You misspelled ‘led.’

I have found that those who find it easiest to deal with blackfolks are those who have served above, beside, and below them in the armed forces.

So from my perspective, ‘exposure to black culture’ is something of a non-starter. Everybody is exposed to black culture. What it really comes down to is the direct respect required to work under black leadership. That’s when you get it - when your success or failure depends upon your ability and willingness to be lead by a black individual.

That’s what the conservative African Americans are trying to tell you.

I never really understood if I was a racist or a bigot. Everybody has some prejudice that they grow up with. Whether I like or dislike you because of your ethnicity I think is the wrong question. It is whether my dislike of you causes me to hinder your success.

One black poltician back in the 60’s said he respected George Wallace more than Ted Kennedy because he knew Wallace hated him and he thought Teddy was two faced.. What he forgets is that whether Ted likes you or not, he worked for poltical and economic equality for minorities.

When I was a preschooler in Chicago, my mother and I were the only blond people in a Jewish neighborhood. I never experienced the kind of bigotry and insults at any time in the rest of my life. In fact, the black people who worked in the neighborhood treated my mother and I as fellow Negroes since the Jewish homemakers treated both us and them with the same contempt. We rode the El, the only white people on the train for miles, and no one treated us as anything but neighbors. My mother was shocked because, like me, she was from a tiny rural commmunity with one black citizen and had never spoken to him. She was probably scared to speak to any black person until we moved to Chicago.

She had never experienced a one to one conversation with any minority before and had no idea what would happen. But, after a few days, we both felt at ease with the folks on the El. I had so much respect for everyday people who no reason to treat us as well as they did, not deferentialy, but neighborly. What they did probably made my politics and my empathy. I was probably one of the few in my all white grade school that knew black people were really people.

But , it was pretty cool, being exposed to gospel music, even on the train. ..I started listening to gospel in Chicago and later, to jazz because of my exposure to black culture. I later considered myself the hippest ten year old in the entire state of North Dakota because I knew who Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie were..

Nobody, black or white or Jewish is free from bigotry. I want people to have the same opportunities, but now I am told by conservative African Americans that I am keeping them down by trying to help.

At the University I attended, I met motivated kids of all minorities and I felt blessed to be treated equally by them. It still is hard, as a white guy, to keep from being too kind or deferential to the point of being thought as a suck up. I dont know….America was built with inequities, from indentured servitude, to slavery to the anhiliation of native peoples. I just want to get a fair shake, for myself and others. That’s all my RUssian grandfather ever wanted when he came here.

First of all I would like to give you my qualifications to speak on this issue. Yeah I’m sure you’ve all heard it before but I WAS borne a poor black child. First generation Northerner on BOTH sides of my family. My mothers family I was raised with 11 other cousins as if we were all brothers and sisters. Of the males I am the only one that hasn’t had children out of wedlock, done time, or been in rehab for crack. The girls to a one have all had at least 2 kids out of wedlock or died from OD’s. And I’m the only one that doesn’t live with in 10 miles of my mother (In fact I live in a mother state 8 hours away from  Home .)

I grew up in a  Major city in the mid-west and recent;y moved to  the hills and lived in a small town. I have known and been friends with blacks form every strata. From Doctors to (Self identified)  Thugs .

The problem is many fold, but it is mainly one of  Perception . Both how we are seen and how we see ourselves. But this problem is made worse by  The Media .

I will address the point of view of others.

For some reason a black person in this country can’t be middle class with out being a professional, member of the Nation of Islam or  A credit to the race . In the small town I moved to that I spoke of above. I was expected to be something I’m not, a  Thug . But it is obvious that I am not by my manor and the way I carry myself. First I was offended,  who the hell do these people think they are playing with!? was my reaction. Then I listened to what they were saying. The statement I heard over and over again was  You not like a normal black person. as if it was a complement. They were comparing me to the  Extras from rap videos as I call them. My pants fit my ass I speak with a decidedly Midwestern accent. My gamer and enunciation is not always perfect, but I give it a go when I’m doing business or speaking with someone who is not a friend. I dress in clothes that are not loud flashy, in style, nor sports related. In short I an a man like any other. Then because I work in hospitals I am ALWAYS asked if I’m  A Doctor . To most whites a black man has to be either a Thug or a Doctor. Why? Because with little experience with blacks the only models they have are from TV and there we are either …. You get my point.

Now From the inside.

Blacks have lost a sense of who they are. And like anyone who is not sure of them selves they take their cues from how they are treated and what models they have. We are the only minority that can be seen even from a distance. Thus being harassed for DWB, WWB and the worst BB (driving while black, walking while black, being while black.) Think it doesn’t happen any more? Think again. I have been stopped and had ID demanded from me for walking down the street. Pulled over twice in less than 20 minutes for a  Safety check of my vehicle(Though nothing on the car was checked, not even the lights). A police officer pounded on my door, demanding I open it up, held his finger over the peep hole and threatened me with being shot if I didn’t open the door. He changed his tune when I threatened him back and said I was going to call the cops and say that there was a man at my door pounding. To top it all off after he showed me his police ID through the peep hole and I opened the door he tried to barge in my home uninvited. And why all this humiliation? He was  looking for someone . He left mad with out even giving me a description. Now this all happened to me with in 2 months. And this says nothing about the  Purse clutching ,  Child Shielding , and service refusals I deal with on a daily basis. If that was how people reacted to your presence how would you feel? Where would you look for a model of how to be yourself? Most black people look not to the everyday heroes we see, fathers who work everyday trying to feed a family on 70 cents on the dollar to our counterparts at work. We look to what is ever present the TV where sports stars, actors and Polictos are more on every channel next to Tupoc and Snoop.

That all said here is the kicker…. MOST black people are the everyday heroes. Like me we work and take care of our families, Love our friends and contribute to our communities. Like most whites we are neither Thugs nor Doctors.

So yes Cosby was right, is right but not for the reasons some people here seem to think.

Just out of curiosity, why do you appear to be espousing a collective responsibility for blacks/minorities. Do you believe whites have a collective responsibility to whites? When was the last time you spoke out against unsafe trailer homes and taught rednecks that its not safe to leave those Camero’s on cinder blocks because their 8 children play in it?

the  crab bucket mentality, wherein successful blacks accommodate less successful blacks by allowing themselves to be  pulled back down by poorer blacks

Because blacks “cannot be criticized”, their problems have become the ‘elephant in the room’. We can talk all around the issue, but never address it directly.
goatchowder, evrgreen, pionar, BinkyBoy, Constantine, and mr. curmudgeon are all representative of the type of thinking which says that not only are blacks not reponsible individually for their situation, they’re not even responsible collectively.
To suggest otherwise is to be open to accusations of being a racist.

The black Americans to whch Bill Cosby is referring haven’t been here for a hundred years or so. They’ve been here since at least 1808.
They’re not recent “immigrants” from Africa, or the Caribbean, or South America.
As I said above, my experience with blacks is in social services and in recovery. Nearly all of them have spent some time living in urban or exurban areas, and have southern roots. So even if other “hyphenated - Americans” followed the oversimplified (and skewed to the left, of course) path of acculturation you described, rest assured the “Afro - Americans” filling up the Social Services offices, the unemployment offices, and the jail cells of America, are not them.

I knew Frank seemed familiar, but I couldn’t quite figure it out.

Conservative since 63! I’d recognize you anywhere! As they say, a thorn by any other name…

Every race style community has to be able to point out the truth of a situation in order for that situation to change. Comedy is usually humor over the top of truth. It wouldn’t be funny if it wasn’t true. The white Bill Cosby may even be a Jeff Foxworthy, calling out rednecks for the absurdities in a backwards attempt to get them to change.

Of course, right now with new job creation dying and payroll levels declining, encouraging the lower class of any race to “work harder” isn’t going to carry the weight it would have 6 years ago.

Pretty much every immigrant group who ceases to maintain their distinct identity and assimilates to the “mainstream” becomes, by definition, just as “lazy and amoral” as everyone else. This is the very reason why many immigrant groups are protective of their identities and has a suspicion of intermarriage– because they don’t want their families to mirror the surrounding culture.