Issue date: 6/22/04 Section: Opinion

Graphic By Rylie Deyoe

It's time to lay it on the line. There is a problem in black America today, and it's high time someone said something about it.

"The Blacks of the 1960s marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an education, and now we have these knuckleheads walking around.

These lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal.

These people are not parenting. They're buying things for their kids: $500 sneakers, for what? And they won't spend $200 for Hooked on Phonics. I can't even talk the way these people talk: why you ain't, where you is."

Anyone have a problem with these remarks? Is someone out there chomping at the bit to label the speaker of these words a racist? Most likely the answer is yes, and this is precisely why the vast majority of Americans steer clear of acquiescing to such statements because they fear being deemed a racist also for doing nothing more than speaking truthfully.

However, these words belong to America's favorite TV father, Bill Cosby, who stated them at the Constitutional Hall event in Washington D.C., commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling.

Remarkably, the comedian's speech received applause and laughter, though the fact that it was a multicultural convention may have had something to do with that. Regardless, reactions in the black community have been mixed. Some agree with Cosby, while others either acknowledge the truthfulness of the remarks but criticize the callous manner in which the statements were made or simply condemn his words altogether.

For example, Fox News reported that after Cosby's remarks the NAACP President Kweisi Mfume and NAACP Legal Defense Fund Head Theodore Shaw approached the podium looking "stone faced." Shaw reportedly announced to the crowd that most people on welfare are not blacks, and that many of the problems his organization addresses are not self-inflicted.

To illustrate further, in his article, "What Bill Cosby Should be Talking About," Time Magazine's Christopher Farley chided the comedian, not for what he said, but for where he said it. Or, more appropriately, in front of whom he said it.

Farley stated, "Cosby broke the unwritten rule of keeping black dirty laundry in black washing machines." That is, Cosby should have refrained from speaking his mind in the presence of other racial groups, specifically whites, even if the statements were truthful, for as Marlon Brando put it, "you never discuss business outside the family."

Continued...

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