Cosby says tough words needed to right wrongs (Cosby flap follow-up)

When avuncular comedian Bill Cosby took aim at African-American parents this week, he ruffled some feathers.

"I can understand the sting. I feel I have to say it," Cosby said in a telephone interview.

Cosby said he was chagrined that conservative radio talk shows seized on his comments and recirculated them. Yet he said he was more concerned about protecting children in unsafe neighborhoods.

"If I weigh a loudmouthed conservative racist announcer's thoughts and opinions against a 12-year-old child being shot," concern for the child wins, he said.

During a speech Monday in Washington at a ceremony commemorating the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, Cosby criticized black Americans who squandered the access to education won by those who risked life and limb to desegregate schools.

He also took aim at parents who spend $500 on sneakers for their children but won't spring for a Hooked on Phonics cassette to teach them to speak correctly.

"Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads," he said during the speech.

Cosby's comments were discussed on talk radio in Atlanta and nationally, with listeners lining up on both sides of the debate.

Atlanta host Frank Ski of V-103 said Cosby may have been "untactful," but he added "it was a conversation that needed to be brought up."

Lines from the Cosby speech were also repeated on Neal Boortz's morning talk show at WSB-AM, where a caller lambasted African-Americans who don't take education seriously.

"These people act like they don't even want to go to school, and that's what [ticks] me off," said the caller.

The Washington Post reported that Cosby earned a "stonefaced" reception from his hosts, including Theodore Shaw, the NAACP legal defense fund director, and Kweisi Mfume, the NAACP president.

Mfume, however, said he was far from "stonefaced" at the event, and he supports most of Cosby's comments.

"He said at some point in time you can't continue to blame white people for every problem that black people may have, and I agree with that."

Mfume said he disagreed only with Cosby's emphasis on "lower economic people," saying there are blacks who are "not doing enough" in every economic class.

"I didn't want to throw cold water on the celebrating," said Cosby, but he stressed that many African-American neighborhoods were in crisis. "We've got to help these people," he said. "We've got to get the neighborhood back."

"We should look and see how many males are incarcerated and look and see how many of them are illiterate," he said.

I collect on student loans, each day I speak with people who are on public assistance with no means or desire to pay their loans. Their comments are laced with contempt and obscenities for the system they depend on to survive.
One borrower told me that all education should be free, when I asked her where the government would get the funds, she said they could "print more money". If I said everything I wanted to say to them I wouldn't last an hour on the job.

You don't even want to hear about the lawyers who owe thousands and laugh and hang up if I do manage to get them on the phone. A legal system run by lawyer politicans makes it nearly impossible to suspend the licenses of lawyers who flatly refuse to pay.
Deadbeat lawyers are as big a problem as dead beat dads, except the lawyers have the means to pay. Shakespear had it right.

"We've got to help these people," he said. "We've got to get the neighborhood back."

This is the attitude which got us into trouble in the first place. As good as Bill Cosby is, he has to learn a new way of thinking which goes like this:

"These people have to start helping themselves. They have to take responsibility for their lives and then take their neighborhoods back."

We have been shoveling "help" from the outside in for 50 years and there has been no success.

"If I weigh a loudmouthed conservative racist announcer's thoughts and opinions against a 12-year-old child being shot," concern for the child wins, he said.

Mr. Cosby, if you'd put aside the hateful rhetoric for a moment and listen with an open mind, you'll find that a lot of 'loudmouth conservative racist announcers' quite agree with the essence of the comments that you've made, as they are represented in this article.

To be fair, I haven't heard the whole of the original comments, or how (Limbaugh?) played them. All I have to work with what I see here.

"If I weigh a loudmouthed conservative racist announcer's thoughts and opinions against a 12-year-old child being shot," concern for the child wins, he said.

My Reply to Bill Cosby:

Well Bill, if you ever listened to some of these loudmouthed conservatives, you'd find they aren't racist at all. They want exactly what you want for the black youth of America. They want them to do what every American can, and should do. They want them to go to school and apply themselves, you know, learn a useful skill? (by the way, to any libs reading this, there is plenty of job training provided by the govenment for underpriveledged persons- It's called Public School- I'm not a big fan of the Public School system, but it is free, and if you apply yourself there, you can get your college paid for! Wow! what a country!) Once you have a skill, you can make money and be a productive member of society.
But Bill, this is where you go wrong in aligning yourself with the Liberal (read, Socialist) politicians in America. Liberals don't want you to have to provide for yourself at all. They want for you to be able to pick up your government supplied paycheck for producing nothing, so that you can continue doing nothing for the rest of your life. Unfortuanately, socialism has a tendency to devour itself over a certain period of time as the ratio of producers to leeches tilts more and more to the leeches.
This is what the black youth of America is learning from their parents. Either you become a Basketball star, or an entertainer (no offense to you Mr. Cosby, I know how hard you have worked to get where you are), or you collect welfare. That is the extent of many young black's ambition. And do you know what? It makes me sad.
I live on a street where there are many black families on welfare. I talk to their kids all the time. These kids are smart! They have so much potential! Unfortunately, you are right about how they speak. So, as a WASP American Conservative male I do what I believe to be my duty. I encourage them. I encourage them to work hard. I encourage them to learn to speak properly. I encourage them to read. I encourage them to ask questions. I encourage them to learn everything they can about anything at all. I encourage them to grow up to be whatever they want. Yes, many of them want to be football, or basketball players, or rappers- but many of them want to be doctors, or electricians, or military officers, and other professions as well. Regardless of what they want to do, I encourage them to work as hard as they can at what they do- and do it because they love to do it, not because of money.
Sadly, this is not what they get at home. I think you know what they get at home. So, I do what I can to help.

By the way Bill, I am a loudmouthed conservative and proud of it. Am I a racist? No.

Perhaps it's time you re-think just who your friends are, and who you align yourself with politically.

You may be more conservative than you realize.

Very Respectfully,
The Musical_Airman

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