Cosby & Jesse

[20PearlGirl]

I never said Bill Cosby was wrong, the problem is endemic and cannot be solved with statements made in a vacuum is all.

I am not interested in calling you, or visiting your website.
I have seen your tirades on a host of messageboards and don't care to visit anymore of them. I don't find you intelligent or interesting enough to continue the discussion outside of Greekchat.

Good Day!

[ramrod]

Originally posted by 20PearlGirl
I don't think Bill was criticizing poor black people for being poor, I think he was criticizing the way in which they are so apathetic in raising thier children and persuing the opportunities in this country. How many more foreigners have to come to this country and start from stratch and go on to become doctors, lawyers and engineers. It doesn't take money to better your situation it takes

DISCIPLINE!!!!!!! Something a whole lot us lack.

Well, I'm flat out saying he was wrong. However, he did back off of the some of sweeping comments a few days later on Tavis Smiley so that shows that even he knows he went a little too far.
Here is a direct quote from the speech just to let everyone know what I had a problem with.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the lower economic and lower middle economic people are not holding up their end in this deal. In the neighborhood that most of us grew up in, parenting is not going on. (clapping) In the old days, you couldn’t hooky school because every drawn shade was an eye (laughing). And before your mother got off the bus and to the house, she knew exactly where you had gone, who had gone into the house, and where you got on whatever you had one and where you got it from. Parents don’t know that today.

I’m talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit. Where were you when he was two? (clapping) Where were you when he was twelve? (clapping) Where were you when he was eighteen, and how come you don’t know he had a pistol? (clapping) And where is his father, and why don’t you know where he is? And why doesn’t the father show up to talk to this boy?"

The middle and upper class are just as apathetic when raising their kids as the poor. These comments, rather his entire speech was directed to poor black folks. These parenting issues and education issues exists just as much in affluent households as they do in the poor. But yet he targeted poor folks. I was at Constitution Hall when he made the speech and he never once criticized the part that the middle and upper middle class play in this. Like I said in my earlier post it's really easy to make a speech condemning poor folks to an audience of middle and upper class blacks. If Colin Powell (a brother who I have personally worked with in the community a few times) had made the exact same comments Jesse, the NAACP, the Urban League, every black multi millionaire preacher along w/their 50,000 member congregations would have criticized him along w/myself because the comments were bottom line offensive. To imply that these social ills are only problems in our poor communities is ridiculous. This is an example of well off blacks being just as classist as the white republicans they regularly criticize.

[20PearlGirl]

Originally posted by ramrod
Well, I'm flat out saying he was wrong. However, he did back off of the some of sweeping comments a few days later on Tavis Smiley so that shows that even he knows he went a little too far.
Here is a direct quote from the speech just to let everyone know what I had a problem with.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the lower economic and lower middle economic people are not holding up their end in this deal. In the neighborhood that most of us grew up in, parenting is not going on. (clapping) In the old days, you couldn’t hooky school because every drawn shade was an eye (laughing). And before your mother got off the bus and to the house, she knew exactly where you had gone, who had gone into the house, and where you got on whatever you had one and where you got it from. Parents don’t know that today.

I’m talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit. Where were you when he was two? (clapping) Where were you when he was twelve? (clapping) Where were you when he was eighteen, and how come you don’t know he had a pistol? (clapping) And where is his father, and why don’t you know where he is? And why doesn’t the father show up to talk to this boy?"

The middle and upper class are just as apathetic when raising their kids as the poor. These comments, rather his entire speech was directed to poor black folks. These parenting issues and education issues exists just as much in affluent households as they do in the poor. But yet he targeted poor folks. I was at Constitution Hall when he made the speech and he never once criticized the part that the middle and upper middle class play in this. Like I said in my earlier post it's really easy to make a speech condemning poor folks to an audience of middle and upper class blacks. If Colin Powell (a brother who I have personally worked with in the community a few times) had made the exact same comments Jesse, the NAACP, the Urban League, every black multi millionaire preacher along w/their 50,000 member congregations would have criticized him along w/myself because the comments were bottom line offensive. To imply that these social ills are only problems in our poor communities is ridiculous. This is an example of well off blacks being just as classist as the white republicans they regularly criticize.

Ramrod,

I hear you but, the problem is the same. It doesn't take money to become involved in your children's education. It doesn't take money to kiss your child before he goes to school and to tell him that you love him...you would be surprised how much those simple acts would allieviate (sp?) some of the pain that disadvantaged children feel. I was very fortunate in that way. My mom though married, raised my sister and I alone, and she made sure we knew we were loved and she was very involved in the PTA at school. Alot of us need to turn off Maury and Jerry and visit a library or volunteer in the community. Become involved and stop spectating.

[Love_Spell_6]

Originally posted by Iconoclastic
On another note, it's people like the Jesse's and Shapton's who have exploited black people for years making them rich while they did nothing in return, except, "keep hate alive."

co-sign!

[ramrod]

Originally posted by Iconoclastic
So what you are trying to say is that unwed mothers exist more in the middle and upper class that in the lower classes? Wrong! The statistics may exist across the board, but they are not as evenly spread as you are trying to make them appear. And like he didn't know these comments would be made public. So the absence of poor people would not have been a deterrent. On another note, it's people like the Jesse's and Shapton's who have exploited black people for years making them rich while they did nothing in return, except, "keep hate alive."

If I said that black women are either the most promiscuous or unlucky by having 70% of children out-of-wedlock(OOW), what you say to that ramrod? And then went on to say that multiple births OOW occur far more in poor black women, what would you say?

I haven't seen the stats recently but let's just say for the sake of
argument that the stats are not evenly spread accross the board. Let's say that poor mothers are more likely than middle and upper class mothers to be unwed. That still doesn't change the fact that there is a problem in the middle and upper class households. It just may not be as severe. Also, even though Bill knew his comments would be made public I definitely think
the presence of more poor and working class people would have changed the tone of his speech. There is a difference between making a speech while getting booed and yelled at and making a speech while people applaud and yell, "You tell those lazy, poor unwed mothers."

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, nearly half the states in our union (24) have education finance suits pending because they claim they are not receiving enough money to educate low-income students, of whom the majority are probably black and Hispanic. Bill just forgot to mention this.

When people like Bill O'Riley and members of the Bush Administration (the same Bush Admin that most Blacks don't want to see in office again) are aligning themselves w/your comments you know there is a problem. The same conservatives that have applauded his unqualified censure of the black community are the same fellows that push for school vouchers and cuts in spending on education, after-school, job training, and other social welfare
programs. Sometime in the future, to justify their outrageous policies, these gentlemen and women will cite Mr. Cosby as an inside authority that black people are undeserving and simply need to work hard and sacrifice to improve their lot, not any governmental assistance. As a result, he should expect to hear more, “Why you ain’t…where you is,” from some black children
due to a lack of textbooks, crowded classrooms, and inadequate
facilities at their schools. He should expect continued Coca-Cola thefts due to the death of constructive activities for young people to participate in. He should expect more people to get shot in the back of the head over pieces of pound cake due to cutbacks.

[20PearlGirl]

On another note, it's people like the Jesse's and Shapton's who have exploited black people for years making them rich while they did nothing in return, except, "keep hate alive."


I agree with this also. I am a native NYorker and only folks in Brooklyn can actually tolerate Al Sharpton. I mean he wears a perm in the year 2004 for crying out loud.

[djjukebox]

Bill has the latitude to say what he wants on education because he and his wife Camille have donated over $30 Mil to HBCU's...

He's put his money and time where his mouth is unlike a whole heck of a lot of other Black and Non-Black leaders..

[AXEAM]

Originally posted by Iconoclastic
So what you are trying to say is that unwed mothers exist more in the middle and upper class that in the lower classes? Wrong! The statistics may exist across the board, but they are not as evenly spread as you are trying to make them appear. And like he didn't know these comments would be made public. So the absence of poor people would not have been a deterrent. On another note, it's people like the Jesse's and Shapton's who have exploited black people for years making them rich while they did nothing in return, except, "keep hate alive."

If I said that black women are either the most promiscuous or unlucky by having 70% of children out-of-wedlock(OOW), what you say to that ramrod? And then went on to say that multiple births OOW occur far more in poor black women, what would you say?

I swear you and your twisted stats, if you really knew how this stats created you would know that when it comes to black people that the upper & middleclass are excluded. The stats you see come only from the bottem lowerclass to give off an illusion of the state of Black America do your homework b/f you continue to sprout off your twisted stats.