Bill Cosby: Address at the NAACP’ on the 50th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education delivered 17 May 2004, Constitution Hall, Washington D.C.
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/billcosbypoundcakespeech.htm
“I heard a prize fight manager say to his fellow who was losing badly, David, listen to me. Its not whats hes doing to you. Its what youre not doing.”
Ladies and gentlemen, these people set — they opened the doors, they gave us the right, and today, ladies and gentlemen, in our cities and public schools we have 50% drop out. In our own neighborhood, we have men in prison. No longer is a person embarrassed because theyre pregnant without a husband. No longer is a boy considered an embarrassment if he tries to run away from being the father of the unmarried child...
...In the old days, you couldnt hooky school because every drawn shade was an eye. 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 dont know that today.
Im talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit. Where were you when he was two? Where were you when he was twelve? Where were you when he was eighteen, and how come you dont know he had a pistol? And where is his father, and why dont you know where he is? And why doesnt the father show up to talk to this boy?...
...We cannot blame white people. White people — White people dont live over there. They close up the shop early. The Korean ones still dont know us as well — they stay open 24 hours...
... These are people going around stealing Coca Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake! Then we all run out and are outraged: The cops shouldnt have shot him. What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand? I wanted a piece of pound cake just as bad as anybody else. And I looked at it and I had no money. And something called parenting said if you get caught with it youre going to embarrass your mother.” Not, “Youre going to get your butt kicked.” No. “Youre going to embarrass your mother....
...Ladies and gentlemen, listen to these people. They are showing you whats wrong. People putting their clothes on backwards. Isnt that a sign of something going on wrong? Are you not paying attention? People with their hat on backwards, pants down around the crack. Isnt that a sign of something or are you waiting for Jesus to pull his pants up? Isnt it a sign of something when shes got her dress all the way up to the crack — and got all kinds of needles and things going through her body. What part of Africa did this come from? We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans; they dont know a damned thing about Africa. With names like Shaniqua, Shaligua, Mohammed and all that crap and all of them are in jail...
.... Everybody knows its important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You cant land a plane with, Why you aint You cant be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that theyre moving ahead on this. Well, they know theyre not; theyre just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when youre just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out.
Now, look, Im telling you. Its not what theyre doing to us. Its what were not doing. 50 percent drop out. Look, were raising our own ingrown immigrants. These people are fighting hard to be ignorant. Theres no English being spoken, and theyre walking and theyre angry. Oh God, theyre angry and they have pistols and they shoot and they do stupid things. And after they kill somebody, they dont have a plan. Just murder somebody. Boom. Over what? A pizza? And then run to the poor cousins house...”
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/billcosbypoundcakespeech.htm
That speech does NOT make him a conservative. IIRC, he thinks AIDS was invented to kill black people. But he was right about some things.
time flys.
His speech was very well stated and made a lot of sense but it doesn’t necessarily run across the conservative-liberal divide. What black people are doing to themselves is not a left wing, liberal concept and neither is Cosby’s admonishment a conservative approach. They do run parallel to each other but it was more about self-respect and getting off their black butts to make something of themselves.