I can’t seem to find the entire speech itself, just the same highlights quoted in the Daily News article.
Daily News overview
Cos gives 'em pause -Comic vents, NAACP gasps
Washington Post Colbert King opinion piece
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel opinon piece
Cos forgets where he started out as a child
Follow up by Cosby on furor
At least they were happy when he arrived
Wow! Good to know Cosby’s balls are still functioning! I’m dismayed that so many others were upset (though I don’t think somebody should be shot in the back in the head over a piece of pound cake, especially if she’s a child)
Chris Rock has made the same basic point: “I love black people but I hate niggers!” Neither man “owes” anything to the black community and should feel perfectly free to criticize criminal behaviour, laziness or deliberate ignorance wherever they see it.
Amen!
(more later if needed)
I believe Will Smith has about the same attitude.
I especially like the comment Bill Cosby made about ‘These people are not parenting.’ How often is there a comment ‘Were are the parents?’ This of course applies to all, not just to blacks.
I think the article saying Cosby “forgot where he came from,” is complete bullshit. Maybe Cosby remembers EXACTLY where he came from, but also remembers EXACTLY how he got where he is now.
I think the offense comes from “these people”. The NAACP isn’t just for middle-class, upper-middle class people. When he says stuff like:
he’s offending the sensibilities of thousands of decent people who are “lower economic”.
Although the NAACP has a reputation for being full of snobs, the organization itself champions itself for being one that supports black Americans as a whole, not just “our people”. The “these people” that Cosby talks about are served by the NAACP just as much–if not more–than he is. His speech alienates poor blacks, whether he intended to or not.
I think he could have made the same points in a less combative, snobbish way.
That article raised a somewhat valid point, when it pointed out that Bill Cosby has a child out of wedlock and shouldn’t be quick to criticize.
HOWEVER, I think there’s a huge difference between fathering an illegitimate child and inner city crime. Speaking as a moral conservative, I consider both to be deplorable, but the latter is magnitudes more severe.
Similarly, I don’t this this should disqualify Cosby from speaking out against speech patterns like “Why you ain’t” and “Where you is.” Having an illegitimate child could be chalked up to a one-time failing, or even a personal weakness. This is very different from the attitude which Cosby is lamenting, wherein people fail to master the kind of English that will help them get good jobs and good educations.
(Before anyone objects… I don’t think Cosby was merely complaining about the use of ebonics, or African-American vernacular. Based on the phrasing of his statement, I think it’s clear that he was complaining about the failure to learn standard English, which can exist side-by-side with black vernacular speech.)
Pizzabrat said it best. Cos still has balls. There are times when unpleasant truths must by spoken.
Agreed.
Bill Cosby is right!
And it’s interesting to see how some people try to disprove him: they use very vague, philosophic arguments, which aren’t relevant to the very specific charges that Cosby aims at black culture.
His attackers say “Cosby has forgotten his background, he is out of touch with the difficult life in the ghetto, he has an illegitimate child”
But what’s all that got to do with Cosby’s very legitmate accusation that many blacks don’t use good English?
A bad environment obvously discourages a kid from getting a good education. But even poor kids from the worst neigborhood watch television.And nobody on TV says “Where you is”.
Sounds like the USA needs its very own series of Grumpy Old Men .
The point this TV series makes is once you reach a certain age, you’re certain the world is going to hell in a handbasket. And it happens with every generation.
Incidentally, it’s never been proven that Cosby is the father of Autumn Jackson. He admits to having had sex with her mother but said he believes the dates are off; he did support her and her mother for several years. The whole business came to the forefront when she tried to extort $40 million from him and he basically said “go foreward and be damned” (my words, not his), and again, even if she is or isn’t his he did support her financially.
I agree with most of what Cosby said, though it goes for whites and Latinos and all others just as much as blacks. His late son worked with inner city youth and Cosby has given millions to black educational organizations, so he’s not totally out of touch. (He has become increasingly curmudgeonly since Ennis’s murder, not unlike Twain after the deaths of his daughters.)
Googling up this picture, and this one I can see why he might feel that way. The resembance isn’t all that obvious.
It was kind of odd the way he wanted, and then cancelled a paternity test early on because he didn’t want it to get to the media, and then, when the prosecution was proceeding, had blood drawn for a paternity test and she (Autumn Jackson) refused to take the test. In looking at her I think he began to feel that she was not his kid.
Cosby has become increasingly, uh, I guess I’ll say “interesting” in public appearances lately. In recent appearances on both Ellen and Letterman, he went into these lengthy stories that seemed to have nothing to do with anything, they were just stories that he felt like telling that day, and because he’s Cosby, he’s allowed to do that. I was starting to worry that all was not entirely well with his mind, truthfully speaking.
Now I realize, he’s just got his agendas, and he is taking advantage of the respect to say whatever is on his mind, opinion be damned.
And in this case, he’s 100% right. He may have been slightly overbroad in suggesting that all poor black parents are failing to properly prioritize their money but from my observations, he’s really not all that far off. Excursions into a working poor black neighborhood in the going-to/coming-from school hours will reveal a bunch of kids wearing expensive athletic shoes and pricey designer clothes or athletic jerseys but live in cruddy apartments or rental houses and whose parents drive 1980s vintage cars (if they own a car) and can’t seem to afford curtains or blinds (or screens) for the windows.
The truly indigent don’t seem to fall into the consumption-over-common-sense trap, but I’ve seen countless families who could be living in much better circumstances if they were putting more budget toward clean, safe, decently furnished housing and less to the latest Tommy Hilfiger, FUBU or Nike gear. I don’t think it’s out of line to point that out. Over the long term, kids are definitely going to benefit more from living in a nicer home (which would tend to be in a nicer neighborhood) than from wearing the coolest clothes.
The bottom line is that there are elements of black America which need - nay, deserve - confrontation and scorn. The so-called “black leaders” haven’t been doing it. They’re more interested in carping about macro political issues, extortive lawsuits and continue to place their focus outside the black community at all of the ways that prejudice and bigotry oppress blacks and hold us back. We need people who are willing to focus inward and look at the ways that we’re holding ourselves back, and though I doubt this is the beginning of such a crusade on Cosby’s part, if it encourages others to start taking the same stand and shed a little light and foment some positive change, then fan-freaking-tastic.
So to answer the OP’s question: truth to power, and one that’s been a (too) long time in coming.
I’d just like to point out something no one else has yet: Bill Cosby has a doctorate in education. That’s part of the reason he takes the issue so seriously.
Woah, calm down! Don’t get too happy, pal. First of all, are you seriously suggesting that poor kids should be watching more TV for English lessons? Second, as legitmate as the accusation of poor English usage amongst blacks is, like it or not, you pointing it out in racial terms isn’t going to help, as people like me will naturally be defensive and shoot back with the equally legitimate observation that poor English is a nation-wide pathology and wonder why you decided to hone in on blacks so harshly, tying both our hands up from fixing the real problem at hand.
pizzabrat said:
Which is?..
English bettering.
