Bill Cosby On Problems With Many of Today's Young People and Parents (541 hits)
Bill Cosby addressed the NAACP on the 50th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education on May 17, 2004. Bill Cosby went to the same high school that I graduated from...Central High School. The 2nd oldest public high school in America. It's a magnet school that attracts the best and brightest in the City of Brotherly Love, Philly. My views are very similar to Cosby's views. If these views hit a nerve, it is not intentional. Cosby is older and wiser than most of the people on this site.
Guess what? Bill Cosby is Black and so am I. All Black people do not condone the unwise decisions taking place every single day. White people criticize poor whites a lot more harshly than I criticize disadvantaged Blacks. Most Whites who are doing well don't even care about the Whites who aren't doing well. They call them names and make fun of them. It saddens and angers me to see some Black people fail.
People need to discuss these issues. It doesn't mean anyone has all the answers. Together, we might be able to come up with some solutions. That will only happen if we're woman enough to discuss issues rationally. I try to speak in plain English so that other people can understand me. My goal is to have a decent dialogue about this issue and others like it.
Bill Cosby addressed the problems in part of the Black community. The issues with people not bothering to learn Standard English or parent. Some people having children by many different men. Bill Cosby goes on to talk about how in his day you spoke one way with your friends out on the corner and another way (Standard English) when you went home to your parents.
I do not agree with everything Cosby said. My belief is that Project Housing created a whole problem in and of itself. It's an entire self contained community. That's why it causes people to stay there generation after generation. It's not healthy to put people with problems together and then separate them from the rest of society. It's almost like prison for people who didn't commit any crime.
These problems do not plague every Black family. The problems are increasing though. I grew up in one of the most "successfully integrated" neighborhoods in America. There are literally mansions adjacent to multiple family homes. You have Black and White people living peacefully next door to one another. There is also a wide range of people from different educational backgrounds. The place may have looked perfect, but no place is perfect. Most of the White people sent their kids to very expensive private schools or they went to one of the magnet schools in the city. A lot of Black parents would not send their kids to the private schools because of either money or they had the belief that their kids could excel even in a failing public school.
Don't believe the hype. Most people don't aspire for their children to become trash collectors and have to endure the stench of other people's garbage all day. Please, I don't want to endure the stench of garbage period. Most people want better for their children (that used to be the norm). Cosby also addresses how you have these families where they just buy the children material goods to win the child's love. He says they'll spend $500 dollars on a pair of sneakers, but won't spend $250 on Hooked on Phonics.
