From: moneywhereyamouthis@timeforatiger.com   
      
   Cosby breaches the Left's electric fence of permissable debate....   
      
   The Times   
      
   World News   
      
      
      
   June 14, 2004   
      
   Comedian Cosby tells painful truths in attack on taboos   
   Nicholas Wapshott on America   
      
      
      
   THE comedian Bill Cosby has been stirring it up by daring to speak plainly   
   about issues which for years have been considered off limits.   
   Instead of the usual bland remarks to the graduating class of Wilkes   
   university, Pennsylvania, he offered the following home truths:   
      
      
   "Many of you have not thought about paying bills," he said, to audible gasps   
   from parents and students. "You have thought about contributing to some   
   bills: $200 on a $23,000 car. That's your contribution. Your parents will   
   pick up the tab. The free ride is over, people. Your parents have carried   
   you far enough.   
   "Your parents are confused. All they thought was they would get married,   
   have you, help you to get through high school and then into college. And   
   then you would graduate, get married, have grandchildren and they could die.   
   "They're still alive and you're still going to school. And what's even   
   worse, they can't die because they have to stay around another 30 years and   
   co-sign (credit agreements) for you. I know you sound pitiful, but that's   
   the way you look to me."   
   That was nothing compared with the caustic comments he made to distinguished   
   black Americans gathered last month to celebrate the 50th anniversary of   
   Brown versus the Board of Education, the court decision which opened the way   
   for the desegregation of schools.   
   He declared it was time for blacks to stop blaming whites and "turn the   
   mirror around on ourselves".   
   Civil rights campaigners "marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get   
   an education and now we've got these knuckleheads," he said. "They can't   
   speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk: 'Why you ain't',   
   'Where you is'. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. And then   
   I heard the father .   
   "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."   
   He denounced the hypocrisy about black criminality. "I am talking about   
   these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit.   
   Where were you when he was two? 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?"   
   He ridiculed black fashion. "People putting their clothes on backward: isn't   
   that a sign of something gone wrong? 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? What part of Africa did this come   
   from? We are not Africans."   
   Cosby broke the golden rule of polite society: do not rock the boat.   
   Americans pride themselves on being a "melting-pot" but the notion is a   
   myth. Black and white America practise a form of voluntary apartheid. They   
   prefer to live separately from each other and mistrust those who do not   
   look, behave or speak like them.   
   The truce between ethnic communities is considered so fragile that criticism   
   of each other has been banished and honest debate has long been abandoned.   
   What began as good manners and a laudable concern for others has become   
   crippling self-censorship. Even the rabid hosts of right-wing radio   
   talk-shows dare not raise such explosive issues for fear of being booted off   
   the air.   
   Cosby's achievement is to risk the affection in which he is held by his own   
   community to tell the truth as he sees it. The response has been surprising.   
   There have been inevitable charges of betrayal but his outbursts have   
   sparked similar candour among other black commentators who are now   
   revisiting arguments about equality and opportunity which were put on hold   
   40 years ago.   
   It is early days. Cosby has yet to be backed by black opinion leaders such   
   as Oprah Winfrey, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Colin Powell and Condoleezza   
   Rice. Unless he is supported the honesty which is essential to a properly   
   working democracy will once again be buried under mealy-mouthed dissembling.   
   Do not expect such openness in the general election this November.   
   Cosby could address such issues only because he is black and because he has   
   shown it is possible for a black man to succeed without compromise. He and   
   his wife, Camille, have also given millions to black causes, in particular   
   to educate poor children.   
   "I feel that I can no longer remain silent," he said in defence of his   
   remarks. "If I have to make a choice between keeping quiet so that the   
   conservative media do not speak negatively, or ringing the bell to galvanise   
   those who want change in the lower economic community, then I choose to be a   
   bell ringer."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)