Cosby Unfunny
(Note the messages on Cosby’s shirts. They do not say something stupid.)
I was about eight the last time I was a Cosby fan, which is about when he was edgy. That was a long time ago. This unfunny Cosby act has been pretty good, though. Bill Cosby has been aggravating elements of the black status quo/powers that be … white sq/ptb for that matter … for some time by telling kids to pull their pants up, get jobs, get married, speak proper English, stop wallowing in victimhood or trying to escape it through criminality, that kind of thing. The other day he was out with that black judge who cleared the white people out of his courtroom so he could tell off the black defendants. Though if you’ve been in a courtroom lately, you’ll know that most of the white people there who aren’t working, and some of those who are, could stand to hear the message, too. Atlanta Journal Constitution:
When Fulton Superior Court Judge Marvin Arrington got mad, an icon listened.
On Thursday, Bill Cosby headlined a “fireside chat” with Arrington and Atlanta-born comic Chris Tucker at Benjamin E. Mays High School. The packed auditorium held mostly at-risk high school students and their parents — the people Cosby is trying to reach with his message of tough love for the African-American community.
“I’m blunt, and I’m going to stay blunt,” he said, drawing cheers from the crowd. Cosby’s approach has its critics, but he’s unbowed.
Barack Obama says “Yes, we can.” Cosby’s message: “Yes we should.”
“The man from Nigeria comes here, he’s here two months, and what does he do?” he asked. “He goes to community college. He’s learning a second language while he drives the cab. What are our children doing? Practicing a first language that only they can understand.”
Arrington has become a recent convert to Cosby’s unflinching gospel of personal responsibility. The judge’s tipping point came earlier this month after he surveyed yet another round of mostly African-American perpetrators awaiting sentencing.
“I was tired of being sick and tired,” he said.
He responded by asking the white people in attendance to leave so he could speak frankly to the 50 or so young, black defendants. Arrington said he was following his grandmother’s admonition not to air the community’s dirty laundry in front of whites, but apologized soon after for a “bad judgment call.”
He’s since reconsidered, as reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, Arrington said. Cosby was among those cheering.
“This man cleared the courthouse because he was embarrassed,” the television trailblazer said. “The problem we have is apathy.”
He contacted Arrington, telling the judge he wanted to come to Atlanta “to help you in your fight to turn these young people around.”
Cosby actually did get funny. AP:
Bill Cosby says apathy among some black Americans about violence, drugs, profanity and teenage sex has sunk to a level of asking someone to “pass the salt.”
…
He amused the invitation-only crowd of about 600, which included teenagers identified as “at-risk” by juvenile authorities, with a lament about nonchalant reactions to common problems.
“Well, the mother’s on crack cocaine. Pass the salt.”
“That girl’s baby has no father. Pass the salt.”
“Oh, he shot him in the head? Pass the salt.”
Cosby, dressed casually in sneakers and a Morehouse College T-shirt, said there are examples of success, and there are examples of failure.
“We look at failure and we’re like, pass the salt.”
One problem with the joke. It assumes a family dinner. But the unfunny part is, as odd as it looks for the AP to be calling these common problems, in too many places they are.
Topics: justice, law & order, mockery, racism
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:34 am on Saturday, April 26, 2008
14 Responses to “Cosby Unfunny”
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April 26th, 2008 at 12:50 am
Amen.
i could try and wax poetic on all the reasons why this is a desperately needed initiative, but that would be like to teach pigs to sing.
Go Bill!
April 26th, 2008 at 5:35 am
We need him. With Wright and the others I see an explosion in the future!
April 26th, 2008 at 8:28 am
Bless you Bill. The scum who thrive by advocating black failure will continue to oppose you.
I say that as, per “Rev.” Wright, an evil selfish wingnut who wears a Confederate uniform and cooks up AIDS and crack in my basement and foists it on unsuspecting black children on their way to Head Start in the morning.
April 26th, 2008 at 10:03 am
I loved Bill as a child, and I love him now, even more.
Go Bill!
April 26th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Bill Cosby is so much more authentic than the endless spewings of the race and victimology pimps.
I watched Jeremiah Wright for an hour last night with Bill Moyers. Some of Wright’s points about America are fleshed out better in the longer sermons, but his message (purporting to speak the Word of God) is unrelentingly negative.
I much prefer the message of another unrelenting black preacher, who also purports to speak the Word of God, James David Manning.
Five hundred years and you’re still complaining ?
April 26th, 2008 at 11:21 am
I seem to recall that “pass the salt” line is a paraphrase of an old Gil Scott-Heron song.
April 26th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
tanstaafl, listening to Manning on that mackdaddy video was unsettling also. To hurl insults from the pulpit is not what I imagined that Christ would have us do, at least insults in a political sense.
April 26th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
I became a devoted Cosby fan way back when he was doing riffs on his family situations because they were so universal (translation: exactly like my own). He is still speaking a universal truth, not only to his own African-American community, but to everyone. It’s just that, today, the African-American community seems to need it more than most.
April 26th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
We need more Cosby’s and less Wrights. But I would not limit it to the black community. We need to be speaking those hard truth to the slacker kids of all races that think the gang life is the way to go.
April 26th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
I think Bill might like this guys attitude, more than a little.
It’s long but very worth the time.
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=26741080
April 27th, 2008 at 3:29 am
Will somebody please nominate a Cosby-Rice ticket? Actually, McCain-Cosby works for me, too.
Cosby, FWIW, is a Ph.D. in Education.
April 27th, 2008 at 9:55 am
tanstaafl, listening to Manning on that mackdaddy video was unsettling…
Very. I was cringing watching the Manning videos, I can imagine how the congregation feels (assaulted).
None of it from any of these preachers feels very Christ-like.
It’s just the one line I appreciated, as if to say, enough complaining & blaming already.
To me, that’s a healthy and worthwhile message.
April 27th, 2008 at 10:11 am
I think Bill might like this guys attitude, more than a little.
I watched about half. Zo rocks :)
April 28th, 2008 at 1:04 am
tanstaafl, yeah really!