Bill Cosby shares all he's learned from teachers

In fifth grade, his teacher actually took him to a baseball game to use him as a "block" to fend off an aggressive suitor.

Then there was the aging third-grade teacher who gleefully played an untuned piano with all the songs -- from the national anthem to "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" -- sounding strikingly similar.

And then there was the sixth- grade scare-you-to-the-bones teacher who, at the end of the school year, wrote on his report card: "You should become an actor or a lawyer because you lie so well."

During a Thursday night appearance in Chicago, comedian, actor and sometime social commentator Bill Cosby wove a tapestry of lessons learned inside and outside the classroom from teachers who, for better or worse, played a big role in who he is today.

Cosby was the keynote speaker at the Providence-St. Mel School fund-raiser, celebrating its 26th year as an independent school. He finds himself among a celebrity lineup of supporters of the West Side school, including the philanthropic Oprah Winfrey who has donated at least $1 million. But on Thursday night, Cosby was remembering his life before fame and fortune brought him to a stage at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Chicago.

"We all at certain times in our life run across people called teachers and I don't care how good the work is at home, your worst nightmare can be that person called a teacher," Cosby told a laughing crowd of about 900 -- a mix of community leaders, alumni, current students and, of course, teachers.

It was Cosby's controversial comments earlier this year that landed him an invitation to the event, which is part of a push to raise $3 million, school officials said. At an NAACP event last May, he lamented that some young people and their parents were not capable of speaking standard English.

Cosby also had spoken of the high percentage of black males in low-income households who drop out of school, the high numbers of black men in prison and the large number of black teenagers who become pregnant.

He called on parents and children to take responsibility for themselves and their personal growth, no matter the obstacle.

To some degree, Providence-St. Mel, whose 650 black students mostly come from some of the West Side's tougher neighborhoods, embodies the success that comes with the hard work and drive Cosby has sought.

The all-black K-through-12 school boasts that all of its students are accepted to college, the result of a tough-love concept to education that calls on parents and students to take the reins in their own success, said principal Jeanette DiBella.

"We come from the standpoint 'I'm sorry about all the emotional pain you're in, but by focusing on that you're not going to get in to a school that you want,' " DiBella said.

That's achieved by mandating parents come to the school and meet with educators regularly, and by tutoring for those students with a grade point average of 2.0 or below.

The statistics speak for themselves, DiBella said: 100 percent of the students have been accepted to college since 1978. And in the last three years, more than 50 percent have been accepted to top tier and Ivy League schools.

From http://www.neoperspectives.com/welfare.htm

Bill Cosby has been getting a lot of (negative) press attention lately for some of his comments that seem to have struck a chord in the black community. The Washington Post reports (214):

"For me there is a time . . . when we have to turn the mirror around," he said. "Because for me it is almost analgesic to talk about what the white man is doing against us. And it keeps a person frozen in their seat, it keeps you frozen in your hole you're sitting in."

Cosby elaborated on his previous comments in a talk interrupted several times by applause. He castigated some blacks, saying that they cannot simply blame whites for problems such as teen pregnancy and high school dropout rates.

"Bill is saying let's fight the right fight, let's level the playing field," Jackson said. "Drunk people can't do that. Illiterate people can't do that." (214)

If we didn't know either of them, we might think that Bill Cosby is wrong and that Jesse Jackson is right. The playing field is not level. Even with Welfare Reform, too many African Americans are still relying, on one form or another, on government assistance. The scars of welfare run deep and 8 years is not enough time to wash them away.

In reality both are wrong. Jesse Jackson, in trying to 'clarify' what Cosby said, is really just trying to add his own spin on it. "Leveling the playing field", is not referring to getting rid of government programs and continuing Welfare Reform; it is implying more government assistance, or something like affirmative action, is needed to level the playing field. Conservative news outlets, which have been hailing the comments and many of the African Americans who applauded or heard and agreed with what Cosby said are wrong too. True, it can't hurt for African Americans to look in the mirror and take personal responsibility for some of their problems, but this is just generally helpful in any community. My main point is that African Americans should not "have to turn the mirror around", because the problems they are facing do not come from within. Their problems do come, in part, from the 'white man', although it isn't considered racism (ironically, those trying to fix the system are labeled the racists by liberals). Their problems do come from the Federal government. More accurately, their problems stem directly from the policies and programs of Liberal Democrats. The hard truth is that for the last 60 years Liberal Democrats have taken the place of the Southern farmers and Northern industrialists in keeping the African American subjugated and impoverished, but instead of gaining cheap labor, they gain cheap votes. Even worse, most Liberal Democrats and African American leaders are completely oblivious to this analogy and desperately fight to keep the present system in place.

"To some degree, Providence-St. Mel, whose 650 black students mostly come from
some of the West Side's tougher neighborhoods....."
SNIP
"DiBella said: 100 percent of the
students have been accepted to college since 1978. And in the last three
years, more than 50 percent have been accepted to top tier and Ivy
League schools."

........wonder how many middle class kids those elite schools recruited?......we used to live near a very expensive elite college.....it was all rich whites who could afford it and poor minorities on financial aid......think those two groups had anything to do with each other?!.....after a particularly nasty race brawl on campus the school finally admitted that they had a problem with "middle class flight".....

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