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This is How We Lost To The White Man
The Atlantic Monthly ^ | Ta-Nehisi Coates

Posted on 04/12/2008 2:42:58 PM PDT by freerepublic_or_die

Last summer, in Detroit’s St. Paul Church of God in Christ, I watched Bill Cosby summon his inner Malcolm X. It was a hot July evening. Cosby was speaking to an audience of black men dressed in everything from Enyce T-shirts or polos to blazers and ties...


(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: billcosby; blackfamily; class; opportunity; racism; searchisyourfriend; theblamegame
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To: Mrs Zip

ping


21 posted on 04/12/2008 4:00:14 PM PDT by zip (((Remember: DimocRat lies told often enough become truth to 48% of all Americans (NRA)))))
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To: Kenny Bunk

It is OK to remind those here today that they had nothing to do with where they were born.......but as it turned out, God has been good to them by having them born in this Country.....now go and show God you are thankful!!!!!.....

(And as you go, please don’t complain to me again about being in this Country)....


22 posted on 04/12/2008 4:02:53 PM PDT by Ecliptic
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To: freerepublic_or_die
When Larry King asked him whether he supported Obama, he bristled: “Do you ask white people this question? … I want to know why this fellow especially is brought up in such a special way. How many Americans in the media really take him seriously, or do they look at him like some prize brown baby?”

Cosby nails Larry King and the MSM

23 posted on 04/12/2008 4:08:30 PM PDT by Popman
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To: freerepublic_or_die

Introspection is painful but necessary.

Blacks in this country need to try to understand why they are failing to achieve more. They would do well to listen to Dr. Cosby and quit dismissing him as an “Uncle Tom” sellout.

There are many that have found their way out of poor and violent circumstances. As an engineer, I have worked with a few excellent black engineers during my career.Being the curious (many would say nosy) person that I am, I have simply asked them how they managed to achieve what they had.

Without exception they told me:

1) They had never been told “It’s a white man’s world and you’ll never make it”.

2) They were always told that they could succeed through education and hard work. That their destiny was theirs to create.

3) Their parents expected them to do their homework and get good grades. In other words, they were expected to achieve.

Somehow, the values that these parents instilled in these guys are eschewed by the majority in the black community.

Until they get back to these basics, I think there is little hope.

Do a little research on historic black literacy rates.
It’s pretty damn depressing. Things are NOT getting better from generation to generation.


24 posted on 04/12/2008 4:22:24 PM PDT by EEDUDE
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To: alrea
If attitude is a critical determinant of results, what does an attitude of blame and anger bring about?

The great eight hundred pound question mark that Black people like the author cannot address asks why Blacks who do not embrace the "Black culture" including hip-hop and the entitlement mentality of the victim posture, such as recent arrivals from Black Africa and the Caribbean, do as well as most anyone else in this "racist" nation of ours.

25 posted on 04/12/2008 4:23:30 PM PDT by hinckley buzzard
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To: AuntB

Our friend from Uganda describes the same thing. I personally think it has to do with the Protestant Work Ethic. Christianity teaches people to take personal responsibility, to pick up their mats and walk. It teaches one to work, to create and build. Sloth is a sin.

I have not developed my thesis deeply, but Christianity is the foundational building block of Western Civilization.


26 posted on 04/12/2008 4:24:26 PM PDT by bboop (Stealth Tutor)
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To: freerepublic_or_die
They lost when they made it an either/or conflict. Failing to win an unnecessary contest the only alternative was separatism and victimology.
27 posted on 04/12/2008 4:26:20 PM PDT by shrinkermd
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To: B4Ranch
With enough diversity there's no place to go back to but here.

BTW, an old American naming practice is to just pick a new name for yourself ~ one that sounds good to "the man" and brings money your way.

Picking out a name that just sounds good to your family or the neighbors is usually not a wise idea.

28 posted on 04/12/2008 4:29:31 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: Vince Ferrer
This is encouraging. He used to be vilified for saying the same thing only a few years ago. I hope it has some effect.

I remember him doing a tour saying this in 2005, and then he got hit with a sexual harassment charge and we didn't hear from him for a while. At the time I thought the timing was interesting, and thought somebody decided to dig up a woman willing to do an Anita Hill on Cosby

29 posted on 04/12/2008 4:33:26 PM PDT by PapaBear3625
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To: don-o
By race what are the crime statistics for this town? ...just curious
30 posted on 04/12/2008 4:41:19 PM PDT by pointsal
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To: brytlea

I don’t buy that your student was really that bright. I knew plenty of kids who had tricks enough up their sleeves to impress me, and who, as part of their act ‘threw it away’ or rejected it in dramatic fashion in order to be the James Dean of my class.

But it was specious. Upon further inspection I realized that their schtick was to impress me at odd intervals and in new ways, but that they didn’t have the goods. And they knew they didn’t have the goods. The trick is to keep me from figuring it out.

The kids with the goods almost always used it. And when they chose not to, it was never in such a dramatic fashion. They always failed to use it by getting distracted or misguided internally, but they never got on stage and gave a great speech about how ganstas don’t need smarts and tossed their smarts in a trash bin.

It makes for a good story but not much else.


31 posted on 04/12/2008 4:41:52 PM PDT by kbingham
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To: Kenny Bunk
“I do not for one second excuse or pardon the cruelty of slavery as practiced in Africa and moved to the New World. I pray for the tortured souls who lost their lives on the way across the Atlantic.
But, is it permissible to ask African-Americans what they think would have become of them if they had NOT been brought here? Do they ever think of the African Kingdoms’ responsibilities in the whole slavery matter? Knowing what we now know of Africa, would they return? Would they retire there? Just wondering.”

I read a story once of what the world would have been Ike with out the U.S. Martin Luther King as it turned out lived to a ripe old age and died at home. In a mud hut wearing a grass skirt.

32 posted on 04/12/2008 4:47:55 PM PDT by BigCinBigD (")
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To: pointsal

I wouldn’t know -


33 posted on 04/12/2008 4:47:58 PM PDT by don-o (My son, Ben, reports to Parris Island on June 30.)
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To: hinckley buzzard
I know that Bill Cosby thinks this is a much more racist society than I think it is. I know he also thinks that AIDS was a government plot. He says he's tired of losing to white people.

You know what? I'm good with him anyway. More successful black people in our country is good for all of us. So, have strong families, tightly knit communities, and thriving businesses. Hate me if you want to. Do as little business with "outsiders" as you wish.

But be successful.

34 posted on 04/12/2008 4:48:57 PM PDT by Dianna
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To: freerepublic_or_die
From the article, "When political strategists argue that the Republican Party is missing a huge chance to court the black community, they are thinking of this mostly male bloc—the old guy in the barbershop, the grizzled Pop Warner coach, the retired Vietnam vet, the drunk uncle at the family reunion. He votes Democratic, not out of any love for abortion rights or progressive taxation, but because he feels—in fact, he knows—that the modern-day GOP draws on the support of people who hate him. This is the audience that flocks to Cosby: culturally conservative black Americans who are convinced that integration, and to some extent the entire liberal dream, robbed them of their natural defenses."

I really hope what I underlined is not a true belief.

35 posted on 04/12/2008 4:54:54 PM PDT by Dust in the Wind (Fund A Red Meat Eatery Regularly)
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To: kbingham

In the 60’s Bill Cosby did at least as much for civil rights as Martin Luther King. His humor was cleary about life in a poor black neighborhood, but it transcended race. Everyone could see their family, their neighborhoods in his stories, and that made whites see black people as essentially the same as themselves.
Then the race pimps got involved, and brought us to where we are today.
Cosby seems to be trying to repair that damage. I pray he succeeds.


36 posted on 04/12/2008 4:56:56 PM PDT by Glenmore
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To: Dianna
I know he also thinks that AIDS was a government plot.
Thinks!!?? He's said so quite unequivocally, but has since backtracked.
37 posted on 04/12/2008 4:57:36 PM PDT by freerepublic_or_die (Words to live by: (Nathan Hale) I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.)
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To: stainlessbanner

The guy is a muitimillionaire curtisey(sp) of white people. He hasn’t lost a thing. These ungrateful pukes are arrogant and self-centered. They make me sick.


38 posted on 04/12/2008 4:59:52 PM PDT by Parmy
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To: brytlea
It's not cool to be smart.

When we think about the really bad environments many kids are born into, we can somewhat understand their negative attitudes. They would be/are verbally and maybe physically abused if they choose to be good students. IOW, they don't fit in...they're not accepted.

A lot of the parents of these children need to wise up first, it seems to me.

39 posted on 04/12/2008 5:02:37 PM PDT by IIntense (w)
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To: Doe Eyes

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if a decent black man ran? Someone who was moral, worked hard, was patriotic, supported our military, was fiscally conservative? The time has come!!


40 posted on 04/12/2008 6:14:55 PM PDT by Marie2 (I used to be disgusted. . .now I try to be amused.)
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