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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (93190)	1/1/2005 1:34:13 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793848

Should read that whole article, not just the clips. washingtonpost.com

To: LindyBill who wrote (93190)	1/1/2005 3:31:29 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793848

Gregory Kane: Cosby's critique has legs Commentary - Dallas Morning News We media types love the story with legs. And there was one story in 2004 that had enough legs to win an Olympic marathon several times over. That story would be the ruckus comedian Bill Cosby caused in May, when he dared utter what everybody knew was the truth: that there are black Americans who aren't holding up their end of the bargain when it comes to educating their children. The reaction was one of two types: praise for Mr. Cosby from liberal commentators and columnists who would have called down the wrath of God on a conservative of whatever hue who had said the same thing. Yes, black Americans have reached the pathetic state where lies, flapdoodle and egregious nonsense spoken by liberals is preferable to truth spoken by conservatives, if the topic happens to be anything about black folks. The other reaction was to criticize Mr. Cosby. Some people are still at it. Considering there were things that happened within Afro-America this year every bit as controversial as Mr. Cosby's comments, we have to ask why he's the only one still taking the heat. There was not only a fight at November's Vibe Awards – held to honor those who fancy themselves the gangstas, thugs and pimps of the hip-hop world – but somebody also got stabbed. The suspect is a rapper named Young Buck, who's a member of the group G-Unit. Some folks who got upset with Mr. Cosby for speaking the truth haven't mumbled a syllable of protest about what happened at the Vibe Awards. Let's fast-forward from the Vibe Awards to the Source Awards, another show where the thugs, gangstas and pimps made their presence felt. There was no violence, but what Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan told the audience should have set tongues a-wagging and the computer keyboards of those columnists critical of Mr. Cosby a-clicking. So far, it hasn't. Mr. Farrakhan was the recipient of the Source Youth Foundation Hip-Hop Image Award. There's nothing wrong with that. Mr. Farrakhan has been the only black leader of stature to step in and try to end the ridiculous "beefs" various rappers have with one another. But when he told the rappers and hip-hoppers "this is the greatest generation that we have ever produced," alarm bells should have been set off. The hip-hop generation? Black America's greatest? The ones who gave us baggy pants that hang down over the butt, who elevated being a thug, gangsta and pimp to a cultural imperative, and who routinely refer to black women as bitches, 'hos, hoochies, skeezas and chickenheads? (Trust me, you don't want to know what a "chickenhead" is.) Could I be forgiven for thinking that maybe the generation of blacks who fought in the Civil War and helped the Union win might rank higher? How about the generation who endured racism and terrorism while raising the literacy rate of recently freed slaves? Surely the generation of blacks who fought in World War II – the Tuskegee Airmen, the truckers of the Red Ball Express, the members of the 761st Tank Battalion and the 969th Field Artillery Battalion (the latter two fought in the Battle of the Bulge) – is among the greatest. Those black youth who energized the civil rights movement of the 1960s would rank higher, as well. So the hip-hop generation doesn't even come in the top four of black America's greatest. What that generation has done is to act with complicity in some of the most vicious stereotyping black Americans have ever had to face in this country. Our black columnists and commentators know that and should have called Mr. Farrakhan on it when he praised the hip-hop generation as our greatest. And we would have, if we weren't so busy bashing Bill Cosby.