By DON BABWIN, Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO - Bill Cosby (news) 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 (news - web sites), 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. "**** 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.
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Once again the man is on point.....
I definitely don't think people should get mad at him for saying that. He has been doin his part in helping the black community in many ways...even the fact that the Cosby show was a very positive and groundbreaking thing in the 80s shows where his mind has always been. He spoke up, hoping that parents and people like us would take action...what else can you expect him to do? Does he have to mentor kids 5 hours a day, on a prime time reality show, for you to think he's doing his part??
mannnn I've loved Cosby for the longest...
It's so sad that the younger kids these days (ages 10 and lower) are cursing and acting the way they do....I remember even when I was around that age,saying "stupid" around ANY adult was considered disrespectful....when I hear them speaking the way they do,it's like I wanna hit they're parents. :x I remember 1 time I was babysitting my nephew and my cousin's son(8 and 4 at that time)
Im on the phone and I hear Lil' man talking about, do you smoke weed???
A 4 yr. old talking like that!?!?!?!?!? wow! Now, it's "cute" when a child curses or when they know every word in a rap song, but they dont know the alphabet....NO! it's not..put them kids in school and away from the Television...KIDS these days know too much!! and it's not associated with school :arrow:
Why? cause too much kids are having kids these days. They aren't responsible or know right from wrong, so how the hell can you expect these parents to raise these kids right.
I also have seen first hand how horrible it has gotten. I know a boy that is raised around nothing but people our age (18-25) being that he is only 11...he doesnt really know how to be 11. I know that sounds strange but if you think about it, it will make sense. We know how we talk to our friends...we use "ebonics" and curse... I know I do. But we must learn to censor ourselves infront of the young and impressionable.
The only way that we as young adults and full grown adults can do is lead by example. I feel that it starts young. I grew up watchin videos and listining to "gangster rap" and all of that, the only reason why I have secumed to it...and why most of you all didnt, was because we had someone there to either tell us what was right or to show us what was wrong. Therefore we have to be that to these children. Most of these children are from families that have young parents, that treat them like they are younger brothers or sisters...or from families that have parents that work more than 18 hours a day so that they dont get a chance to be "parented" by them.
As good role models I challenge all of you to be a mentor to a young child and let them see the way!!!
:ISCLAIMER:: I hope this makes sense cuz Im half sleep typing this and I have 10 thoughts going through my mind at once..lol
The reason these comments seem so harsh is because we are used to seeing Bill Cosby making faces and talking about Jell-o brand pudding. When someone deviates from the way we are accustomed to seeing them, it is shocking.
I think the reason Mr. Cosby has come off like this is because he HAS tried so hard to help the black community, but after years and years of work and millions of dollars he has seen no change, if at all for the worse, and he has finally found the reason... You can't help someone who does not want to be helped and he is disgusted that everything he's done has been a waste. He wants a new approach, cure the problem mentally before we can see the physical results. Sure people can get mad and say they don't like him anymore, but that just proves his point. I too have witnessed behavior that makes me sick to my stomach even walking through the AUC, students, administrators, and the examples we are setting for the children to follow. I remember many times when I would walk through the AUC look around and just want to fall on the ground and give up, not because stress from assignments or homesickness, but because the condition seemed so hopeless, that all these people were slowly choking the life out of my spirit. But even through everything that I have seen and have yet to see, I still hang on to the hope that these people can change, I believe in my heart that through the fog there is a beacon of light that struggles to shine through, and that one day the fog will clear.
A lot of people hear that "the white man" is the reason for all their problems and so they give up, thinking that it is worthless to struggle if at the end you will be defeated, but inside of me thinking that gives me the opposite effect, it makes me want to achieve and work so hard that I rise above and will have to be noticed whether you like it or not. A lot of the time we try to be "better" when we should focus our energy on being the "best."
SO SOMEBODY TELL ME HOW MUCH MONEY BILL COSBY MADE OF FAT ALBERT'S ILLITERATE @$$???
OR HOW MANY TIMES HE WAS CAUGHT CHEATING OFF HIS WIFE???
OR WHY HIS DAUGHTER WAS STRUNG OUT ON ****...DID HE NOT SPEND TIME WITH HER? THE SAME TIME HE SAID THAT POOR PEOPLE SHOULD SPEND WITH THEIR KIDS???
THEY'RE LUCKY THERE WASNT A DISCUSSION PANEL FOR THIS..
HOW DARE HE SAY LOWER INCOME FAMILIES ARE SO BAD, NONCARING, AND IRRESPONSIBLE...BUT YET AND STILL HIS FAMILY IS JUST AS TERRIBLE??? HE THINKS JUST BECAUSE HE HAS MONEY HE CAN SAY WHATEVER HE WANTS...IF HE WAS SUCH A FATHER FIGURE.....THE KIDS ON "THE COSBY SHOW" WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN SO SCREWED UP.....
there are a lot of factors to account for, and sometimes children choose to rebel to make a statement, plus there are differences between the way people act on screen and the way they act in their real lives, and there is always the difference of the way things could/should be and the way they actually are. i see the world as a balance, good and bad, as we keep adding to the good side, the bad side keeps decreasing so it can balance, and we get closer and closer to a utopia, however, here is the twist, when we finally reach that utopia, there will be no more bad, and back to the balance, once there is nothing left on the other side, the balance will tip over, meaning the utopia will mean chaos, which... makes it not a utopia anymore, i dunno its late/early, but i think you can understand what im saying, there must always be bad to balance out the good, on a global scale and a personal scale, because you can never please everybody, and if you try to, then you will end up not pleasing anybody because someone has to fail in order for trhere to be a measure of success, right? someone has to take the tasks that nobody else wants, if im a successful entrepreneur or something, who is going to make my french fries, who is going to do my grunt work so i can sit in a cushy office all day, who is going to make my clothes? the world needs "n*ggers" whether its black people, the native americans, the jews, the japanese, the irish, the italians, or the mexicans, the same way the wolf has to eat the rabbit to live and when the wolf dies it decomposes and fertilizes the grass for the rabbit to eat, i know its harsh but its true, why would you take a hard profession that requires years of study to make the same amount of money as someone who had training for 1 day? plus we have disabled people and mutations and such, so not everyone can work. and the longer people live, the less jobs there are for everyone else, but when they do retire and they sit there old and cant do anything, then they are just taking up space right? there are too many unsolvable problems, but black people learning to read is just the one he decided to focus on for now, i guess what im trying to say with this rant is that we all have faults, we can try our best to fix those faults, but by fixing those faults we create new ones to fill, being perfect in itself would be a fault because if one person was perfect out of a group they would malfunction when they interacted with each other, As hard as we try to be smurfs, there will always be a Gargamel sitting over our shoulders besides if we were smurfs (who are communist by the way) people would get mad that papa smurf has a special hat and doesnt do any work while everyone else has to work unequally hard amongst themselves for the same amount of "pay"
sorry if this is unclear at all, i know some of my metaphors were longshots, but thats okay, like i said its late/early and if you have any questions feel free to ask
CHICAGO - Bill Cosby (news) 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 (news - web sites), 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. "**** 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.
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Once again the man is on point.....
ISCLAIMER:: I hope this makes sense cuz Im half sleep typing this and I have 10 thoughts going through my mind at once..lol
