Bill Cosby defends his recent remarks -- on "Talk of the Nation" @npr.org

After his recent remarks that the black "lower economic people" were not doing their jobs at parenting their children , comedy star Bill Cosby was hit with waves of criticism .

Undaunted by his critics , Mr Cosby went on to create even more media-stir by repeating his original comments about young black knuckleheads' dismal school performance and lack of basic english skills and followed up his remarks with comments about the parents of these same knuckleheads, giving their children grossly overpriced sneakers and silly names.

Today Mr. Cosby went on the NPR radio program 'Talk of the Nation' to explain his statements and answer the controversy they have caused .

Unlike his previous speeches , instead of using humor ,today Cosby was more cerebral in his arguments, citing statistics that black students have a 50 percent drop out rate and that 70 percent of the prison population is illiterate ... Factors that self-condemn many of our children to be little more than fodder for the national prison industrial complex .

He reemphasized parental responsibility for raising our children and instilling within them a burning drive for learning .

Mt Cosby in effect, also reminded us that even though various unscrupulous media vendors try to sell our children "spit in a bottle" couched in between assembly-line machined hypnotic drumbeats and never-ending booty gyrations ...The TV has an on and off switch and parents need to control and use it to protect their offspring .

He ended with a heartbreaking statistic that recently in a NYC neighborhood, from a class of 900 black ninth graders , only 35 ended up graduating highschool . Personally i think Mr. Cosby should have used this approach the first time and people might have understood what he was driving at .


On this radio program 'Talk of the Nation' , they always, "Invite listeners to join our discussion and call in at 1-800-989-TALK , or send us an e-mail at totn@npr.org" ...Well of course , since i had just completed making a comment on this very same issue at our friend sondjata's web blog "Garvey's Ghost" i attempted to call in to talk to Bill Cosby ... Of course , because of the volume of potential callers, i could not get through , so as i held the dialed phone while the busy signal continued , i typed them the following "shamelessly self-promoting" e-mail which also , of course ,was not read on the air...

Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2004 11:40:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: "diallo sekou" Add to Address Book
Subject: mr cosby's remarks
To: totn@npr.org


i agree with mr cosby , the fault "lies not within our stars but within our selves that we are underlings" .

Yes we know that we have been targeted as a people for cheap labor for the prison industrial economy

Yes we know that we are targeted as a people by the drug epidemics that ravage our communities.

Yes we know that the highpaying industrial jobs (that afforded other ethnic groups a pathway into the middle class ) were ALLOWED to flee the country to places overseas in search of the good old days of cheap labor , no medical benefits and child labor...but the answer to these socio-economic ills is NOT a retreat into ignorance .

we have lost the old values we once had , that carried us as far as we have travelled .


We black people invented the alphabet , writing , mathematics , metallurgy , architecture , but one would never know this based upon what we see among our people today .

Black people must turn off the tv , the radio , the videogames and cd players for three hours each day and everyone in the home READ , WRITE AND STUDY!

the public school system is largely a failure , but it does not run our homes.

we must take responsibility for controlling the behavior of our children and ourselves , or we will continue to be 50 percent of the drop outs and 70 percent of the prison population.

As an aspiring African-American journalist we attempt to discuss this topic and similar topics of importance to black adults at our web blogs at the "Deskrat Chronicles " found at http://deskrat.blogspot.com and our sister site "Garvey's Ghost" at http://garveys-ghost.blogspot.com/

thankyou

*ok , in my haste i screwed up in the last paragraph ,and meant to say "journalist group" , but it will probably never get read by them anyway...


...But at least we will know we tried...

...Oh well ...Back to the drawing board. ; )