Analysis Of Pound Cake Speech By Bill Cosby

896 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Impact of poverty in education

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. Parenting alone is not to blame for poor school performance of African American children. The size of a school affects their student’s dropout rate. When school size increases the quality of education decreases. As stated by Velma Zahirovic-Herbert and Geoffrey …show more content…

Many were understandable angered because of Cosby’s speech. Bill Cosby in his success has seemed to forgotten that not everyone has the opportunities he has had. He forgets that not everyone is able to get out of the bad situations that they were dealt with or have fallen into. Parenting is not to be blames for these issues, but society as a whole should be blamed for having failed to give these children the

Show More
Related

  • Jonathan Kozol's Savage Inequalities By Jonathan Kozol

    738 Words  | 2 Pages

    Another school in the same district is located “in a former roller-skating rink” with a “lack of windows” an a scarcity of textbooks and counselors. The ratio of children to counselors is 930 to one. For 1,300 children, of which “90 percent [are] black and Hispanic” and “10 percent are Asian, white, or Middle Eastern”, the school only has 26 computers. Another school in the district, its principal relates, “‘was built to hold one thousand students’” but has “‘1,550.’” This school is also shockingly nonwhite where “’29 percent '” of students are “‘black [and] 70 percent [are]

    Read More

  • Review of Ordinary Resurrections by Jonathan Kozol

    2123 Words  | 5 Pages

    High crime rates not only put the children at risk as potential victims but also robs them of the male role models that are vital to their development. Most of the fath...

    Read More

  • Role Of Education In A Lesson Before Dying

    1020 Words  | 3 Pages

    The education gap between the north and the south has many roles in the African American community. The north has always been industrial while the south was agricultural, many of these children who was suppose to be attending school was helping on farms working and helping their parents throughout the day instead of getting an education. “The percentage of all schools with so called racial or socio-economic isolation grew from 9% to 16%” Today students still experience or has been a victim to social and racial differences. When segregation was abolished it allowed students to be in the same classroom together, be able to eat and go to the same bathrooms, also being taught by the same teacher. However many teachers failed to realized or wanted to teach these students based on the color of their skin, causing many students to drop out of school because of not being heard. The black community has a low rate of graduation rates in the south than the white community “In the last four years more than 69 percent of white louisiana males graduated making for a 16 point difference, while 59 percent of black louisiana males graduated” These school systems doesn’t care that they’re not being taught or graduation. Based on race in louisiana it’s a 10 percent difference that causing them to less likely become successful. Still causing the social differences teachers refused to teach an African American student

    Read More

  • Analysis Of A More Perfect Union Essay

    1183 Words  | 3 Pages

    In his speech, Obama says,” Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven 't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today 's black and white students.” Obama is saying that because of the effects of separation in the past, it still affects children. By having parents who have little interest in an education since they did not receive one. Lindsey Cook, a writer for U.S News, says “Black parents, most of whom are less educated than their white counterparts, don’t expect their children to attain as much education as white parents expect. Lower expectations become self-fulfilling prophecies, contributing to lower expectations from the student, less-positive attitudes toward school, fewer out-of-school learning opportunities and less parent-child communication about school.” This shows that because of 50 years ago, by having parents who did not receive a good education, are more likely to not provide their children a good education. The article Cook wrote continues to show how black students do poorer in all aspects than their white counterparts. With these issues since childhood, it is harder for blacks to get into a top college and a high paying job. Therefore there is a need to

    Read More

  • Afro-Centric Schooling or Modern-day Segregation in Toronto?

    1959 Words  | 4 Pages

    Dragnea, C. (2008). The Effectiveness of Africentric (Black-Focused) Schools in Closing Student Success and Achievement Gap. Toronto: Toronto District School Board.

    Read More

  • Decent and Street People in the Code of the Streets by Elijah Anderson

    1687 Words  | 4 Pages

    Anderson’s theory examined African Americans living in America’s inner cities that are driven to follow the “street code” and work to maintain respect, loyalty, and their own self-image. The “street code” Anderson is referring to is “a cultural adaptation” which is the cause of violent crime in America’s inner cities (Anderson Article PDF, 3). Since these people are living in mainly impoverished neighborhoods with easy access to drugs and guns, as well as high rates of crime and violence, “everyone feels isolated and alienated from the rest of America” (Vold, 187). Anderson continues to distinguish between “decent” people and “street people.” Those who are “decent” families live in accordance with a “civil code” that upholds values in comparison with the rest of society such as maintaining a job, obtaining an education, protecting their children and following the law. Additionally, “street” families tend to fend for themselves, and when young, grow up without adult supervision and are often abused. This alone causes a dangerous environment because children then, “learn that to solve any kind of interpersonal problem one must quickly resort to hitting or other violent behavior” (Anderson Article PDF, 5). When brought up in an inner city “street” family, racism is a leading factor that causes the youth to construct a negative outlook on the rest of society. When these inner city, lo...

    Read More

  • Achievement Gap

    1449 Words  | 3 Pages

    The achievement gap is defined as the disparity between the performance groups of students, especially groups defined by gender, race/ethnicity, ability and socio-economic status. The achievement gap can be observed through a variety of measures including standardized test scores, grade point averages, drop out rates, college enrollment and completion rates. The Black-White achievement gap is a critical issue in modern society’s education system. Although data surrounding the issue clearly indicates that the racial performance gap exists in areas of standardized tests, graduation rates, dropout rates, and enrollment in continuing education, the causative reasons for the gap are ambiguous—therefore presenting a significant challenge in regard to the most effective way to close the gap. The gap appears before children enter kindergarten and it persists into adulthood (Jencks 1998). Since 1970, the gap has decreased about 40 percent, but has steadily grown since. Theories suggest the Black-White achievement gap is created by a multitude of social, cultural, and economic factors as well as educational opportunities and/or learning experiences. Factors such as biased testing, discrimination by teachers, test anxiety among black students, disparities between blacks and whites in income or family structure, and genetic and cultural differences between blacks and whites have all been evaluated as explanations for the Black-White achievement gap (Farkas 2004). The research that follows will elaborate on these factors as they affect the decline in academic performance of black males—particularly the literacy achievement of black males.

    Read More

  • African American Students and Equal Education

    779 Words  | 2 Pages

    As cliché as it sounds, it is true that many African American students come from very harsh and poverty stricken environments. They tend to go to under resourced schools as well that do not provide the proper knowledge for them to further their education. And even worse, these schools tend to be segregated since they are usually in the harsher parts of a neighborhood. Sadly, it’s the segregated schools are one of the main reasons why black students decide not to go on to pursue a higher education. According to "The Way Out of the Black Poverty Cycle", a black student that attends an integrated suburban school is six times more likely to graduate compared to a segregated under resourced school. An African Americans family structure and the opinions of family members affects if their decision to further their education as well. Many African American children grow up un...

    Read More

  • Separate and Unequal

    966 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...owitz, 2005). By subjecting these fatherless children to life in the poverty stricken ghettos of urban America, generations of children continually become unable to capitalize upon the opportunities for a better life, not only for themselves but also for their children, that the Civil Rights Movement had created. This has ultimately become the failure of Black America and has increased juvenile delinquency in Black neighborhoods in the United States.

    Read More

  • Film Analysis of Boyz in the Hood

    2158 Words  | 5 Pages

    "The Final Call." Black America's Painful Epidemic: Children without Fathers. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2014.

    Read More

  • Incarcerated Black Males

    744 Words  | 2 Pages

    Black men in Jail are having drastic effects upon the black community. The first and arguably most important effect is that it intensifies the problem of single parent households within the black community. When these men are sentenced to prison, they, many times, leave behind a wife/girlfriend and/or children. If they have already have had children, that child must spend multiple years of his/her early life without a primary father figure. In addition, that male's absence is even more prominently felt when the woman has to handle all of the financial responsibilities on her own. This poses even more problems since women are underpaid relative to men in the workforce, childcare costs must be considered, and many of these women do not have the necessary skills to obtain a job, which would pay a living wage, which could support her and the children. Black male incarceration has done much to ensure that black female-headed households are now equal with poverty.

    Read More

  • Educational Attainment in America

    1455 Words  | 3 Pages

    It can be argued that there is no way a person can develop positive self-expectations and self-mastery if they are daily being feed negative views of how society sees them. Societal expectations play a role in this development. Negative images of African American males are constantly being viewed in the media creating a source of negative stereotypes (Jackson and Moore 2008). Along with the negative images there is poverty. Among African Americans, poverty can be seen in the neighborhoods that they grow up in. The neighborhoods are frequently characterized by high rates of crime, joblessness, social isolation and few resources for child development (Brooks-Gunn, Duncan, Klebanov, & Sealand 1993). Incarceration is factor that also affects African American males more than their white counterparts. In a study by Bruce Western and Christopher Wildeman it was found that “around one in five African American men exp...

    Read More

  • Essay On Mass Incarceration

    1210 Words  | 3 Pages

    African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites, it is projected that one in every three African Americans born are expected to go to prison. The consequences for black men have radiated out to their families. By 2000, more than 1 million black children had a father in jail or prison"(Coates pg.2). Men going to prison at such high rates has left many women to fend for themselves.

    Read More

  • Analysis of Bill Cosby’s “The Pound Cake Speech”

    1406 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...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.

    Read More

  • Bandura’s Social Learning Theory

    1897 Words  | 4 Pages

    Stroup, A. L. and L. N. Robins (1972). "Elementary school predictors of high school dropout among black males." Sociology of Education 45(2): 212-222.

    Read More

More about Analysis Of Pound Cake Speech By Bill Cosby

Open Document