Here are some excerpts from a speech Bill Cosby gave before the NAACP in 2004. Do you agree with him? Do you disagree? We welcome you to share your feelings and opinions here.
‘They’re standing on the corner and they can’t speak English.
I can’t even talk the way these people talk:
Why you ain’t,
Where you is,
What he drive,
Where he stay,
Where he work,
Who you be…
And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk.
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. In fact you will never get any kind of job making a decent living.
People marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an Education, and now we’ve got these knuckleheads walking around.
The lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal.
These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids.
$500 sneakers for what? And they won’t spend $200 for Hooked on Phonics.
I am talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit.
Where were you when he was 2? Where were you when he was 12? Where were you when he was 18 and how come you didn’t know that he had a pistol?
And where is the father? Or who is his father?
People putting their clothes on backward: Isn’t that a sign of something gone wrong?
People with their hats on backward, pants down around the crack, isn’t that a sign of something?
Isn’t it a sign of something when she has her dress all the way up and got all type of needles [piercing] going through her body?
What part of Africa did this come from?? We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans; they don’t know a thing about Africa …..
I say this all of the time. It would be like white people saying they are European-American. That is totally stupid.
I was born here, and so were my parents and grand parents and, very likely my great grandparents. I don’t have any connection to Africa, no more than white Americans have to Germany, Scotland, England, Ireland, or the Netherlands . The same applies to 99 percent of all the black Americans as regards to Africa . So stop, already! ! !
With names like Shaniqua, Taliqua and Mohammed and all of that crap ……… And all of them are in jail.
Brown or black versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person’s problem.
We have got to take the neighborhood back.
People used to be ashamed. Today a woman has eight children with eight different ‘husbands’ — or men or whatever you call them now.
We have millionaire football players who cannot read. We have million-dollar basketball players who can’t write two paragraphs. We, as black folks have to do a better job.
Someone working at Wal-Mart with seven kids, you are hurting us.
We have to start holding each other to a higher standard..
We cannot blame the white people any longer.’
Dr.. William Henry ‘Bill’ Cosby, Jr., Ed..D.
I agree with everything he said.
I’m sorry but this is 100% accurate, and I say stuff like this all of the time. This generation, I’ve noticed, is so far removed from those who fought for equality it makes me a little sick. If you’re so proud of who you are and where you came from, why not show yourself the respect you deserve then? Everything just seems to have digressed back to a state that seems 200 years old…
Just my two cents…
Oh, I agree with Bill. A very wise man.
Someone once said that the reason Bill Cosby is so famous is because he is a comfortable image of African-Americans [until I'm given a term that is not laced with prejudice and hatred I will continue to say African-American] that is not threatening to white individuals.
It’s too easy to just look down our noses at these kids who are trying to make a life for themselves. In dense populations of African-Americans the schools are underfunded, the teachers are inadequate, and poverty is through the roof.
Not to mention a high school graduate with great grades has the same chances of getting a job as the same aged white kid fresh out of prison.
There is too much inherent racial prejudice to just expect younger generations to be ‘perfect.’ Then that raises the question of differing cultures. By degrading and looking down are we hoping for their best possible future or are we embodying cultural imperialism?
I think there are too many questions to be asked, questions that I don’t have the answers for.
Bill Cosby is 100% correct in making these statements. I am glad he made them because if I, as a White, had made them I would be labeled “racist” instead of “honest.” I have many friends that are Black (I am using this particular term as this is what I grew up using – if it isn’t politically correct, too bad) and they agree with this assessment as well.
I concut swith Mr. Cosby’s opinion. I see that my post was removed when I said nothing more offensive or racist than he did. Dcotors, lawyers, teachers, professors and other professionals are expected to attain a certain level of Education and Culture. This is manifest i the way that we speak and the way that we carry ourselves. It has to do with pride andbelieving in oneself. If you were a patient with a torn rotator cuff and in a lot of pain, you would not wan tto hear “Uo, jey man, like I think you might have a rorn rotator cuff, but I can’t be like sure until I get some peeps to do an MRI”. That isn’t going to cut the cheese. You want to here the doctor speak to you in a professional, respecful manner. No one in which it sounds like she/he just got off the stoop after listening to an MP3 player of the latest rap song. I’m not trying to be racist here, but Mr. Cosby’s point is that people from the ghetto have to better themselves if they want to have a shot at acheiving a professional job and getting out out the ghetto to make a better life for themselves and their failies. Cosby isn’t ignorant when he says this – he has a doctoral degree in Education, so he knows whereof he speaks…
Hello Juliana,
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Thank you,
ULC Monastery Staff
“Someone working at Wal-Mart with seven kids, you are hurting us.”
Tsk, tsk, Bill.
Blaming someone whose only problem seems to be that she’s trying to the best of her ability to provide for her seven kids?
Where’s the parents in that? Or the rest of the family?
What do you know of her background, Bill? Perhaps she was forced by her high-school boyfriend to be taken? Boys are generally the stronger ones in a relationship, and with their hormones going on a full attack during puberty, many good willing girls get torn asunder by their rage.
How would a young girl defend herself against these future million-dollar sportsmen?
I would put the blame on the boys more than the girls. The boys and the parents.
Sex-ed should be taught. If not by the parents, than by the schools, churches or community centers. Every week if possible, or the very least every month.
Some churches preach abstinence and rule out any other idea from their parochians. I say; preach abstinence on the sideline, but first and foremost teach your followers how to have safe sex, how to protect against rapists and how to ensure that your family has the smarts to get through this life while keeping their own standards safe within the confines of their own homes, communities and churches.
Putting the blame? “Judge not, lest thou be judged”, the bible says, I believe. (Sorry if I misspell this. Doing it from the top of my head.)