DescentBB

I think by now most of us have heard of Bill Cosby's latest speech. A long while back I posted something on euphonics and how blacks seem to think they have a legitimate right to promote their own ghetto speak language as something worthy of legitimate culture. Some here derided my stance against this as being racist and not being understanding enough of the black lifestyle. It is now even more interesting how blacks within the black community deride Cosby on various talk shows as being out of touch with the younger generation and since he (Cosby) is "only" a comedian, Cosby is unworthy to be taken seriously (I suppose these are the same type people who think Sean Penn "is" worthy to make comments on world matters). As I said before and say again, black problems are promoted by ignorant people trying to defend ignorant values for fear a better way my impact their position in life. The following are excerpts of Cosby's speech:

http://www.rosenblog.com/2004/05/23/out ... naacp.html

"I was talking to the movers and shakers," Cosby emphasized yesterday. Here's more Cos, as tape-recorded by Harris Monday night:

"I am talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit. Where were you when he was 2? Where were you when he was 12? Where were you when he was 18 and how come you didn't know that he had a pistol? And where is the father? . . .

"The church is only open on Sunday and you can't keep asking Jesus to do things for you. You can't keep saying that God will find a way. God is tired of you," Cosby declared to loud applause.

"I wasn't there when God was saying it, I am making this up, but it sounds like what God would say. In all of this work we can not blame white people. White people don't live over there; they close up the shop early. The Korean ones don't know us well enough, so they stay open 24 hours."

On fashion: "People putting their clothes on backwards: Isn't that a sign of something gone wrong? . . . People with their hats on backwards, pants down around the crack, isn't that a sign of something, or are you waiting for Jesus to pull his pants up? Isn't it a sign of something when she has her dress all the way up to the crack and got all type of needles [piercings] going through her body? What part of Africa did this come from? Those people are not Africans; they don't know a damn thing about Africa.

"With names like Shaniqua, Taliqua and Mohammed and all of that crap, and all of them are in jail. Brown versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person's problem. We have got to take the neighborhood back. We have to go in there -- forget about telling your child to go into the Peace Corps -- it is right around the corner. They are standing on the corner and they can't speak English."

On sports heroes: "Basketball players -- multimillionaires -- can't write a paragraph. Football players -- multimillionaires -- can't read. Yes, multimillionaires. Well, Brown versus Board of Education: Where are we today? They paved the way, but what did we do with it? That white man, he's laughing. He's got to be laughing: 50 percent drop out, the rest of them are in prison."

On teenage sex: "Five, six children -- same woman -- eight, 10 different husbands or whatever. Pretty soon you are going to have DNA cards to tell who you are making love to. You don't know who this is. It might be your grandmother. I am telling you, they're young enough! Hey, you have a baby when you are 12; your baby turns 13 and has a baby. How old are you? Huh? Grandmother! By the time you are 12 you can have sex with your grandmother, you keep those numbers coming. I'm just predicting. . . .

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ar ... May18.html

"Ladies and gentlemen, the lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal," he declared. "These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids -- $500 sneakers for what? And won't spend $200 for 'Hooked on Phonics.' . . .

"They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English," he exclaimed. "I can't even talk the way these people talk: 'Why you ain't,' 'Where you is' . . . And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. And then I heard the father talk. . . . Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. . . . You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth!"

The Post's Hamil Harris reports that Cosby also turned his wrath to "the incarcerated," saying: "These are not political criminals. These are people going around stealing Coca-Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake and then we run out and we are outraged, [saying] 'The cops shouldn't have shot him.' What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand?"

The response to Cosby's remarks is to pretend he didn't say it and hope it goes away.

Newspapers, nightly news, etc...*crickets*
Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton...*crickets*

They should be embarrased to call themselves "leaders of the black community"
They have just been schooled and called out by someone that can't be demonized as racist so they have no response for his critisism.

Liberals make me laugh...in a sad, sort of I'm-embarrased-for-them way.

From the Whitewashington Post article (which is really a celeb gossip column):

Richard Leiby wrote: When Cosby finally concluded, Howard University President H. Patrick Swygert, NAACP President Kweisi Mfume and NAACP legal defense fund head Theodore Shaw came to the podium looking stone-faced. Shaw told the crowd that most people on welfare are not African American, and many of the problems his organization has addressed in the black community were not self-inflicted.

Bull!

Ouch.

Personally, I think Cosby vocalizes a lot of issues I have with the culture. It is sweeping and broad, but you know, in some ways it is also true.

There are blacks who want success. They get good grades and they work hard like every other minority in this country tries to do. They don't rely on affirmative action or the NAACP to bail them out of troubles. They work and earn a living. This is the American way.

And then there are some who are shallow-minded because they dropped out of high school. Who place a lot of emphasis on material possessions. Who idolize rappers that sing about revenge, murder, and killing. Who want to be hip, yo. And they are love-em-and-leave-em. The father is not involved in bringing up the child because he is too busy screwing the fourth girlfriend. Which, in turn, continues the vicious cycle.

This is a problem and I'm happy Cosby had the guts to address it.

Right or wrong, only a black man of Cosby's stature could say such things and (sorta) get away with it. My guess is he will be spun as senile.

Yup, if any white comedian or person for that matter had said such things, guess where he'd end up? Probably beaten to death in an alley somewhere or sued so far up the ass for slander that he'd wished he had been beaten to death in an alley.

I'm glad Cosby stood up and said something that I think the White community has wanted to say for atleast the last 5-10 years. It's time to stop using the call of racism as a crutch and time to stop making all those who have worked hard to get where they are look bad. Be proud of them and strive to create more people like them. This is the land of opportunity, but that opportunity is earned.

Either they'll take it as it is and strive to do something about it.....well, I'll save the optimism when I actually see something happen.

Bravo, Bill Cosby.

America has a huge melting pot of cultures. Mexicans, Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Germans, Filipinos, the list goes on. Yet you rarely hear about any of these groups complaining about fair treatment or civil rights. They just come and do their jobs and participate in our country and economy. Speaking from being half-Japanese, people make fun of Japanese customs all the time. But, you don't see the NAACP beating down the doors of those offenders.

But you make fun of black culture and suddenly the NAACP is breathing down your back, you've got civil rights groups barking up a storm, and everyone is chanting "RACIST!"

I'm actually fully supportive of black american English. Even if other people can't understand it. In many ways, they're the cutting edge of language development, and they're taking English places it's never been before.

The thing is though, do you speak that way because it's cool to speak like that - even though you know it's not "proper" English, or do you speak like that because it's the only way you know?

English is a language which not only "borrows" words from other languages, but will actually chase other languages down dark alleys, hit them over the head and go through their pockets looking for goodies!

No other language adds thousands of words a week.

And the wonderful thing about English is that usage is *ALWAYS* correct. provided the audience understand s what is being said - it is correct. Not proper mind you, but correct nevertheless.

I have seen "The Cos" live twice. He's the only comedian I've ever seen who caused audience members to be carried from the auditorium in agony from laughing so hard. Both times I had a sore stomach from laughing so hard the follwoing day. The guy is funny. No doubt about it.

I can't comment on the race situation in the USA, except to say that when my family moved there in 1982, my little sister Robyn went to MLK Jr. Elementary school in Providence, RI - and it wasn't until she'd been there for 2 months that we discovered there were only 3 white kids in her class. She didn't tell us, nor think it noteworthy, and the other kids in the class seemed to like her. That, to me, is integration.

The highschool I attended was about 50% black - and it was pretty cool too. I never saw any evidence of racism, or any other "ism" for that matter.

Are things really that bad over there?

Um, what part of this thread indicated Cosby said anything about racism? I believe you've entirely missed the point.

'Why you ain't,' 'Where you is' . .

Pretty cutting edge, eh Chris.

Racisim in america is highly overemphasized.
In america the bad things that happen to you as a result of racisim are being the butt of bad jokes and denied some opportunities.
In many countries the bad things that happen to you are...YOU GET KILLED...ALONG WITH YOUR WHOLE FAMILY!

I think we need to work on the denial of opportunity and bad jokes thing, but we also need to work on the overemphasis thing too!

The number of violent hate crimes in this country is very, very low. There are still a few violent hate crimes, but most hate crimes nowadays are things like name-calling (and this goes both ways.)

Racism isn't really a big problem in the US, despite the constant statements to the contrary. The media tends to overinflate the "black as victim, white as oppressor" angle to the point where it doesn't have any connection to reality. There are still some racist crimes ("denial of opportunity and bad jokes") but those won't be seriously dealt with as long as the media overhypes nonexistant problems and focuses on things like "affirmative action".

That said: blacks do spend a lot of time talking like morons (what Mobi calls the "cutting edge" of language) -- "where you is" and "why you aint" and "why you be" and so on. They call attention to themselves and make themselves look dumb, and then they wonder why people sometimes have that perception.

It's funny -- when some backwater Islamikazi terrorist tries to kill us, the left asks "why do they hate us so much?" and tries to change in order to appear more likeable to the Islamikazi. But when some KKK hick talks bad about "dumb n***ers" they don't ask "why does he think black people are dumb?" or try to change anything. It's a set of priorities I can't figure out...

Solving 'I ain't be got none' doesn't generate or influence any profits.

Kyu pretty much stole my post exactly...but yes, Cosby you are indeed the man.

As far as racism in America...there's no comparison. America is so uptight because we're constantly trying to be politically correct, the only real racism here is every other race raggin on white people I mean, you're always going to have the inbred rednecks who are too stupid to know any better, but they're also too stupid to make much of a difference.

People are just too stupid to know the difference between politically correct and racist. You don't have to be politically correct to not be racist.

It's not racism so much as relying on other organizations (e.g. the NAACP) to be called in whenever someone gets in trouble. No other minorities get this sort of treatment. But whenever a cop has to fire a shot, the NAACP is looming overhead, ready to demonize the officer, but totally glosses over the fact that A: the victim had a gun, B: the victim was high on controller substance. Missing the point entirely, vis-a-vos Cosby's "pound cake" sentiment.