[Dean's World] Dean: Cosby Rant

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Posted by Dean:
Cosby Rant
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1141976142.shtml


   I get a lot of stuff forwarded to me in email that I assume to be
   nonsense. And while I've had my issues with them at times, I still
   find that Snopes is the most reliable source to go to first when you
   aren't sure about something. They're not always right, but they
   usually are. So, when I got the below rant in my email, I thought it
   was probably falsly attributed to Bill Cosby, because it's just a
   little too extreme-sounding even for him. But nope, they [1]back it up
   as legit:

     They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English. I
     can't even talk the way these people talk: Why you ain't, Where you
     is, What he drive, Where he stay, Where he work, Who you be... 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. In fact you will never get any kind of job
     making a decent living.

     People marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an
     education, and now we've got these knuckleheads walking around. The
     lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal.
     These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids.
     $500 sneakers for what? And they won't spend $200 for Hooked on
     Phonics.

     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? Or who
     is his father?

     People putting their clothes on backward: Isn't that a sign of
     something gone wrong? People with their hats on backward, 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 and got all type of
     needles [piercing] going through her body?

     What part of Africa did this come from? We are not Africans. Those
     people are not Africans; they don't know a thing about Africa. With
     names like Shaniqua, Taliqua and Mohammed and all of that crap, and
     all of them are in jail.

     Brown or black versus the Board of Education is no longer the white
     person's problem. We have got to take the neighborhood back. People
     used to be ashamed. Today a woman has eight children with eight
     different 'husbands' =E2 or men or whatever you call them now. We
     have millionaire football players who cannot read. We have
     million-dollar basketball players who can't write two paragraphs.
     We as black folks have to do a better job. Someone working at
     Wal-Mart with seven kids, you are hurting us. We have to start
     holding each other to a higher standard.

     We cannot blame the white people any longer.

   The speech was given in 2004, at the 50th anniversary of Brown v.
   Board of Education.

   You know, time was I would have loudly cheered for that. Now I still
   do, a little, but not quite so loudly. I think he's right that there's
   not much left that white people can do for black people. In a way I'm
   glad of that. I'll be turning 40 years old this year, and I know the
   world is a much better place today in this regard than it was when I
   was born. But, on the other hand, I grew up pretty hard scrabble, with
   a lot stacked against me. Left home when I was 15 years old and never
   went back. Made my own way ever since.

   I dunno, an angry rant like that from Cosby, maybe it serves a good
   purpose within the black community, and to a certain extent it's
   nobody else's business because it's about things that community has to
   deal with. But on the flip side of that, African Americans are
   Americans, and so what happens to them affects all of us.

   And I have to say, a lot of the problems of entrenched poverty and
   poor education are not going to be fixed by kicking around lower class
   kids who have funny accents or ways of speaking, nor yelling at them
   for doing poorly in schools that don't serve their needs in the first
   place.

   Something I've often wished most of my black friends would read (to
   date, none of them have that I know of) is [2]The Redneck Manifesto:
   How Hillbillies, Hicks, and White Trash Became America's Scapegoats.
   While I don't always agree with everything in the book, one thing
   comes through crystal clear : if you look at the problems of poor
   rural and suburban whites (i.e. "hicks and white trash"), and the
   problems of poor urban blacks, they're virtually identical, and just
   as hard to break out of, especially for kids who've never grown up
   knowing anything different.

   Yes, it is true that anyone in this country can succeed if they're
   smart and they do certain things. But I no longer believe it's as easy
   as yelling at people about it, or sneering at them if they don't.

   Of course, I'm not sure what is the answer. And since I'm one who
   usually says, "if you haven't got any proposed solutions, stop
   whining," maybe I should just shut up. But... I just don't think it's
   that simple. I don't think you can look at a kid who can barely read
   because he came out of a school that didn't teach him right, a kid who
   doesn't understand what being a good father means because he's never
   known one, and say he should just "straighten up and get a work ethic"
   when the only work ethic he's ever seen is demonstrated by hustlers
   and hookers and hoodlums.

   So what's the real fix? Might part of it be that we stop saying these
   problems are black problems, or minority problems, and instead see
   them as American problems?

References

   1. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/cosby.asp
   2. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684838648/qid=3D1141976873/sr=3D2-1=
/ref=3Dpd_bbs_b_2_1/103-6437830-5989400?s=3Dbooks&v=3Dglance&n=3D283155/dea=
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