Did Bill Cosby mock underclass blacks?
 

On Monday, Bill Cosby was a speaker at an event to honoring the Brown vs BOE anniversary. In his speech, he made remarks regarding low income and underclass black american. Here is an excerpt:

Full Story of Quote Above Another story


There are some people critizing Bill for these comments as well as his comments regarding blacks that are in prison.

Question:

Do you think Bill is being unfairly critized or was he simply tellign the truth? Or is this a case of people (blacks specifically) being upset because African American person publically criticized "their race"?

What are you thoughts?

ETA:

Oops. Earlier, I quoted the wrong story (Full Story of Quote Above). The correct article about Bill's comments has been posted and is in the middle of the page. :)

The TRUTH hurts. If the shoe fits...WEAR IT regardless of how much you spent on them. :D

BTW, yes you can become a doctor...etc. speaking that way. You have to know when and where to turn that 'light' on and off. :D :p

I'm not a real Bill Cosby fan. However, I understand what he is saying. Yet, what is he really going on that "level"? He has the millions, yes he donates to colleges, but what about going in the local trenches on the elementary level? Establish programs that will educated the ENTIRE FAMILY if you see something is missing? YOU HAVE THE FUNDS! :D

Cosby is on point with this. His rhetoric may be harsh (judgemental?), but personal responsibility affects future outcomes. Nobody down here is coming to help us so we best get busy helping ourselves.

While I'm not wild on generalizing criticism of "our folk" out in public, Cosby has earned that right. He's put millions of his money in colleges/universities to make a difference.

If you can't drop $, put your time/talent in play to eradicate the problem you see. I used to listen a lot more to people complaining about what "we" won't/don't/should/could be doing. Now... after about 2-3 minutes, I politely ask what they are doing. If the answer is (or amounts to) nothing, I ease myself from the conversation.

I agree w/ what Cosby said, the truth does hurt but it's time it be told it's like taking strong medicine it doesn't taste well going down but afterwards you do feel better.

I do agree with Cosby, but only to a ceratin degree. The way it was quoted sounds as if he's speaking of ALL lower class people. There are a good number of 'Lowerclass' people who speak very well. All lowerclass people don't spend their hard earned money on nonsense. I just think that with Cosby making his statement so open to the whole lowerclass category was wrong, but what he said in his statement holds true. Some lowerclass are in the predicament they are because they don't use their money wisely, along with other factors. It could be the way they speak as well, but to be honest, if that was the case in every aspect of this nation, we wouldn't hear anything about Nelly or Juvenile or anyone like that.
I mean, for those who did get upset, maybe they need to evaluate whether they're in that category. Are they spending money they know they don't have, on nonsense? I mean, are they living in a shack with a Benz parked out front? Are their children walking around in those $500.00 sneakers with no money saved for their college education? If so, they need to grill what Cosby said up, eat it, and let it digest a bit.

I don't know. That's my opinion.

I see it as tough love
 

Coming from Mr. Cosby, not mocking. I am with the personal responsibility vibe -- that's how I was raised by my older parents. And these days, there's no great benevolent spirit coming to rescue us.

We need to be more critical of our own, including demanding that we strive for excellence in education, and discipline in the home, and try to teach kids that there's a time and place for certain things, and the educational/work environment is not the place to speak "ebonic" :rolleyes: dialect, among other things.

Maybe it's easy for me to say because I'm not a parent, but I'm going by what type of values I have.

More importantly, the world has changed and the majority society is definitely suffering from compassion fatigue (as you can see in some posts on GC). Moral appeals don't work anymore, particularly if your own isht isn't together.

Re: I see it as tough love
 

I agree ! We are so quick to let our people (i.e entertainers especially) off the hook when it comes to a having a smidgen of accountability, not even realizing that its OUR community that is lacking role models at every turn. Yes, I agree that the first role model in a child's life should be the parent, but what if the parents (which more times will also include their extended family) aren't up to par? We need as may positive role models for our youth (especially black males) as we can get.

Bill is.....
 

Telling the truth. If the truth hurts so be it. Now, like Ced the Entertainer in "barbershop 1", I don't think he should say that in front of 'OTHERS' LOL..

Somehow, a lot of our people have DEVALUED education and put an emphasis on MATERIAL things.

EXACTLY!!!! Start from the bottom and work your way up. Our babies need it too.

I don't read anything in the information on Bill's speech that says "blacks" or anthing about race, period. HE says lowerclass. Now granted, he was probably talking about "us", but everyone I see acting like this does not look like me.

BTW, he is right. I think we who have done well have a responsibility to help others, but you have a responsibility to help yourself too.

Re: Re: I see it as tough love
 

Good point. For instance, there's an AfAm engineer named Mark Dean who was involved in developing computer architecture that allows IBM and compatible PCs to use high-performance software and work with peripheral devices.

Why are fellows like this not that well-known? Perhaps it's our fault -- I'm speaking of the evil media, which I'm a member of.

If I had a son, I'd rather he look up to people like Dr. Dean, the late Reginald Lewis, Stanley O'Neal, Kenneth Chenault, Richard Parsons, Franklin Raines, Dennis Archer, Hugh Price, even Gen. Powell despite who he works for, rather than Fiddy, Lil' Jon and all those lowest-common-denominator cats.

I agree with everything that has been said here. With particular respect to what Bill said about speaking proper English, I would really like to know what can be done about it? No matter how much grammar is taugh in school, when that child goes home and speaks incorrectly around family and friends and all of them speak the same way, much of what was taugh in school gets "un-learned". It's like what I tell people I work with all the time, if you take someone from a foreign country and put them in ESL courses for years, their accent and incorrect speech/grammar patterns aren't really going to fade if as soon as they leave the class they continue to speak in their native tongue or in the ways that they have become comfortable.

Most of us who speak standard English in all settings do so because we have been exposed and in the presence of people with whom standard English speaking is the norm and we became accustomed to speaking properly. Maybe exposure is something that's key and needs to be enhanced among young people. I know that sounds obvious, but perhaps it isn't being done on a wide enough scale. I don't know, I just always like to present some form of a suggestion if I am going to complain.

Excellent suggestion -- this speaks to some of the things I hope we are all doing with our respective organizations. Kids learn from modeling.

HELLO?! You're right - it isn't being done on a wide enough scale, and with re-segregation becoming more widespread, I worry that we won't be able to compete in this increasingly globalized society.

I'm not suggesting that exposure to "the Others" (:D) is the only way to achieve this. There are a great many intelligent and yes -- articulate -- brothers and sisters who could serve as mentors and role models. While the dominant culture may glorify the bling, you still have control over what happens under your roof, and should wield that influence judiciously.

David Foster Wallace is an author and educator who wrote an article in which he said that if students came into his class speaking non-standard English, they were doomed to fail. It didn't matter how bright their intellect, if they didn't know that there is a time and a place for more formal speech, Wallace felt that they didn't have much hope for a successful future. I seem to remember that a lot of black academics and activists were upset about this (mainly because it came from a white man), but when you think about it -- these intellectuals were defending the culture of anti-intellectualism that is so pervasive in our communities! AAUGH!

Okay, I've ranted enough. I don't think Cosby's language or rhetoric was too tough. If it makes people aware, then I'm all for it.

"I'm not suggesting that exposure to "the Others" () is the only way to achieve this. There are a great many intelligent and yes -- articulate -- brothers and sisters who could serve as mentors and role models. While the dominant culture may glorify the bling, you still have control over what happens under your roof, and should wield that influence judiciously. "


I can't figure out how to quote correctly :rolleyes: but...

I was just about to say this!! It isn't that being about non-blacks is the only way to hear or be exposed to standard English, it's more that in a society where, unfortunately, the most important sectors such as corporate America are controlled and most heavily populated by the "other" culture, the young people HAVE to be able to communicate and compete if only to get in the door so things can be shaken up a bit ;)