Posted on 07/01/2004 5:10:58 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
Bill Cosby Has More Harsh Words for Black Community By Don Babwin Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO (AP) - Bill Cosby went off on another tirade against the black community Thursday, telling a room full of activists that black children are running around not knowing how to read or write and "going nowhere." He also had harsh words for struggling black men, telling them: "Stop beating up your women because you can't find a job."
Cosby made headlines in May when he upbraided some poor blacks for their grammar and accused them of squandering opportunities the civil rights movement gave them. He shot back Thursday, saying his detractors were trying in vain to hide the black community's "dirty laundry."
"Let me tell you something, your dirty laundry gets out of school at 2:30 every day, it's cursing and calling each other n--- as they're walking up and down the street," Cosby said during an appearance at the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition & Citizenship Education Fund's annual conference.
"They think they're hip," the entertainer said. "They can't read; they can't write. They're laughing and giggling, and they're going nowhere."
In his remarks in May at a commemoration of the anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education desegregation decision, Cosby denounced some blacks' grammar and said those who commit crimes and wind up behind bars "are not political prisoners."
"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," Cosby said then. "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."
Cosby elaborated Thursday 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.
"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 lamented that the racial slurs once used by those who lynched blacks are now a favorite expression of black children. And he blamed parents.
"When you put on a record and that record is yelling 'n--- this and n--- that' and you've got your little 6-year-old, 7-year-old sitting in the back seat of the car, those children hear that," he said.
He also condemned black men who missed out on opportunities and are now angry about their lives.
"You've got to stop beating up your women because you can't find a job, because you didn't want to get an education and now you're (earning) minimum wage," Cosby said. "You should have thought more of yourself when you were in high school, when you had an opportunity."
Cosby appeared Thursday with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, founder and president of the education fund, who defended the entertainer's statements.
"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."
Cosby also said many young people are failing to honor the sacrifices made by those who struggled and died during the civil rights movement.
"Dogs, water hoses that tear the bark off trees, Emmett Till," he said, naming the black youth who was tortured and murdered in Mississippi in 1955, allegedly for whistling at a white woman. "And you're going to tell me you're going to drop out of school? You're going to tell me you're going to steal from a store?"
Cosby also said he wasn't concerned that some whites took his comments and turned them "against our people."
"Let them talk," he said.
You will never succeed in making ANY group or ethnicity perfect ladies and gentlemen.There will ALWAYS be gangstas and knuckleheads of the Black race as there are in any other group.IGNORE them and associate with the many good folks of all races trying to do the right thing.
Thats the bottom line.Perfecting man is a liberal pipe dream.
Riverman
People don't listen to people from outside their group however the group is defined. People inside the group need to say what needs to be said.
Bill Cosby may have to change his name to "Tom". This is the usual way of rebuking those uppity blacks that want to make the brothers too "white".
Of course, Mr. Cosby has VASTLY more moral capital than a Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. He may become the icon who manages to achieve the stature that Dr. Martin Luther King had established among Americans of African origin.
It's impossible to know what he meant from a soundbite. If he meant the group ought to stay in school and make themselves useful, he is on the right track. If he meant the legal remedy, well, that hasn't solved much.
Bill should also expend some energy attacking the white liberal establishment which has helped enable this behavior.
"Leveling the playing field" is one of those patented leftist phrases being used by a leftist. It's hard not to believe he means using redistribution of income and racial preferences for doing the "leveling".
I think what he said can be said about people of all races. There are some worthless white people who also squander their opportunties because they are too willing to let the government take care of them. If you feed a wild animal it loses it's desire to hunt.
Taking responsibility for yourself and your kids and making your own way in life. Such a novel concept.
Woah! They got served!!!!! :O
I suppose it is. It's too bad. Jesse has been an inspirational speaker, but his vision has been kind of myopic. He can wind them up pretty good, but then he sets them loose to go wherever. Cosby suggests they set down on the main road and follow that to somewhere like everybody else. Maybe Cosby and Jackson could team up and actually get something accomplished.
"Bill should also expend some energy attacking the white liberal establishment which has helped enable this behavior."
Enable? How about encourage and reward? Lets not forget the harsh repercussions encountered by conservative blacks too.
It's about time someone starts telling the 'black man' what a total failure he is!!!!! Thinking that having a child out of wedlock can 'prove' your manhood is repugnant and ignorant at best. Blame the world for yor self-imposed state & don't ever try to make yourself more than a thug - way to go.
Trouble, is, it's been the truth since the 1970s and 1980s. Blacks have a cultural problem and white liberal apologists are complicit, also.
Note that the article would not print out a newsworthy use by a black man of the word "nigger." In my opinion this fairly recent creation of the "N word" references has magnified the impact of that slur a 1,000 times. The word has been made much much worse because it can't be said, rather than taking it's power away by recognizing it honestly. I believe this all started during the OJ Simpson trial. Prior to that if the word was used somewhere it was acknowledged without use of some pseudonym. My mother taught me the word means a "person of low worth" and that it was wrong to use it against anyone. It's very refreshing that Cosby is reminding blacks who use it all the time that they are debasing themselves, but I don't like the censorship of what he said. Just about every black comedian uses the term in just about every other sentence.
Jesse Jackson is an idiot. This man has enabled liberals to keep blacks down and he's got some nerve even being on the same stage as Bill Cosby.
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