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.