Jesse Jackson VS Bill Cosby

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 upstag ed 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 A mericans in the lower economic
> neighborhood who drop out of school, 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 every
> day. 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 advert ised 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, and 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."
> > > Like:
> > > Teach our children to speak English. There's no such thing as "talking
> white".
> > > When the teacher calls, show up at the school.
> > > When the idiot box start s spewing profane rap videos, turn it off.
> > > Refrain from cursing around the kids.
> > > 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.
> > >
> > > ; I passed this on... Will you?
> > >