Bill Cosby speaks to black community (old speech)

[Ban Hammer 13,643]

One of my best friends...a black guy with a PhD in education....retired school Superintendent....would tell me of stories where a black kid would gets good grades...and the fellow black students would taunt him/her of trying to act white. Makes sense.....???

i've heard the term used, "oreo"

[chri'stina 190]

Where does it say anywhere that Cosby hasn't done anything to help the community he is talking about?

[HAL 9000 96]

I'm just contributing to the debate, kaydee. I'm still trying to figure out how you're drawing your conclusions. I'm not sure why pointing out Cosby's simplistic explanation of the black community's problems makes me testy and apparently someone who would be torn to shreds in the bad-a$$ 'hood of your youth. You know little about me, so I ask you to please refrain from making assumptions about my experiences.

Please tell me where I've suggested that we emphasize and perpetuate victimhood.

I am a strong believer in equitable education funding, and it's my assertion that truly better schools that offer real educational opportunities--to include youth programs--are the first step toward decreasing poverty, and the crime and despair that go along with it. Girls wouldn't be having three babies before age 17 if they felt they had a future. And of course it comes back to parenting. No one is disagreeing that the family unit, however it may be constituted, is paramount. Nothing is more important that being cared for and encouraged. But Cosby's rant about idiot parents offers no practical suggestions, just a comic put-down.

Cosby, with his doctorate in education, should know a thing or two about the U.S. public education system. He celebrates Brown but doesn't note that schools in the U.S. are still greatly segregrated and that educatonal attainment disparities are huge. Much of this has to do with how public schools are financed. It needs reform, badly. Fix that--really fix it, not stupid temporary fixes like forced bussing and No Child Left Behind bull$#it--and you've got a shot at turning things around.

I get the impression that you lean to the right, and thus have faith in free markets and economic opportunity. One needs a decent education to harness these opportunities, wouldn't you agree?

What's your concrete suggestion? I've given one of mine.

Hint: You may want to organize your thoughts before tossing up a series of non sequiturs, as in your last post.

Ms. Your assertions that pumping money into an "equitable" education system is overly simplistic and is not the end all to this very convoluted, multi-faceted, and complex topic. We've been there and done that, ad nauseum!

We had the best of Public Schools in Brooklyn N.Y. and the blacks were not denied the same education as I, and in fact I was very much the minority in every class.

You seem to suggest that eductional opportunities are being denied the blacks. They are not. Additionally, you seem to promote "special" programs for those urban areas that have high concentrations of blacks, or other minorities and suggest that spending is the root of their problems.

Once again, overly simplistic.

You seem to ignore the fact that the black community subscribes to the "victimization" ideology and so the root of many of their problems are cultural, not economic.

They have been conditioned by the likes of Sharpton and similar types from birth. Solve that, and one won't need "special" social services programs for the urbana.

BTW, I highlighted the one sentence that indicates to me that you're ego exceeds your practical knowledge of what you purport to opine about.

It sounds like you have some issues with the population under discussion, kaydee. You can't blame everything on a noisemaker like Al Sharpton.

I find it interesting that you're old enough to remember when black people couldn't have lunch at the same counter as white people, yet you seem befuddled that many black people still feel marginalized and, yes, victimized. I'm not saying that such an attitude is productive, but you must understand that this isn't ancient history.

I'm focusing on education for a number of reasons. First, this speech was delivered by someone with a doctorate in education, at an event celebrating a landmark court case about equality in education. The irony is that in reality, desegregation has done little to increase educational attainment among certain populations because the method for funding public schools has not changed. In addition, the people making the decisions about curriculum and teaching qualifications are often bureaucrats who know little about education. I'm not advocating throwing money at the problem, but read up a bit on how most U.S. public schools are funded, and you'll have a better idea of what I'm talking about.

Umm, excuse me Ms. but you made the argument so why must I "read up" on this topic? Please, give me the readers digest version of how schools are funded, particularly in what localities you're discussing.

"qualifications are often bureaucrats who know little about education"

I'll not argue the point that bureacrats are ignorant of education for I don't know specifically who you're talking about.

Additionally, it seems to me that what you're discussing is regional and cannot be applied to all localities.

"It sounds like you have some issues with the population under discussion, kaydee. You can't blame everything on a noisemaker like Al Sharpton. "

I never said I blamed everything on Al, but rather the methods used by him and others under the guise of "Civil Rights activism" that feed this culture of defeatism. I submit that that is what the root cause of the problem is. A culture rooted in victimization.

You speak of symptomatic results of such as the lack of education. Lack of eductaion is a symptom, not a cause.

So... if its not causative... what is it a symptom of?

A clear understanding of sequence would help.

I'll repeat. It's a culture of victimization, whereby the black community "condition" their young to believe that they are predisposed to failure as a result of, but not limited to, white people, white business, a federal goverment run by "rich white folk", a goverment that creates virus' to kill people of color, ad absurdum <fill in your own reasons here>.

The charlatans that have been preying on the balck community for generations, Al, and Jesse, have reinforced these crazy notions.

What you are arguing for- this "culture of victimization," does not replace the reality of historical sequence. As a matter of fact if you want to put it in its place, you should be thinking about what created this newfound culture.

A primarily white-controlled US government has done very little to displace this so-called culture of victimization, thereby becoming yet another factor in its propagation. You'd imagine that action would follow words, but no... that is sadly not the case and that in itself should paint itself in the minds of those interested in continuing to play the race game.

Edited March 20, 2008 by maviwaro