What a moronic comparison.
Posted on 05/12/2005 6:18:15 AM PDT by FlyLow
When Reverend Sharpton ran for president, he accused the media of racism for ignoring his candidacy. Since the word racist gets recklessly thrown around, does it also apply to the "Today" show?
Remember when the legendary actor/entertainer/philanthropist Bill Cosby said, "[I]n our cities and public schools we have 50 percent drop out. . . . No longer is a person embarrassed because they're 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."
He urged blacks to embrace education, speak standard English and obey the law. How dare he? His comments created such a stir that last year, the "Today" show's Matt Lauer did a pro-and-con segment.
Now here's where things get interesting. Michael Eric Dyson, a professor at University of Pennsylvania, just wrote a book called "Is Bill Cosby Right?" Dyson goes after Cosby for allegedly unfairly attacking blacks. You know, the standard liberal pap about blaming the "victim," blah, blah, blah. Never mind the tragedy of babies having babies, of a 50 percent inner-city dropout rate or the disproportionately high percentage of black youth involved in crime.
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
What a moronic comparison.
Thou shall not stray from the liberal plantation.
You got that right. My story is very similar. In enlisted in 1968 to get the GI Bill benefits. Went to Nam. Came back (damaged, but made it back). Went to college. Worked each summer. Got undergrad and graduate assistantships. Got a BA and an MA.
My first job after my MA was as a temp janitor. I did that while looking for a fulltime job.
Of course, it is easier for some people. They come from a moneyed and connected family. Life is not fair.
The road was not easy. The world owes me nothing. If I wanted something, I had to get out of bed and work for it.
I have worked in vocational rehabilitation with 'disadvantaged' and disabled youth. The biggest problem is attitude. You can teach just about anyone a job skill. The disabled kids had a much, much higher success rate than the 'disadvantaged'. You could get them interviews, maybe even hired. Getting them to stay on the job, well, that was another story.
Yes, working in the human services world turned me into a conservative. It also got me out of that field of work.
") on C-Span2/BookTV's AfterWords this Sunday (6P ET/PT & 9P ET/PT), so that he can continue to bash Cosby and black conservative thought.
Everybody should clink on that link and read the whole article / interview. His answers had nothing to do with the questions, and were quite simply insane. I hope they had to hunt far and wide to find a black man who could trash Cosby in any way, and this chump and his random collection of talking points is what they got.
Was Roker even in the same room?
Cosby's comedy albums from the 60's are hilarious. I didn't really care for his later work.
He is definitely a legend!
Nice post.
Not in his act, but he was the commencement speaker at my brother's college and my brother was his escort; my brother said the Cos could make a sailor blush. Of course it was a military academy, so maybe he was just trying to fit in. :)
Bob Hope spoke there the year my brother graduated, he was wonderful!
"the cry was "whitey has kept me down" yet if a black person 'made it' it was because they were a sell out."
I have noticed the same thing when I was at New Jersey Institute of Technology (the former Newark College of Engineering). Next door was Newark Central High School. In the 70's, if any student at Central High actually tried to learn something, that student was called "Oreo" "Uncle Tom" "Race Traitor" and even "White bleeper bleeper". By the high school so-called faculty and administration! This was an eye-opener at how the welfare plantation operates.
It could be a coincidence. I mean, there could be no corrolation between the recent allegations and charges and the fact that he has been vocal as of late about what he sees as deficiencies in black leadership of their communities.
However, intelligence and cynicism gained through experience tells me that this is happening for a reason.
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. 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.
After pointing out rabid moonbat Michael Eric Dyson's rampage on personal responsibility by black America in general, and on Bill Cosby's message of personal accountability in particular in the form of Dyson's new book "Is Bill Cosby Right
Larry Elder agrees with me, and pointed out how it was open season on Cosby during a recent interview on NBC's Today where Dyson railed on in his foaming-at-the-mouth fashion, unchecked by interviewer Al Roker (yes, they got the weatherman to do the interview instead of the show's anchors; no offense to Roker, but Al's forte is usually much lighter fare).
Al Roker: "Do you think there's any validity in some of the things he said?"Huh!?Michael Eric Dyson: "Oh sure . . . there's validity always. Tim[othy] McVeigh had a point. The state is over-reaching. But the way you do it, dropping bombs and castigating of human beings, that's terrible. . . . Let's hold the larger society accountable for creating the conditions that lead to some of the downfalls of the poor people." Roker said nothing.
Roker then read three quotes from Cosby: "Those people are not Africans; they don't know a damn thing about Africa. With names like Shaniqua, Shaliqua and Mohammed and all of that crap, and all of them are in jail." Next, "All this child knows is 'gimme, gimme, gimme.' These people want to buy the friendship of a child . . . and the child couldn't care less. . . . These people are not parenting. They're buying things for the kid. $500 sneakers, for what? They won't . . . spend $250 on Hooked on Phonics." And finally, "You can't land a plane with 'why you ain't . . . ' You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth . . ."
Dyson: ". . . Black people have always been creative in naming their children. Africans name their kids after the days of the week, after conditions of their birth. Black people in 1930s gave their kids names after consumer products, Cremola, Listerine, Hershey Bar. So black naming has always been creative. I'm not worried about Shaniqua and Taliqua, I'm worried about Clarence and Condoleeza, who can hurt us in high places of power in America." Roker said nothing.
Dyson then accused Cosby of hypocrisy. After all, Cosby was a "pitchman" for "Jell-O Puddin' Pops. . . . He created artificial desire in people to spend beyond their means . . . "??!! Roker said nothing.
Dyson is so wrapped up in trying to attack black conservatives, that he goes after Bill Cosby for doing commercials for Jello? Mind you, in the midst of this entire exchange, Al Roker (whom I have a great deal of respect for in general) literally sits there and says nothing. My presumption -- rightly or wrongly -- is that Roker agrees with the mindless bilge that Dyson is spewing.
Near the end of the interview, Dyson tried to dress himself up as the "homeboy made good" who's trying to "protect" all the other "homeboys."
Dyson: So I'm speaking forth . . . on behalf of those people who are poor, because, after all, I was a teen father, lived on welfare until I was 21, then went to get a Ph.D. at Princeton, now I'm gonna have Afro-nesia [sic] and forget the people from which I've emerged? No, bro, I ain't the one." To which Roker "fired back" with this show stopper: "You know, you gotta come out of your shell."And of course, thanks to the mindset of soul patrol charter members like Dyson, the only way one can help the black community is to blame the white man and not demand personal accountability -- and to trash anyone who says otherwise. The implication is that he is trying to help, and anyone else with an alternative view, including Cosby, is trying only to hurt black America.
Please. Spare me.
If you want to see more of Dyson's ad hominum attacks on Bill Cosby and black conservatives, you can tune into C-Span2/BookTV's AfterWords this Sunday (6P ET/PT & 9P ET/PT), where Dyson will wax poetic with author Debra Dickerson ("The End of Blackness").
And to reiterate my earlier headline, yes, I think Dyson has completely lost his damn mind. His view is irresponsible and potentially more damaging than anything anyone outside the black community could ever do, simply because he promotes a victimhood based on a second-class status as a people. We are not second-class people, and we need not accept that attitude or mindset, contrary to what Dyson is peddling.
How would you define legend? And who would qualify?
I appreciate your self-respect, mhking.
I think I'm going to go buy some Jello-O Pudding Pops....
I'll tell Caitlin it's a Political Statement.
In the 60s too in a drama/action series & the 70s on Saturday morning cartoons. I think you can put Cosby in the entertainment legend category.
Dyson is speaking out on behalf of the poor, and reinforcing their excuses for being poor. He's using an attitude that sounds like "Wait right there, brothers and sisters, I'll be back to speak for you."
Cosby's angle was "Don't forget where you came from, but look at where you can go. Follow the example of those who did it instead of crying about where you are."
All Dyson seems to be doing is coddling a second class status, and perpetuating the class envy that goes on. He and Cosby are in similar positions in life, but he makes it out to sound like Cosby was born into something. He had to quit school and work to support his family. He didn't stoop to collecting welfare. Then when Cosby had the chance he went back to school. Condoleeza Rice earned her position by working for it. So did Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell, Dr. Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Janice Rogers Brown.... Dyson has a chance to stand with these people and lead people from their struggles. Instead he chooses to continue playing the blame game, turning Americans against each other.
Sorry for the rant, but this kind of thing really burns me up. My fiancee and 4 step daughters are black. The girls all have dreams, actress (ughhh), video game designer, Veterenarian... I try to tell them that they can do anything they want to, but it takes work, hard work. They don't seem to get any motivation from their school or other family members. Michael Dyson is the kind of person who tells them they don't have to work hard, they don't have to work toward a better, united America. Something is owed to them and if they just sit around and complain long enough, it may come their way eventually.
ping
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