the jello man

ive been on some other stuff lately, in a good way of course...i cant say my grown woman status cause im not 100% independent, so ill say on some mature type status...

but below are words from bill cosby at the recent annual Rainbow/PUSH conference...black folks need to read this, and im almost scared of alienating my non-black friends on facebook, so i decided to post here even though im sure im the only one who reads this :)

Cosby said the lower Black economic people are not holding up their end in this deal. These people are not parenting. They are buying things for their kids like $500 sneakers, for what? But they won't spend $200 for a Hooked on Phonics program!?

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, the 50 % of African Americans in the lower economic neighborhood who

(1) drop out of school and never finish

(2) are in the alarming number of Black men in prison

(3) are included in the large number of 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 responded, "Your dirty laundry gets out of school at 2:30 every day. They curse on the way home, on the bus, on the train, in the candy store. They are cursing and grabbing each other and going nowhere. Their book bags are very, very light because there's nothing in them?.

He added, ?Don't worry about the white man. 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 now doing to ourselves.

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?:

(1) Teach our children to speak English, there's no such thing as

"talking white".

(2) When the teacher calls, show up at the school to see what

your child is doing.

(3) When the idiot box starts spewing profane rap videos, turn it

off!

(4) Refrain from cursing around the kids.
(5) Teach our boys that women should be cherished, not raped or

demeaned.
(6) Tell our children that education is a prize we won with our

blood and tears, and not to dishonor it.
(7) 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.