Brave talk, wise words

I have a profound admiration for Bill Cosby.

He and I both aspired to be teachers, and I guess we've each made it, in his own way. He's achieved his goal more spectacularly than I, of course, but we've both encouraged education, served on college boards, written books that require a level of literacy to enjoy, given of our means to establish chairs and scholarship programs at good, highly accredited schools, and found ways to use our status and platforms as entertainers to promote high standards, discipline and morality.

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I consider Bill a first rate professor.

He has a bundle of doctorates, earned and honorary. And he is an educator.

Not only that; like the very best teachers, he's creative, passionate, and he really cares about his students.

And boy, does he have guts!

Surely you've heard, as I have, about the many speeches professor Cosby has made in recent months, haven't you? Speeches in schools and public forums, in front of large black audiences who were largely stunned into silence as he spoke things that almost nobody could enunciate but Bill? Speeches that inspired controversy all over the country, angry dissent and strong approval, and discussions on lots of talk shows? We all have – and we've even seen an occasional picture of the "Jell-O Man," collar and tie slightly awry, a little gray stubble on his famous bronze chin, holding forth from a podium like any renowned educator, while hundreds of other people who look rather like him seem to be considering whether to applaud wildly or storm the stage and pummel him unconscious.

Yes, we've all heard about what he's been saying – but how many of us have actually taken notice of what he's been saying?

I sure hadn't, until today, when I received the latest issue of The Egalitarian, published bimonthly by the American Civil Rights Institute, established by Ward Connerly.

I hope you're familiar with Ward Connerly; he's another exceptionally insightful, brave and accomplished man who happens to exhibit a skin shade two or three tones darker than most Caucasians. He grew up poor, but worked his way through school, became very successful in business, and became an educator and social activist.

He, like professor Cosby, says some surprising, even startling things. He has campaigned actively against "affirmative action," often citing the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which demands "equal treatment of all citizens without regard to race, color or ethnicity". He states plainly, "Remember that for every action taken to help one individual, because of race or gender, there is an action that is being taken that harms another, for the same reason."

By quoting him at length, Connerly puts us in the room to hear the exact words, the very brave and stimulating words, of professor Cosby's lecture:

They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk:

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Why you ain't?

Where you is?

What he drive?

Where he stay?

Where he work?

Who you be? ...

And I blamed the kid, until I heard the mother talk. And then I heard the father talk.

Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. In fact, you will never get any kind of job making a decent living. People marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an education, and now we've got these knuckleheads walking around.

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

These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids. Five-hundred-dollar sneakers, for what? And they won't spend $200 for Hooked on Phonics. I am talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit.

Where were you when he was 2? Where were you when he was 12? Where were you when he was 18, and how come you didn't know that he had a pistol? And where is the father? Or who is his father?

People with their hats on backward, pants down around the crack, isn't that a sign of something? Or are you waiting for Jesus to pull his pants up? Isn't it a sign of something when she has her dress all the way up and got all type of needles [piercing] going through her body?

What part of Africa did this come from? We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans; they don't know a thing about Africa. With names like Shaniqua, Taliqua and Mohammed and all of that crap, and all of them are in jail.

We have millionaire football players who cannot read. We have million-dollar basketball players who can't write two paragraphs. We as black folks have to do a better job. Someone working at Wal-Mart with seven kids, you are hurting us.

We have to start holding each other to a higher standard. We cannot blame the white people any longer.

Rest assured, those words have been heard far and wide, and are still resonating in homes and schools and places of business and worship. Best of all, they're resonating in the minds of lots of young black kids, while they still have the opportunity to take them to heart – and end up with a brighter future. Like Ward Connerly did.

He followed the Cosby quotes with this further observation:

Since the days of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, American-born blacks have been held to a different standard than other Americans. Some justify this practice because blacks were held to a different standard prior to the civil rights movement, but then the difference was to the disadvantage of blacks. Today's favored treatment is no less disadvantageous; it just takes a different form.

It is time to believe in and demand true equality for ALL Americans, including black people; and applying the principle of true equality often requires the "tough love" to tell Jamal to pull his pants up, turn his cap around, learn to speak proper English, stay out of trouble, stay in high school, graduate, and make something of his life besides being a ward of the state. Thank you, Dr. Huxtable.

And thank you, Dr. Connerly.

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