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Bill Cosby vs. Jesse Jackson
Decide not to be a slave to your limitations, for you can
always choose to be master of your possibilities. - Ralph
Marston
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The Reverend Jesse Jackson almost never gets upstaged and I
had never seen the Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson cry in
public until last month. Jackson invited Bill Cosby to the
annual Rainbow/PUSH conference for a conversation about the
controversial remarks the entertainer offered on May 17 at
an NAACP dinner in Washington, D.C. when America’s Jell-O
Man shook things up by arguing that African Americans were
betraying the legacy of civil rights victories.
Cosby said 'the lower economic people are not holding up
their end in this deal. These people are not parenting.
They are buying things for their kids. . $500 sneakers for
what? But they won't spend $200 for Hooked on Phonics!'
Bill Cosby came to town and upstaged the reverend by going
on the offense instead of defending his earlier remarks.
Thursday morning, Cosby showed no signs of repenting as he
strode across the stage at the Sheraton Hotel ballroom
before a standing room only crowd. Sporting a natty gold
sports coat and dark glasses, he proceeded to unload a
Laundry list of black America's self-imposed ills. The
iconic actor and comedian kidded that he couldn't compete
with the oratory of the Reverend but he preached circles
around Jackson in their nearly hour-long Conversation,
delivering brutally frank one-liners and the toughest of
love.
The enemy, he argues, is us: "There is a time, ladies and
gentlemen, when we have to turn the mirror around." Cosby
acknowledged he wasn't critiquing all blacks. . just the 50
percent of African Americans in the lower economic
neighborhood who drop out of school, and the alarming
proportions of black men in prison and black teenage
mothers. The mostly black crowd seconded him with choruses
of Amen's.
To the critics who pose, it's unproductive to air our dirty
laundry in public, he responds, Your dirty laundry gets out
of school at 2:30 everyday. It's cursing on the way home, on
the bus, train, in the candy store. They are cursing and
grabbing each other and going nowhere. The book bag is
very, very thin because there's nothing in it. Don't worry
about the white man, he added. I could care less about
what white people think about me. . Let them talk. What are
they saying that is so different from what their
grandfathers said and did to us? What is different is what
we are doing to ourselves.
For those who say Cosby is just an elitist who's "got his"
but doesn't understand the plight of the black poor, he
reminds us that, "We're going to turn that mirror around.
It's not just the poor-everybody's guilty."
Cosby and Jackson lamented that in the 50th years of Brown
vs. Board of Education, our failings betray our legacy.
Jackson dabbed away tears as he recalled the financial
struggles at Fisk University, a historically black college
and Jackson's Alma mater.
When Cosby was done, the 1,000 people in the room all jumped
to their feet in ovation. Long after Cosby had departed, I
could not find a dissenter in the crowd.
But in the hotel corridor I encountered a vintage poster for
sale that said volumes. The poster, which advertised the
Million Man March, was discounted to $5 dollars. Remember
the Million-Man March? In 1995, Nation of Islam Minister
Louis Farrakhan exhorted A million sober, disciplined,
committed, dedicated, inspired black men to meet in
Washington on a day of atonement. In 2006, perhaps all
that is left of that call is a $5 dollar poster. We have
shed tears too many times, at too many watershed moments
before, while the hopes they inspired have fallen by the
wayside. Not this time!
Cosby's plea to parents:
"Before you get to the point where you say 'I can't do
nothing with them' do something with them.
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"Like: Teach our children to speak
English. There is no such thing as "talking white".
When the teacher calls, show up at the school.
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When the idiot box starts spewing profane
rap videos, turn it off. Refrain from cursing around the
kids.
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Teach our boys that women should be
cherished, not raped and demeaned. Tell them that
education is a prize we won
with blood and tears, not a dishonor.
Stop making excuses for the agents and
abettors of black on black crime.
It costs us nothing to do these things. But if we don't, it
will cost us infinitely more tears.
We all send thousands of jokes through e-mail without a
second thought, but when it comes to sending messages
regarding life choices, people think twice about sharing.
The crude, vulgar, and sometimes the obscene pass freely
through cyberspace, but public discussion of decency is too
often suppressed in the schools and workplaces.
Anonymous
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