During the 2004 NAACP awards ceremony at Washington, D.C., in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the landmark case Brown vs. Board of Education , Bill Cosby delivers a speech, which would be subsequently referred to as “The Pound Cake Speech, criticizing the lifestyle and lack of parenting in the African–American community. The speech has been severely criticized for it is delivery and topics expressed within it. Author Jerome Corsi notes, "Cosby was attacked both for his flippant tone and because his argument appeared to 'blame the victim' for the racial inequality and racial injustice suffered." The purpose of this essay is to examine why the use of comedy, partitioning of listeners, and scapegoating of African-American parents, as the sole cause of African-American social problems, lead to the poor reception of Cosby's speech. Although Cosby has had a university education and received many honorary degrees, which few achieve, nonetheless, he is associated more as a successful entertainer than a scholarly educator. Interestingly, Cosby has self-described himself more of a class clown than an academician during schooling. Cosby started his entertainment career as a stand-up comedian doing performances across America during his younger years. Comedians have a notorious talent for stirring up crowds and encouraging clamor from the audience. They compose jokes that anyone can relate to and, thus, reach broad demographics during their performances. The talent has remained with Cosby to present and is manifested within the tone of his speeches as well. Throughout Cosby’s speech there is a comedy element hidden in a tragedy element. When Cosby discusses the blame on Caucasians in African American communities, he jokes, “... ... ... middle of paper ... ...livered his same points in a more formal manner with less humor. If Cosby had addressed his listeners as a collective union instead of fragmented denominations, listeners would have been coherent in relating to the problems presented by Cosby. Cosby uses the rhetorical device of pathos by placing guilt on African-American parents. Furthermore, Cosby repetitively informs his listeners that absence in parenting is the telltale root of all problems faced in the African-American community and its presence, alternatively, as the key solution to eradicating those problems; however, he does not thoroughly delve into describing the solutions or present methods on how to accomplish better parenting via examples. The combination of these aforementioned shortcomings contributed to the poor reception, criticism, and disparagement Cosby received in the aftermath of his speech.
Panel Members. (2014). Retrieved February 26, 2014, from The Brown & Black Presidential Forum: http://www.bbpresforum.org/panel.html
African-Americans aged 12 and up are the most victimized group in America. 41.7 over 1,000 of them are victims of violent crimes, compared with whites (36.3 over 1,000). This does not include murder. Back then during the era of the Jim Crow laws, it was even worse. However, during that time period when there were many oppressed blacks, there were many whites who courageously defied against the acts of racism, and proved that the color of your skin should not matter. This essay will compare and contrast two Caucasian characters by the names of Hiram Hillburn (The Mississippi Trial, 1955) and Celia Foote (The Help), who also went against the acts of prejudice.
In the past, the majority of the African Americans were faced with segregation, poverty, violence, and inequalities. In spite of the civil rights movement most were killed and were lynched. Today, African Americans are more likely suffering from issues, including unemployment, lack of education, poverty, drug abuse, political rights, and injustice. In this rhetorical analysis, Ta-Nehisi Coates and Victor M. Rios explained that people of color still face discrimination, racial injustice, and brutality. Also, these two authors attracted their audiences through persuasive expression, tone, and rational methods to discuss discrimination, racial issues, fears, injustice, and cruelty that govern the society as well. These two authors might be trying to make the large society aware of issues that negatively affect the young males of color and obtain their audience 's advocacy. However, Coates and Rios are different in their
James Baldwin wrote “Notes of a Native Son” in the mid-1950s, right in the heart of the Civil Rights Movement while he resided in Harlem. At this time, Harlem housed many African Americans and therefore had amplified amounts of racially charged crimes compared to the rest of the country. Baldwin’s life was filled with countless encounters with hatred, which he begins to analyze in this text. The death of his father and the hatred and bitterness Baldwin feels for him serves as the focus of this essay. While Baldwin describes and analyzes his relationship with his father, he weaves in public racial episodes occurring simultaneously. He begins the story by relating the hatred he has for his father to the hatred that sparked the Harlem riots. He then internalizes various public events in order to demonstrate how hatred dominates the whole world and not only his own life. Baldwin freq...
As MLK begins his article, he uses pathos to bring attention to his dispute. He starts by announcing, “Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait”... But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your brothers and sisters at whim;... when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park....when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?” (4) MLK utilizes the topic of family to allure empathy; using this topic ensures that any reader may relate to his current situation. He discusses family falling to death, the idea of a child, at a very young age, having to endure blunt and hurtful racism. MLK presents examples of devastating situations in order to connect with the reader. As both articles, “Letters from Birmingham Jail” and “Consider the Lobster” discuss various situations, they are also using
Among the young, it seems like there is an epidemic of bad behaviors. Teenagers aren’t finishing high school, they are getting knocked up, and going to prison/jail. In his “Pound Cake Speech” Bill Cosby addresses these issues to the African American community. His speech was an emotional view of parenting these days. Bill Cosby argues that the 50 percent dropout rate in schools is because of parenting, children not speaking English grammatically is because of parenting, children having children is because of parenting, and children carrying guns and ending up in prison is because of parenting. The parenting he says, of the lower and middle economic classes of African Americans is the reason why these things are happening. He blames poor parenting for these issues. However, Cosby fails to take into account that these issues are wider than poor parenting. African American children face these problems not due to the lack of care and concern from their parents, but due to the lack of resources that their parents can use to provide for them.
Boston’s local public television station WGBH, under the leadership of Hartford Gunn, presented an array of educational and cultural programming. Similar to an earlier interview, in a 1963 taping of “The Negro and the American Promise,” Baldwin is interviewed by Dr. Kenneth Clark. This happened just months after Alabama’s governor, George Wallace, expressed his support of “segregation forever” (qtd. in PBS Online). To inflect the possibility that blacks were not as equal or fairly treated as whites in the mid-twentieth century, two very different African Americans were brought on air. Malcolm X based his interview on historical and present references, but James Baldwin took a more personal approach.
Keeping with the legacy of American history, the African American family is a topic of controversy and concern. While other aspects of the family are studied, it could be argued that the area of African American motherhood receives the most attention. Unequivocally, African American mothers are depicted as matriarchs, crack-mothers, and welfare queens. In addition, Black mothers are often portrayed as lazy, irresponsible, destructive, and even worthless. These stereotypical images of African American mothers are important because they have powerful implications for African American moms, and for their families at large.
...cal discourse. It is important that news media are challenged to be fair and accurate. Therefore, racial bias contribute to racist policies, inhuman treatment and indifferent, and murderous attitude that so many black people and other people of color will find themselves as victims. Also, “The Cosby Show” exemplifies that not all black families are poor and uneducated. Although television seems to be more realistic than the shows of the past, we still have a long way to go. It is time for the media stop hanging on to what have been proven to be untrue and outdated stereotypes. The media must stop trying to keep America segregated and racist. Therefore, when watching the news and television shows, viewers must keep in mind that these are just stereotypes. The African-American people and other people of color are really not much different from anyone else.
In The Marrow of Tradition, author Charles W. Chesnutt illustrates examples that signify the thoughts that whites had of and used against blacks, which are still very much prevalent in public opinion and contemporary media. Chesnutt writes, “Confine the negro to that inferior condition for which nature had evidently designed for him (Chesnutt, 533).” Although significant strides have been made toward equality, the media, in many instances, continues to project blacks as inferior to whites through examples observed in television shows, music videos, films and newscasts.
In addressing and confronting the problem of injustices among the black Americans in the American society, particularly the violence that had happened in Birmingham, and generally, the inequality and racial prejudice happening in his American society, King argues his position by using both moral, social, and political references and logic for his arguments to be considered valid and agreeable.
Throughout his preface of the book titled Why We Can’t Wait, which entails the unfair social conditions of faultless African Americans, Martin Luther King employs a sympathetic allegory, knowledge of the kids, and a change in tone to prevail the imposed injustice that is deeply rooted in the society—one founded on an “all men are created equal” basis—and to evoke America to take action.
In this narrative essay, Brent Staples provides a personal account of his experiences as a black man in modern society. “Black Men and Public Space” acts as a journey for the readers to follow as Staples discovers the many societal biases against him, simply because of his skin color. The essay begins when Staples was twenty-two years old, walking the streets of Chicago late in the evening, and a woman responds to his presence with fear. Being a larger black man, he learned that he would be stereotyped by others around him as a “mugger, rapist, or worse” (135).
In his work, “A Talk to Teachers,” James Baldwin poured out his point of view on how he believed American children should be taught. Throughout the essay, Baldwin focused on a specific race of school children: Negros. Perhaps this was because he himself was an African American, or even for the mere idea that Negros were the most vulnerable for never amounting to anything — according to what the American society thought during the twentieth century, specifically the 1960s when this piece was published. With the focus determined, the reader is able to begin analyzing Baldwin’s main appeal through the essay. At first glance one could argue that the essay has no credibility with Baldwin’s lack of not being a school teacher himself; however, when further evaluated one could state that whether or not he was a school teacher has nothing to do with the fact that he establishes his credibility, he appeals to morals, emotions with authority, and values, which thus outweighs the possible negativities associated with his argument.
“You are a nothing little nigger” is one of the demeaning phrases African American human beings have heard over the years in an effort to keep them in a state of persecution. This paper will discuss the persecution of the African American. The following documents the struggles, gut wrenching pain, and heart ache of African American people have endured and are still suffering with today.