By Davidae “Dee” Stewart
An excerpt from Dr. Bill Cosby Speaks at the 50th Anniversary commemoration of the Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education Supreme Court Decision…
http://www.eightcitiesmap.com/transcript_bc.htm. Transcript kindly provided by Dr Bill Cosby's public relations representatives.
Ladies and gentlemen, the lower economic and lower middle economic people are not holding their end of this deal. In the neighborhood that most of us grew up in, parenting is not going on. In the old days, you couldn’t hooky school because every drawn shade was an eye. And before your mother got off the bus and to the house, she knew exactly where you had gone, who had gone into the house…whatever you had on and where you got it from. Parents don’t know that today.
Dr. Bill Cosby supposedly set off a maelstrom last May when he criticized underprivileged Black parents for the woes that plague the African American community while giving this speech at a Constitution Hall event in Washington, D.C. commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education Supreme Court decision.
However, this media frenzy never got off the ground, because the black community understood his sentiment and his motives behind the diatribe. Issues of parental and neighborhood responsibility are nothing new among African American Enclaves. Cosby’s comments only brought to light a festering tension that has been building since before NBC’s The Cosby Show.
Yet, what is the solution? How do lower income African American parents advocate for their children? How do they participate in a society that sees them as knuckleheads? How do they parent?
…With Good Christian home training.
Dr. Larry Harris, M.D shares fifteen ways to keep family first in his book, It All Starts at Home.
He grew up in a low-income home with eight other siblings, all of whom successfully completed college. Yet, their parents hadn’t finished high school before they married.
“No one would have called us the typical American family. In fact, many would have considered us a lot of nobodies going no place.” Dr. Harris explains. “Anyone would have expected most of us to become lifelong welfare recipients.”
However, the Harris family became a success story and a model for those around them to follow. His parents knew that material possessions or pedigrees didn’t make the parent, but lack of parental involvement would break the child. Moreover, he implies that the Bling Bling mentality of this current generation stem more from lack of spiritual fervor and insecurity than ignorance. And when a spiritual dynamic is established African American children will have better outcomes.
“I have come to see that faith is the foundation…and my faith started at home.”
It All Starts at Home confirms that parenting is a noble calling regardless of economic status, race or educational level, and having God as the ultimate parent is the leveling block against any shortcomings. (Feb., Pp 224, $9.74)
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Davidae 'Dee' Stewart is an editor, book reviewer, speaker and writer. Her works have appeared in Atlanta Christian Family, Precious Times, and Rejoice! She resides in Suwanee, Georgia with her daughter, Selah and is completing a christian fiction novel.
