Pretty good article there and some of the comments gave you some food for thought. Lady J

In answer to those who believe Bill Cosby is "out of touch." . . .
Last weekend (first weekend in Aug.) my husband and I attended a Black Alumni Reunion at Ball State University. One of the panel topics was "Was Bill Cosby Right?"

As college graduates in a mostly white Indiana University environment in a city called Muncie that, like so many city governments, buries it's head in the sand when it comes to helping the working poor and creating equal situations in good ol' boy USA, I am of that era in American movie and television history where the pioneers of the media industry had to do what they had to do. Just as some of my own relatives I'm sure were raped and beaten in order to protect their own children, that is something that a person who is truly in touch with their roots never forgets. Ours in an oral history that was erased from the textbooks. Anyone born between 1900 (some are still alive) and 1964 remember the pain. I am in full support of Bill because .... newsflash....in love....the people who said Bill was not being "in touch" are the people who do not reach out and touch for something more. Read some of the books by Dr Na'im Akbar, Dr. Cornel West, read the biographies of Josephine Baker, be aware that even actresses like Hallie Berry and Wesley Snipes as well as others directors like the Hudlin Brothers consistenly fight to erase negative images on television that the majority of people around the world (not just America) believe about black people. I have a friend who is an artist in Savannah Georgia. He is in his early 30s. What people really might find interesting is a popular website called "The Willie Lynch Letters" on how to create duplication of slave mentality that, honestly, (not stated as a "slam" but a fact by one who has lived and still living the life of a black woman in America that "can't believe it (intelligence) until they see it). ..if Willie Lynch were still alive he'd get the Nobel "Hate" Prize because he made got the exact results by pitting light skinned against dark skinned black people in the slave system.

Not everyone was born a slave. But there is no mistake that what black people in America went thru, and are still going thru, helps those of us who choose to reach out and help each other... in the same way that the tough love that Bill Cosby has shared...are all for change.

Understand this: Hate and ignorance against anything external like faith belief, economic status, education acumen, etc.... is a choice once the biased thinking individual or the unlearned person becomes HUMBLE enought and finds out that there are THREE sides to everything. (One is correct with fact, one is in error with rumor, or both are flat out wrong.)

Just today (Aug. 11) I was in my hometown of Anderson IN, watching people try to uplift the accomplishments of blacks yet if there is a school system that does not appreciation for its teachers, if there is a sports system in America that touts sports over book intelligence--if there is a system out there that is replacing the fields of cotton with the bars of prison, and the community turns a deaf ear, then the wish of Willie Lynch will become a reality... the complete irradiation of the anchor of the black family, which is the black male.

Now I ask that you discover something for your reading pleasure whom all of us, every single one because I AM ONE OF THEM, know that Bill Cosby, Dr. Julia Hare, and others who will be speaking out on (look it up) "The State Of Black America" that will be televised on TV-ONE station this Sunday (tomorrow), owned by a black woman named Cathy Hughes who became a billionaire because she was taught that she was more than just a black woman to do the bidding of a white corporation as a secretary with no college education/and become a media mogul millionaire because she give back to the community.

So again, in love, this is not a bashing, this is an awakening if you were not born black in America when racism was blatant as shown in "Eyes on the Prize" series. All of us as people, regardless of our ethnic description, need to get back in touch with what makes us unique physically, spiritually, and intellectually. We are God's GREATEST creation and God delights in all of us.

America only wanted us for economic purposes and we are the only documented people (www.reedpuryearfamily.com) who did well and continue to do well, as all of us will--when we refuse to let others dictate our destiny.

*tears!*

*tears* I feel pain and frustration in these lines, but also see a steely determination to rise, to rise, to rise! Overcomer, achiever, mentor: that's y o u, Cynth'ya. World's a better place for it, too. You inspire me.

(((HUGS))) and love, Karla.

Bill Cosby hasn't been black in so long, he is clueless as to what black people in America go through. Maybe that's why he's been visiting black men in the prison systems lately-someone told him some truth, which is that he is out of touch with the black community if he can blatantly make comments about people he doesn't even know. No black person in America should have to blatantly kowtow to white ideas in order to be "acceptable." How is that justice for us?