"(He) conjured up the Mission Hill Extension Housing Projects of Roxbury (Boston) in me ..."
Dear friends,
On the link below is a story about a recent incident in Philly where both acting and comedy legend Bill Cosby spoke to the student body at Germantown High School in Philly. Apparently, he was quite disappointed with the whole institution, by the end of the "ordeal".
Yet, I'm aware of his past speeches around the country where he scolds mostly African American audience single Moms and belittles them with terms such as his references to them being "the lower echelon". Huh?
In any case, I spoke at a disciplinary high school in Philly, to a crowded auditorium, back in the late-Seventies, when I was still actively engaged in professional boxing. One could hear "a rat piss on cotton", if you'll pardon the expression, as I spoke. Afterwards, the staff and teachers told me how amazed they were, because normally the kids acted like they did with Cos - gabbing and uninterested. But Bill has his own issues of relating to African Americans. He's far removed from the Black community about which he so often lambastes.
Actually, he and I once had a brief altercation behind the Four Seasons Hotel in Center City, back in '83, before he, a former resident of the Richard Allen Housing Projects in North Philly, made a disrespectful gesture to me (placing his finger over his mouth as I spoke) that conjured up the Mission Hill Extension Housing Projects of Roxbury (Boston) in me At that point, looking straight into my eyes, Bill Cosby very intelligently made a turn-around spin that was faster than James Brown, Davy Ruffin, and Michael Jackson combined. He then quickly race-walked away from the situation. By the way, at the time, we were both wearing tuxedos and were the special guests of a mutual friend, then Temple University President Peter Liacouras, at an annual black-tie affair.
Finally, the students aren't as dumb as Cosby would like to think they are. As you'll notice on the link below, he was talking down to them.. They don't need that!. Instead, they need wisdom. It's hard for one to fin much of that, find that, if most of one's life has been spent on stage and screen entertaining people. In other words, one has to be out and about engaging/interacting with real people and their varied circumstances in the real world. Moreover, to me, Bill Cosby seems to be a poor choice for helping young people grow.
G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/item/54686
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