BillCosby has more harsh words for black community

[iyah360]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/07/01/cosby.comments.ap/index.html

What are ones thoughts on this? Although I am white - I think it is important to know what informed Blacks think about Cosby's statements. It is especially important when one looks at the poll set up by CNN in regards to this matter - the questions is:

"Is Bill Cosby justified in his recent criticism of some segments of the black community?" - At present, a whopping 98% agree with his statements.

This is obviously touching a sore spot in the American psyche.

[gman]

Both Bill Cosby and Jesse Jackson are house ngz, that is what I think.
It's one thing to put a mirror up to yourself as he puts it, and be self-critical, and acknowledge that everyone bears some responsibility for their actions, it's quite another thing to totally ignore the context of continued white supremacy, capitalism and economic deprivation in which these things take place.
What the hell are Bill Cosby who is a multi-millionaire, or Jesse Jackson who spends more time attacking Ice Cube than he does attacking George W. Bush, actually doing to alleviate the conditions that cause all these problems? And where were they during the civil rights movement whose tiny little gains they are supposedly seeking to preserve? Bill was busy getting rich with TV, and Jesse was busy disparaging people like martyred Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, from whom he ***STOLE***, with no credit given, the name "Rainbow Coalition".
They don't represent Black people, they represent some bourgeouis Black people of their generation. They have absolutely no idea what it's like to grow up in the hood today in the 21st century.
It's not to say that there isn't any truth to anything they say, but coming from them it has no credibility, and divorced of a critique of the whole SYSTEM that produces the behavior they criticize, it has no relevance.

[Africanprince]

What he said is on point but the big problems are the schools. A lot of the teachers in some schools are just not qualified in my opinion.  The quality of education is atrocious in a lot of inner city schools.  That is why some black folks may say "you is" and believe it's proper english. You can't fault them for that.

The whole school systems in some inner city schools needs a major overhaul. They need to set the bar higher.

[Bantu_Kelani]

Both Bill Cosby and Jesse Jackson are house ngz, that is what I think.
It's one thing to put a mirror up to yourself as he puts it, and be self-critical, and acknowledge that everyone bears some responsibility for their actions, it's quite another thing to totally ignore the context of continued white supremacy, capitalism and economic deprivation in which these things take place.
What the hell are Bill Cosby who is a multi-millionaire, or Jesse Jackson who spends more time attacking Ice Cube than he does attacking George W. Bush, actually doing to alleviate the conditions that cause all these problems? And where were they during the civil rights movement whose tiny little gains they are supposedly seeking to preserve? Bill was busy getting rich with TV, and Jesse was busy disparaging people like martyred Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, from whom he ***STOLE***, with no credit given, the name "Rainbow Coalition".
They don't represent Black people, they represent some bourgeouis Black people of their generation. They have absolutely no idea what it's like to grow up in the hood today in the 21st century.
It's not to say that there isn't any truth to anything they say, but coming from them it has no credibility, and divorced of a critique of the whole SYSTEM that produces the behavior they criticize, it has no relevance.

Speaking about Bill Cosby, through his numerous donations to Black colleges and his long time involvement in the Black community he has shown many actions to uplift Black people more than many wealthy and middle class Blacks who poses the same resources as he does. He therefore has as the right as anybody to say the truthful reality on the Black community in the US.

I agree with what he has said and I have said the same thing many times myself. Most of us informed and concerned Blacks have said or think the same thing. The only difference is that Bill Cosby goes public. He is standing up and saying what no other Black in America is willing to say in public.. We see Black people display a shameful self-destructive behavior daily, the rich and the poor. We let our youth identify with drugs, stealing, swearing, and violence and say NOTHING! In fact through escapism (as Africanprince's post shows), we often complain that the police, the schools and politicians are doing nothing! Are you calling  "a house niggger" someone who is doing what most of us fail to do because we have become so afraid and confused that truth is now wrong for our communities?

To call Bill Cosby a "house nigger" is ungrateful and ignorant.

B.K

[preach]

Bill Cosby and others like him have what I like to call the talented tenth complex. They forget about the lowly man who because of whatever reason is in a poor state or condition. It is people like Mr. Cosby who have betrayed the trust of the lowly man and look back at him in utter disgust. I too agree that it is necessary to call attention to certain issues but with more tact and precision. Bill Cosby is in a financial position where he can start whatever program or system he likes to help those individuals, who so disgust him. This would be more beneficial than maybe a Fat Albert movie or a new cartoon. And let's not forget Mr. Cosby has been a part of buffoonery and defamation himself, just look at some of his past movies.      one love

[preach]

B.K.
Bill Cosby isn't doing what most of us fail to do, he is in fact doing what the majority religiously does, point fingers.

[Bantu_Kelani]

Bill Cosby and others like him have what I like to call the talented tenth complex. They forget about the lowly man who because of whatever reason is in a poor state or condition. It is people like Mr. Cosby who have betrayed the trust of the lowly man and look back at him in utter disgust. I too agree that it is necessary to call attention to certain issues but with more tact and precision. Bill Cosby is in a financial position where he can start whatever program or system he likes to help those individuals, who so disgust him. This would be more beneficial than maybe a Fat Albert movie or a new cartoon. And let's not forget Mr. Cosby has been a part of buffoonery and defamation himself, just look at some of his past movies.      one love

Is Bill Cosby saying anything here that is an absolute new revelation to us?

Bill Cosby has every right to be upset about how Black children are behaving because they learn it from their parents. So many Blacks wallow in their own laziness and ignorance yet complain about wanting their 40 acres and a mule. I get frustrated myself when I listen to some Blacks and their Ebonics. I hate the fact that some young Blacks are conforming to this trash due to fear of being called "wannabe White" and other ignorant titles that were created by ignorant Blacks to belittle articulate and goal oriented Blacks. Also, the lack of patriotism in our people, is clear and evident, a lack of loving for one another. We are a people raised on hatred, and until we change that habit, development will remain an obscure word to us. In a habit when you do well, you get reward with death, revenge, sabotage, and disrespect for one's achievement we will constantly miss the boat of progress.

Bill Cosby is just making it publicly known what Blacks and whites have been thinking for years. As Blacks, we must see his frustration. Bill Cosby is known for his support of education, Black education! He has donated so much time and money into Black colleges. He is not some self-hating "Uncle Tom". He is clearly frustrated (years of frustration has build up). I grew up admiring Bill Cosby. He was one of the first Blacks to give young Blacks a positive view on Black and being Black: The Cosby show, A Different World, little Bill, and Fat Albert among others always displaying Black people in a positive light. He continues to be a leading educational philanthropist, supporting causes that further education, such as through millions of dollars in donations to HBCUs, writing/producing children's educational TV programs, and writing children's books series... So I will never speak against him. I am so proud to see him provide leadership and role modeling for Black people. He just doesn't sit home in a nice white neighborhood and expect things to work out fine. He takes it as his duty as a Black man who has made it to give a helping hand to other poor Blacks instead of just finger pointing, name-calling four year olds.

Therefore, your knee-jerk judgment on this man is based on ignorance. I assume like most Blacks these days you have become so soft and insensitive that you blame Bill Cosby who has the guts to confront our issues head on and take responsibility for them.

B.K

[gman]

This is the 3rd time I've tried to post a response to this, I think this computer is kicking me off the connection every couple minutes, so I'll make this much shorter than I want to.
If Cosby had coupled his criticism of poor Black folks with a criticism of the system, in particular the educational and economic system, then I would not have called him out his name. But he did not. His proposed solution is that people need to go to school, work hard and become doctors. Come on now. Basically he's saying there's nothing wrong with the system, it's just poor Black people's fault for not taking advantage of the opportunities they are offered.
The problem is not young people saying "nigga" and "you is" (and why do you find "ebonics" any more offensive than standard english, Bantu?), the problem is capitalism and white supremacy. It's necessary to take responsibility for your actions yes, but it's also necessary to look at the big picture. If everyone went to school (underfunded schools with racist teachers who don't care about you, police with metal detectors in the hallways, rival gang members eyeing you at lunch break etc.) and became doctors, the result would be, the pay rate for doctors would go down to Burger King level, and there'd be a bunch of doctors on the sidewalks hawking prescription drugs. That's what capitalism is all about, and if Cosby doesn't acknowledge that then he's only blaming the victim and launching non-constructive criticism of the most disadvantaged members of his community.

[gman]

I'm dividing my replies between a couple posts as my connection only lasts a few minutes for some reason.
Fred Hampton was somebody who I'm sure identified many problems within the Black community, but instead of self-righteously pointing fingers at people from a position of privilege, he organized the people, speaking their language (so called 'ebonics'), and got the same 'lazy thugs' that so disgust Bill Cosby, to be up at 6 AM doing 100 push-ups before going out into the community distributing the Black Panther newspaper, feeding hungry children, and testing people for sickle-cell anemia at a time when no hospital was doing that. For his trouble he got murdered in his sleep at the age of 21 by chicago police, and now Jesse Jackson is using the name of the organization he founded, the Rainbow Coalition, and using it basically as a front for the democratic party. The original rainbow coalition was the Black Panthers, American Indian Movement, Brown Berets, Young Lords, Students for a Democratic Society, etc., the Democratic Party was not on the list.

[Ras_Legacy]

isn't it about time someone said something?

[gman]

Continued:
I was not aware of the extent of Bill Cosby's contributions to Black colleges, etc, kudos to him for that. However I really have no reason to be grateful to him, I should be more grateful for people like Fred Hampton (see above post).
I didn't really grow up on Cosby cos I didn't grow up on TV, I really only know him from 'The Cosby Show'. As far as providing positive role models for Black people, I guess that provided a positive role model for relatively wealthy Black people whose family life is indistinguishable from that of white middle class America. But that is not the majority of Black people.
I'm not at all sure that things are "better" for Black folks now and they're just lazily ignoring all the golden opportunities being handed out to them, as Cosby implies. In fact I think things might be worse. After all there's more of us locked up, more drugs and violence on the streets, more police with bigger guns, etc. Bill Cosby grew up poor but I doubt he grew up with gunshots busting outside his door every day like a lot of folks do nowadays.
By the way in dissing "ebonics" he is dissing the language of his grandparents, not to say that people shouldn't learn "correct" English as well, that will certainly help you make your way in the world, but what on earth is wrong with using Black vernacular. Is wuh yu sayin, I ain suppose fuh tawk like how people does tawk in GT? Ah could switch to regular english any time ah want to, but ah like de vibes of we creolese personally, and ain't nothing wrong with that.

[gman]

Ras Legacy,
People been saying something for a long time, listen to some of Marcus Garvey's speeches, he was harsher than Bill Cosby, but the difference was he was offering an alternative, a plan and a strategy to succeed other than "go to school and become a doctor."
Highly educated white IT professionals are being laid off in droves while their jobs go to folks in India etc who will accept a lower wage. So what will this "education" really get you. The whole system has to change. Capitalism and white supremacy is the problem, not poor Black folks.
Another thing, people say "stop blaming the white man", well from what I hear from people in America (Black people that is), people may complain about the white man this and that, but people spend more time going on about how f-d up and ignorant other 'niggers' are, so it ain't like Bill Cosby is being that original or shedding any new light here. I'm all for looking in the mirror and fixing ourselves, but I think its about time we blamed the system MORE not less, cos the system is the source of all these problems.

[Bantu_Kelani]

Gman,

Sure Blacks are victims of subjugation, exploitation and have gone and continue to go through EXTERMINATION because of the racist, capitalist colonial and organizational efforts of the US and Europe. The Black race has been in a load of trouble for 500 years. However, I think TODAY it is ridicule to blame Black people's problem solely because of Western Imperialist system. The psychological slavery is still our number one problem that we must deal with, in order to unite and organize our people for full liberation! The rebellion struggles in Iraq are valuable lessons for African freedom fighters to examine. Indeed, study how the mass organizations of Arab people form the five main groups: Palestinians, Peninsula Arabians, Iraqis, Syrians and Maghrebians unite against a common enemy. They are able to unite against the (white) enemy to bring the full power of the independence down on the colonizer's head.  There is no lack of occasion where Arabs praise Revolutionary Nationalist actions! Hindus, Japanese and Chinese alike do not stall the improvement of their nations because of laziness, cowardice and servile love of Whites. But the bulk of our own people are so brainwashed that they hate their own culture and oppose our race's interests for some illusory hope of Western citizenship which continues today. How do you feel about this?

If you take a serious look around you, you will see that our number one problem is THE BLACK MENTALITY THAT IS IMPEDING OUR PROGRESS. The Black elite usually is the first to prostitute themselves with foreign powers to the detriment of their own country. They are too materialistic for their own good. Therefore it is very easy to buy them or make them sell their mother for a loaf of bread. This is primary to the kind of cancer that grows in the body-mind of Black people bunch. In the past I have been so disgusted by others view on the Black race that I forgot how beautiful, intelligent a faithful people we are. But when I  look at how our generation is so into abstract-hedonistic things, I still feel distant from the modern Black person. What happened to the youthful drive literal sense to improve life, to protect and serve the land that our ancestors have bravely fought and died for? I know the answers. Let me give them to you:

-Indifference: Our people have become so accustomed to poverty, that they have become hardened to it.

-Selfishness: Poverty has a lot to do with the "Me, Moi, and I" mentality, which considers sharing a sign of weakness.

-Materialism: There is nothing more important to Blacks than to have a nice house filled with "biblos" and to drive in a nice car. There is nothing wrong with this in itself, except that there is millions of Blacks worldwide starving from hunger.

-Over Emotionalism: A lot of disastrous decisions made by Africans in the government are due to over emotionalism, such as their continual fear of Western governments.  If they kept their cool and counter the trilateralist (transnational) strategies of the Western powers, African countries and stateless Africans in the U.S, Britain, France and other western countries would be the most feared forced against western governments.  

But, the truth is (and it is unproductive to have an attitude of mental denial about this), Blacks will never advance until they respect themselves and their culture. We do not respect traditional African religions. We do not like our skin color, or our hair texture. So how are we to advance? People who do not like themselves who are constantly trying to change themselves to be accepted by the outside world are susceptible to corruption. In Congo, it is easy to fund people to kill each other because they want the money to live the lavish lifestyles of Europeans. If we just respected one another, the Westerns powers and their money would not control us. There are Black people or Africans throughout the worlds that are just as corrupt as anything of the system of White Supremacy. And most people fear change! It seems even victims fear change, especially victims who have found a comfortable niche in hell or what they imagine comfort. So our love for money, laziness, cowardice and servile love of Whites are great factors in why the Black race is not advancing. We have been blaming White men for decades and we have covered mistakes from our own characters and responsibility.  

The White men can bribe the weak, but collectively with the ideology of Pan-African Black Nationalism we will never falter. We need true and bold leadership to change our way of living. Once we will exorcize and purify our psyches of western perverted ideas and mentality will all develop for the better. Bill Cosby, like-minded people and I know that our main problem lies within our own psycho, and it needs to change, in each of us. You can sit there and make excuses, but charismatic leadership is not going to let the Niggers (the anti-intellectual, and self-hating Blacks) out there that do no good for our people glorify the ignorance of the Black race. Our beef are against the brainless idiots who love to follow whatever they see in the media and hip-hop videos and these people do not have to be urban or come from poor families. We are simply crying no more NIGGERISM!

B.K

[Bantu_Kelani]

By the way in dissing "ebonics" he is dissing the language of his grandparents, not to say that people shouldn't learn "correct" English as well, that will certainly help you make your way in the world, but what on earth is wrong with using Black vernacular. Is wuh yu sayin, I ain suppose fuh tawk like how people does tawk in GT? Ah could switch to regular english any time ah want to, but ah like de vibes of we creolese personally, and ain't nothing wrong with that.

From what I understand is not a language. It is a sullied form of English. Ebonics evolved because of the lack of educational opportunities given to Blacks. It is understandable that slaves would speak it on the plantation because they we not allowed to have a good education. But today it is insulting for you to assume that educated and intelligent Blacks should be speaking an uneducated form of English. All Ebonics does is demonstrate how the Black youth is not intelligent enough to learn English at the same time that people from other countries learn it as a second language. You are encouraging the ignorance of the Black race, and it is not good for us to believe what is bad is good.

B.K

[gman]

Cosby was specifically talking about low-income Black folks, he said so. He was not tieing in his critical comments with any critique of the system that has crap schools that resemble prisons, and crap low-paying jobs waiting for you when you graduate IF you're lucky. He's implying that all you've got to do is study and work hard and you will make it and that's just not true, and kids know it's not true, that's why they won't listen to a word he says. Now if he said "I know how the system is set up, but we've got to do the best we can within the system, and help one another out and create some jobs to employ one another when white corporations won't, all while we work at changing the whole system", that would be one thing. But, without any further knowledge of what Cosby may be doing behind the scenes, his comments lead me to believe that he thinks the system is fine, and its just Black people's attitudes that are the problem.
As for ebonics, notice I said that yes it's good to learn "correct" English as this will certainly help you get a job etc., and you for damn sure need all the help you can get, however I said there is also nothing wrong with Black vernacular. "Correct" english is nothing but the vernacular, slang if you will, of a certain group of elite english people who happened to control things a few hundred years ago. There are many other types of english and they are all equally valid. Personally I think Black vernacular in America, like Creolese in GT, can express certain things poetically, in our own particular way. I don't know about 'ebonics', of which there are many forms anyway, but I know GT creolese has its own unwritten grammatical rules etc. and could well be considered a 'language'. Most of us, at least those in urban areas, are well capable of switching back and forth between Creole and standard english whenever the occasion demands. Well I would have more to say but I have to go, I'll be back on the board in a couple of weeks.