say 'I can't do nothing with them'-do something with them."

Like:

Teach our children to speak English. There's no such thing as "talking white". When the teacher calls, show up at the school.

When the idiot box starts spewing profane rap videos, turn it off.

Refrain from cursing around the kids.

Teach our boys that women should be cherished, not raped and demeaned.

Tell them that education is a prize we won with blood and tears, not a dishonor.

Stop making excuses for the agents and abettors of black-on-black crime.

It costs us nothing to do these things. But if we don't, it will cost us infinitely more tears.

We all send thousands of jokes through e-mail without a second thought, but when it comes to sending messages regarding life choices, people think twice about sharing. The crude, vulgar, and sometimes the obscene pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of decency is too often suppressed in school and the workplace.



I passed this on... will you
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Offline dwolfman

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Re: Bill Cosby at it again
« Reply #1 on: November 19, 2006, 12:39:42 PM »
Quote
To critics who pose, it's unproductive to air our dirty laundry in public, he responds, "Your dirty laundry gets out of school at 2:30 every day. It's cursing on the way home, on the bus, train, in the candy store. They are cursing and grabbing each other and going nowhere.

And, the book bag is very, very thin because there's nothing in it."

That rings home right here in T&T. The book bags of our students are getting thinner and thinner.

Offline WestCoast

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Re: Bill Cosby at it again
« Reply #2 on: November 19, 2006, 12:57:27 PM »
"Cosby's plea to parents: "Before you get to the point where you say 'I can't do nothing with them'-do something with them."
Like:
Teach our children to speak English. There's no such thing as "talking white". When the teacher calls, show up at the school.
When the idiot box starts spewing profane rap videos, turn it off.
Refrain from cursing around the kids.
Teach our boys that women should be cherished, not raped and demeaned.
Tell them that education is a prize we won with blood and tears, not a dishonor.
Stop making excuses for the agents and abettors of black-on-black crime.
It costs us nothing to do these things. But if we don't, it will cost us infinitely more tears."

sounds like GOOD advise for anybody.
Whatever you do, do it to the purpose; do it thoroughly, not superficially. Go to the bottom of things. Any thing half done, or half known, is in my mind, neither done nor known at all. Nay, worse, for it often misleads.
Lord Chesterfield
(1694 - 1773)

Offline Bourbon

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Re: Bill Cosby at it again
« Reply #3 on: November 19, 2006, 09:27:47 PM »
He needs to be blunt and he is. Thankfully the response is a lot more favourable than when he first aired these opinions. I shake my head when people were talking mess how he airing black people laundry in public etc. Dat is sweeping an issue under the carpet and failing to address it. Hopefully people will apply it in their lives.
The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today are Christians who acknowledge Jesus ;with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.

Offline ribbit

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Re: Bill Cosby at it again
« Reply #4 on: November 20, 2006, 09:47:25 AM »
here's a classic cosby moment from a few years back.

Offline Trini _2026

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Re: Bill Cosby at it again
« Reply #5 on: November 21, 2006, 04:22:57 PM »
He is harsh but it has to do with african american culture.
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truetrini

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Re: Bill Cosby at it again
« Reply #6 on: November 21, 2006, 07:48:16 PM »
He is harsh but it has to do with african american culture.

steups..what you know ABOUT AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURE?

DEY HAVE DAT IN CANADA?

Offline Trini _2026

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Re: Bill Cosby at it again
« Reply #7 on: November 23, 2006, 04:38:19 PM »
successful blacks need to go back to the black communities and show them the way ent truetrini
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