Bill Cosby's Speech: Brown Vs. Board Of Education

Many know Bill Cosby from his success as an America comedian, actor, author, etc, but what he's best at is providing his many words of wisdom as an African America educator. Bill Cosby address to the National Association for Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) on the 50th anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education goes down as one of the top speeches in America. His speech given at this ceremony was directed straight to the younger generation of the African-American community. He begins the speech with a statement he heard a prize fight manager say to his fellow who was losing badly, “David, listen to me. It's not what he's doing to you. It's what you're not doing.” This statement was a very significant feature in this speech because it centers around many things he mentions such as the school drop-out rates and juvenile delinquencies and young women and men disgracing themselves. All those things are what generates the speech as a whole. Cosby main reason and focus was how African-Americans were putting higher priorities on other things such as music, fashion and money other than education,
self-respect, and self-improvement. His motive was pleading for African-American families to educate their children on the many different aspects of the American culture.
Cosby then began to speak on the people outside African-American community and acknowledging them for giving African-Americans a chance to be someone in this day and time but yet they don't take advantage of those opportunities. He mentions how the doors were opened for them and they had the right to be anything they wanted. The sky was the limit but yet you see these high rates for school drop-outs and juvenile delinquencies and how young women are no longer embarrassed for getting pregnant without a husband and these so call men running away from their responsibilities of taking care of there child. There's no justice in any of these things. There was so much emotions behind those issues because many heard the stories and seen pictures of our ancestors who marched and were hit in the face with rocks and punched in the face just to get an education but yet there's 50% school drop-outs which causes higher juvenile delinquencies.
Setting the tone of his speech and making things more controversial, Cosby begins to target the lower economic and lower middle economic people which he claims that they aren't holding their end of the deal.
He talks about how the neighborhoods where he and others of his time grew up in aren't the same anymore in a sense of parenting. He states that he remembers when kids couldn't “hooky” school because every drawn shade was an eye meaning everyone around knew one if not both of the parents and at the end of the day parents knew every move that had made that day. Parents don't know that now and because of the non-parenting you see these parents crying over their son sitting across from them in a handcuffs. Then Cosby begins to make things more realistic to the parents by revolving questions around the situation in order to help them see why things are the way they
are.
Now with all that being said above he makes it really clear that he doesn't blame the ones that are getting caught up in the nonsense but he's blaming the parents and their parenting. Cosby focuses on parenting because everyone knows what you learn behind those closed doors will reflect how you act outside of those closed doors. Going back to that statement earlier, “It's not what's he doing to you. It's what you're not doing.” What parents fail to realize is the backwards hat, the pants down below the waist and the needles going through the bodies are reflecting their parenting. Cosby states about mid-way of his speech “Ladies and gentlemen, listen to these people. They are showing you what's wrong.” Therefore he concludes we should fix the backwards hat and turn around the right way, bring the pants up above the waist with a belt, and lets not destroy our bodies and keep them as God made them.
Cosby mentions that Brown vs. Board of Education is no longer the white person's problem. This is significant because African-Americans are quick to point fingers when really they should be pointing fingers at themselves. Along with this Cosby downplays God some. His exact quote was “ You can't keep asking that God will find a way. God is tired of you.” Basically he wants Brown vs. Board of Education to stand up and teach these kids good parenting so they build the generations because this younger generation is our future.
Speaking on the the speech in general, Cosby used his emotions through his tone. He was angry and you could tell by the words he were using and the way he structured his sentences. He was throwing his argument out to the audience as if he wanted them to get angry because he believe if they got angry enough things would be fixed for the younger generation of African-Americans. The speech goes into good depth about the issues in today's generation of the African-American and Cosby is pretty blunt on who to blame for these actions. He also made it clear that he was targeting the lower economic and lower middle economic people
Going back to the statement “It's not what's he doing to you. It's what you're not doing”, Cosby made it very clear that it's not what the young African-American generation's fault for what they are becoming but so much of the parenting inside the home. As I mentioned above, Cosby motive was pleading for African-Americans families to educate their children on the many different aspects of the American culture. Instead of putting those higher priorities on other things they should put them on education, self-respect, and self-improvement and the school drop-out rates and the juvenile delinquencies want be so high and young African-American men and women would learn to respect themselves. Then all this would lead to a better future for the other generations to come.