May 20, 2004
HARD TRUTH IN AN UNLIKELY PLACE (via Tom Morin):
Cosby, Saying the Darndest Things (Richard Leiby, May 19, 2004, Washington Post)
Bill Cosby was anything but politically correct in his remarks Monday night at a Constitution Hall bash commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. To astonishment, laughter and applause, Cosby mocked everything from urban fashion to black spending and speaking habits."Ladies and gentlemen, the lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal," he declared. "These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids -- $500 sneakers for what? And won't spend $200 for 'Hooked on Phonics.' . . .
"They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English," he exclaimed. "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. 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!"
The Post's Hamil Harris reports that Cosby also turned his wrath to "the incarcerated," saying: "These are not political criminals. These are people going around stealing Coca-Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake and then we run out and we are outraged, [saying] 'The cops shouldn't have shot him.' What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand?"
How long 'til Harry Belafonte calls him a house slave? Posted by Orrin Judd at May 20, 2004 12:49 PM
And this is the guy who a decade ago sided with Oakland's Board of Education in accepting Ebonics as a foreign language - an idea which was rejected by Spike Lee, of all people, who said "I think Ebonics be stupid."
Cosby is, of course, a Doctor of Education, a fact you can't avoid seeing in most of his projects. Perhaps he realizes that more gains will come to black people (and all people) who follow the old "lift yourself by your bootstraps" idea than to those to fail to help themselves and expect help from others (or, heaven help us, a bureaucracy.)
Posted by: John Barrett Jr. at May 20, 2004 1:21 PMCos campaigned for Gore in 2K, so that will buy him some slack from the left.
Posted by: AC at May 20, 2004 2:30 PMBill Cosby did more than any black (and any other) person in the 1980's to promote racial harmony. Would anyone in the 1960's or 1970's think an all black sitcom would not only do well in white America, but be the #1 show in the country? And it did so without condescending to minstrel antics, which is how I think Cosby once described Martin Lawrence's show.
Posted by: Chris Durnell at May 20, 2004 6:21 PMANd because of it he was criticized in some black publications for "not being black enough", whatever that means.
Posted by: John Barrett Jr. at May 20, 2004 10:08 PMWell said by Cosby, but William Donald Schaefer said it better...
Posted by: jsmith at May 20, 2004 11:11 PMThe lefties will all be hollerin' "Bill Cosby, the black honkey..."
Posted by: M. Murcek at May 21, 2004 12:27 PM"And because of it he was criticized in some black publications for "not being black enough", whatever that means."
It means: condescending to minstrel show antics like Martin Lawrence, Chris Rock and Damon Wynaons
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at May 21, 2004 12:36 PMBill Cosby has been one of my favorite comedians since he first hit the big time back in the Sixties (DING! "NOAH..."); a lot of his humor has always been "funny because it's true", and this is no exception.
This is a guy who grew up dirt-poor in North Philadelphia and pulled himself up from that through a hitch in the Navy, Temple University on the GI Bill, and a long and successful entertainment career.
I can think of nothing so insulting to (and of) someone who made it like that than constant whining about "It's all Whitey's Fault!" and "Gimme a handout, Honkie! You a Racist!" and/or denunciation as "House" for making it. (And the current definition of "blackness" as "Gangstas Smackin' Dem Ho's Aroun'" doesn't help either.)
I have heard that Cosby became very embittered after his son's murder and almost retreated into the "blame whitey" trap himself; from this article, it sounds like he's recovered from that and is back on track.
Aside: You know what this "Ebonics" is? IT'S SLAVE PATOIS! SPOKEN BY PIG-IGNORANT *SLAVES*, NOT FREE MEN! "EBONICS" DOESN'T SOUND "BLACK"! IT'S WHAT YOU'D HEAR COMING FROM ATOP AN AUCTION BLOCK IN OL' ALABAM'!
William H Cosby, Jr, acts and speaks like a Free Man.
Posted by: Ken at May 21, 2004 12:42 PMWhy is it a "minstrel show" when Martin Lawrence performs, and not when Jim Carrey does a similar act ?
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at May 21, 2004 4:05 PM"Why is it a "minstrel show" when Martin Lawrence performs, and not when Jim Carrey does a similar act ?"
Skin color, accent. when white men put on black face and spoke in "black" accents its was minstrel show. Its no longer PC for white men do it.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at May 21, 2004 4:26 PMGive me some GD pictures dag nabit
Posted by: kjhfyt at June 1, 2004 1:19 PM