:eek:

I noticed he looks bald in that pic - is he shaving his head or just going bald?

That looks like a shave job to me. This reminds me of Our Kind of People and the flack that arose cause we were allegedly airing dirty laundry about our "upper crust" and color issues within the community. If it's wrapped up in comedy we can giggle about it and go home but for some reason if we just lay it out there, in a book or in Cosby's case in a speech they will get attacked. I don't agree with EVERYTHING that's been said but I know that we have to start making some hard changes and soon.

AGAIN...
 

Later for speeches and all of the rhetoric. We talk too d@%# much! Ok, we all KNOW that problems exist in our community (actually, not just OUR community). It's time to get our hands dirty and get out there are start raising our children, mentoring, and SOLVING the problems.

Re: AGAIN...
 

Just wanted to quote it, cause it bears repeating.:)

Re: AGAIN...
 

Especially ol' Billy one. He's a billionaire, isn't he?

I heard snippets of his speech on the Today Show and I'm glad someone is saying these things. Especially the part about "I don't care what White folks think about me":D We want people to put our issues in nice little statements but sometimes it needs to be said a certain way to get people's attention. I guess we are just shocked to hear it from Dr. Cosby.

Go, frat!
 

I think Bill has earned the right to speak his mind, especially at his age and his station in life. As mentioned before, Bill grew up in the projects of North Philly (not far from where my mom grew up!) and he has worked hard to achieve and make something of himself. His question as to why many of our folks can't do the same is valid.

One of the negatives of intergration is that we (Black folks) are scattered everywhere and we really don't have media outlets for just us. So anything that needs to be said to Black folks must be said in a public forum where everyone who is interested can listen therefore much dirty laundry will be exposed.

We need to stop trying to hide the dirty laundry in the corner. Instead, we need to wash it!

I concur. I saw the snippet on the Today Show this morning as well and I agreed with what he had to say. I even agreed with the CONTENT of what he said previously regarding Afrocentric and made-up (for lack of a better term) names. I don't believe that discriminating on the basis of one's name is correct, but I am not so heavy in denial to believe that it does not occur.

I agree with Bill. Chris Rock says the same things in his comedy act. . . .Bill is a comedian too.

Folks say this stuff everyday.

Total agreement. I listened to what he said and those things are happening in the black community. Hell, as a person (Cosby) who donates his personal funds to colleges and always stressed the importance of an education, he does have something to say. We always want our black leaders to take a stand, then when they state facts we jump on them because they are airing "dirty laundry".

One morning my mom and I were going somewhere and our neighbor steps our the house cussing her children up and down, call them all sorts of MF's. I just started thinking, what is up with that! Her kids are little. My mom jumped on me about my stuff, but she never called me out of my name like that. I felt sorry for those little kids. But that this new generation for ya. So we just leave her alone.

I've witnessed stuff like that far too often. I know there's no instruction booklet with children but people don't know the damage they do to their children when they talk to them all crazy. just a cycle of ridiculousness.

Glad to see the responses in this thread
 

In an earlier story I posted, there was something called "self-reliance liberalism" mentioned. It's something that we are going to have to stop talking about and start practicing.

We should have practiced it YEARS ago. I'm dating myself here, but I saw this coming in the 1980s with the compassion fatigue when the late Pres. Reagan was re-elected. It crystallized in 1996, when Proposition 209 was passed in California.

We don't really have the strong moral appeal that we had during the heyday of the civil rights era.

Yes, I know that 40 years of civil rights isn't going to undo 200 to 500 years of slavery and its aftermath.

But there's enough of us who have done well. Somehow, we have to figure out what the successful among native-born, several generation AfAms (as well as immigrants from African countries and West Indian countries and their kids) are doing and transfer it to the wider body.

I don't see any simple solutions.

Bill Cosby puts his money where his mouth is
 

He gives TONS of money to colleges and is a vocal advocate for the importance of education. The man has risen out of poverty himself. He has EVERY RIGHT to comment on our community's problems, he is one of the people trying to SOLVE them.

So once again, bravo Bill.

I agree with much of what Mr. Cosby stated, although I may disagree with how he said it. I also think he needs to expand his comments to encourage middle class black folks to do more in the community than we are currently doing. I think he needs to encourage folks to do more than "drive by" giving (i.e. serving at a soup kitchen, donating clothes, etc.) and get involved in Trayveeonshay and 'nem's life so that they can see other options.

BTW, the "lower" class are not the only ones who are not teaching their kids values. I know some solidly middle class people who kids are on the road to destruction as we speak.

I agree!
 

Re: Bill Cosby puts his money where his mouth is
 

Let me first state that I DO AGREE with Mr. Cosby, but to say he is trying to solve the issue..exactly how is he doing that? I see him at these events and making statements at venues where the actual people he is talking about are NOT in attendance. I think if he was serious he would go out into those areas and address that segment of the black population. Sure he gives TONS of money to colleges, and that is great, but the people who he speaks of arent in college there still in our public schools or on the corner. IMO I think when he is at those venues speaking he need to address the middle to elite class of blacks and admionish them for widespread neglect of the poorer class.

Re: Re: Bill Cosby puts his money where his mouth is
 

Exactly! But, that's not what he's doing. IF you state that those people need to do that...talk to those people. HELP THOSE PEOPLE!

I agree with Eclipse as well. WE need to pick it up. Our organizations that are suppossed to service the community need to do just that.

"Widespread neglect of the poorer class." ?

Well, in order to believe in that theory, you must support the idea of the "Talented Tenth". However, this type of thinking is not limited to successful Blacks. Many wealthy "other" believe that they must help those in need.

Once again I agree w/ Mr Cosby sometimes in life you have to call it as you see it and many a black parent have dropped the ball big time. If I had a dollar for every time a blk parent came in my office and blamed everything/everybody for their child's behavior I'll be alright. Now true the MAN does keep his foot on our throat but that's no excuse why a person should not get an education and behave in a respectful manner that's not to much to ask for. Too many black people have brought into the just do what you like mindset and it's clear that type of thinking just isn't working.

Why is that when I said that on this message board everybody got mad? Guess I'm not Bill Cosby.

Cosby is on NPR right now speaking on this and the african american community.:)

Cosby Paying for Education of 2 Students

Thu Jul 8, 6:26 AM ET


SPRINGFIELD, Mass. - Comedian Bill Cosby (news), who recently said black children are "going nowhere" because they don't know how to read and write, is paying for the college education of two top high school graduates who support themselves.



Cosby, who lives in Shelburne, read a story in The Republican of Springfield about Loren M. Wilder and Jimmy L. Hester, who are also black. They went to three colleges in a tour arranged by Cosby, and selected Hampton University in Hampton, Va. after visiting the campus on Tuesday.


Read the rest HERE!

Don't tell me Cosby isn't doing enough.

He is doing far more than most of the people who have lamblasted him as he has given PERSONALLY and invested far more than a few weekends in the future of MANY (read: not just these two) of our children.

He can make whatever truthful (cuz ya know he's telling it like it T-I is!) statements as far as I am concerned, because he is truly doing something to rectify the problem.

In general I agree with Bill Cosby's comments. I think a lot of what he said, many have said to each other, over dinner, in the barber or beauty shop, in their living rooms, for a long time. I differ on the blanket indictment of "the poorer class" and the romanticized view that the middle and upper class have it together. Our Black parents, for whatever reason, are failing across all socioeconomic lines and that is disturbing. I see many Black families who have "made it" whose children are a mess. I also see "lower class" families who are holding it down. It is bigger than a class issue.

I feel that you have to decide what you are trying to accomplish and choose your efforts from there. If we are trying to keep another generation of children form being lost, by God we all need open our mouths, take our legislators to task and save America's public schools. We need to volunteer our time to reach these kids and to reach these parents. It is not enough to point fingers and place blame. It is also not enough to focus all our efforts on kids going to college. While they need our support, the only way to increase the numbers who are graduating is reaching them when they are small. We have to put in work to make a difference. Not just flap our gums. At the head start center my chapter runs, it is clear that efforts to assist the parents impacts the children. Better off Black folks need to do more than look down their noses and shake their heads if they want to see a change.

I agree with most of what you're saying here...but i don't see what Bill Cosby is doing as just "flapping his gums." Actually, there are many black people that still see this as a issue we shouldn't discuss in "mixed company." So starting a dialogue about it in my opinion is a great thing...and the truth hurts

I definitely don't view paying for the college educations of two hard working students that Bill doesn't even know - he read of them in the newspaper- as not doing more than
'looking down a nose or shaking a head."

I also don't see the millions Bill has given away as not more than either of those either. It definitely is.

Just because someone chooses to donate money so kids can go to school instead of choosing to serve by running school, doesn't make the service any less laudable or noteworthy.

Let's stop judging each other- that I think is a main problem.

WE CAN'T ALL DO EVERYTHING, BUT WE EACH CAN DO SOMETHING!

Let's not knock others because they "do" in a different way than we would choose.

very very very good point ;)

True indeed. In real life I've said a few things what Bill Cosby has said, only less harsh, and literally lost some friendships.

Location: Somewhere in the US living that HOLY life!!!
Posts: 666

Just had to point out that irony. ;)

From Leonard Pitts: Do white people matter?
 

LEONARD PITTS: AIRING DIRTY LAUNDRY IS A SIGN OF PROGRESS


Our question for today: Do white people matter? It's Bill Cosby who inspires me to ask. In May, you'll recall, he made headlines for criticizing the "lower economic people" in African America for what he saw as their ungrammatical locution and dysfunctional behavior. On July 1, he was at it again, saying in an appearance at the annual Rainbow/ PUSH Coalition Conference in Chicago that black youth are the "dirty laundry" many people would prefer he not criticize.

"Let me tell you something," he said. "Your dirty laundry gets out of school at 2:30 every day, it's cursing and calling each other the N-word as they're walking up and down the street. They think they're hip. They can't read. They can't write. They're laughing and giggling, and they're going nowhere."

Read the rest of the article here

Re: From Leonard Pitts: Do white people matter?
 

Leonard Pitts is a favorite of mine. He's also preached some of this self-reliance and bringing our issues to light.
And he makes a great point: The bigot strain of white folks won't change. Why are we giving those people power over us? Just keep moving and work to figure out some solutions, while keeping in mind that not everyone's going to advance in lockstep.

Wow! Glad to see one of my fan club members is paying that much attention to me LOL ;)

Back to the topic...
 

I thought this might interest some.


Article on msn.com entitled, "Why is Cosby so Angry?"- click link below.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2103794/?GT1=4244

TTT/Henry Louis Gates and priorities
 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/01/op...5b6b8bf8056d7d

Excerpts from a New York Times column by Gates. Excellent stuff.

Why has it been so difficult for black leaders to say such
things in public, without being pilloried for "blaming the
victim"? Why the huge flap over Bill Cosby's insistence
that black teenagers do their homework, stay in school,
master standard English and stop having babies? Any black
person who frequents a barbershop or beauty parlor in the
inner city knows that Mr. Cosby was only echoing sentiments
widely shared in the black community.

"If our people studied calculus like we studied
basketball," my father, age 91, once remarked as we drove
past a packed inner-city basketball court at midnight,
"we'd be running M.I.T." When my brother and I were growing
up in the 50's, our parents convinced us that the
"blackest" thing that we could be was a doctor or a lawyer.
We admired Hank Aaron and Willie Mays, but our real heroes
were people like Thurgood Marshall, Dr. Benjamin Mays and
Mary McLeod Bethune.


Scholars such as my Harvard colleague William Julius Wilson
say that the causes of black poverty are both structural
and behavioral. Think of structural causes as "the devil
made me do it," and behavioral causes as "the devil is in
me." Structural causes are faceless systemic forces, like
the disappearance of jobs. Behavioral causes are
self-destructive life choices and personal habits. To break
the conspiracy of silence, we have to address both of these
factors.

It's important to talk about life chances - about the
constricted set of opportunities that poverty brings. But
to treat black people as if they're helpless rag dolls
swept up and buffeted by vast social trends - as if they
had no say in the shaping of their lives - is a supreme act
of condescension. Only 50 percent of all black children
graduate from high school; an estimated 64 percent of black
teenage girls will become pregnant. (Black children raised
by female "householders" are five times as likely to live
in poverty as those raised by married couples.) Are white
racists forcing black teenagers to drop out of school or to
have babies?

Mr. Cosby got a lot of flak for complaining about children
who couldn't speak standard English. Yet it isn't a
derogation of the black vernacular - a marvelously rich and
inventive tongue - to point out that there's a language of
the marketplace, too, and learning to speak that language
has generally been a precondition for economic success,
whoever you are. When we let black youth become
monolingual, we've limited their imaginative and economic
possibilities.