Pull up your pants

Water Cooler
#1

Was watching CNN over the weekend and caught Don Lemon’s “No Talking Points”. The topic was how the African American community could help itself and his five points were:

  1. Pull up your pants;

  2. Stop using the “N word”;

  3. Respect where you live (this includes not littering. Don said while living in white communities, he rarely saw it but living in Harlem now, he sees it all the time);

  4. Finish high school and;

  5. Stop having children out of wedlock.

Discuss

#2

  1. Ladies and gentlemen, listen to these people. They are showing you what’s wrong. People putting their clothes on backwards. Isn’t that a sign of something going on wrong? Are you not paying attention? People with their hat on backwards, pants down around the crack. Isn’t that a sign of something or are you waiting for Jesus to pull his pants up? Isn’t it a sign of something when she’s got her dress all the way up to the crack – and got all kinds of needles and things going through her body. What part of Africa did this come from? We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans; they don’t know a damned thing about Africa. With names like Shaniqua, Shaligua, Mohammed and all that crap and all of them are in jail. (When we give these kinds names to our children, we give them the strength and inspiration in the meaning of those names. What’s the point of giving them strong names if there is not parenting and values backing it up).

  2. Brown versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person’s problem. We’ve got to take the neighborhood back. We’ve got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It’s right around the corner. It’s standing on the corner. It can’t speak English. It doesn’t want to speak English. I can’t even talk the way these people talk: “Why you ain’t where you is go ra?” I don’t know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it’s important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can’t land a plane with, “Why you ain’t…” You can’t be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they’re moving ahead on this. Well, they know they’re not; they’re just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you’re just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out.

Now, look, I’m telling you. It’s not what they’re doing to us. It’s what we’re not doing. 50 percent drop out. Look, we’re raising our own ingrown immigrants. These people are fighting hard to be ignorant. There’s no English being spoken, and they’re walking and they’re angry. Oh God, they’re angry and they have pistols and they shoot and they do stupid things. And after they kill somebody, they don’t have a plan. Just murder somebody. Boom. Over what? A pizza? And then run to the poor cousin’s house.

  1. Fifty percent drop out rate, I’m telling you, and people in jail, and women having children by five, six different men. Under what excuse? I want somebody to love me. And as soon as you have it, you forget to parent. Grandmother, mother, and great grandmother in the same room, raising children, and the child knows nothing about love or respect of any one of the three of them. All this child knows is “gimme, gimme, gimme.” These people want to buy the friendship of a child, and the child couldn’t care less. Those of us sitting out here who have gone on to some college or whatever we’ve done, we still fear our parents. And these people are not parenting. They’re buying things for the kid – $500 sneakers – for what? They won’t buy or spend $250 on Hooked on Phonics.
#3

I did not understand any of 1RH’s points. Not a single one.

#5 and 4 project the same message. If you want to be respected, then act and dress respectfully. Not saying that you have to wear a suit everywhere you go, but if you look like and act like a stupid-ass, smart-mouth, swamp-running nga, then you will be treated accordingly.

True, the same could be said about white trailer trash (a la Honey Boo Boo) and dirty wetbacks. But the subject of the post is the black community.

#3 - If you want to know where you are in Dallas, Fort Worth, or San Antonio, all you have to do is drive to the closest shopping center and look at the parking lot. If there are dirty diapers and nasty litter all over the ground, but the trash cans are so clean you can eat out of them, then you are probably in an “ethnic” neighborhood. “White” neighborhoods do not have this problem, at least not to the degree that ethnic neighborhoods do. (I bet this is true in other cities as well, but I can only speak for the ones I am familiar with.)

#2 -I always thought that finishing high school was the norm. Is it not? (In order to be fair, it may be harder for some than others, because of purely economic situations, like if you have to work full-time just to survive because your dad is not around and your mom spends all her money on drugs.)

#1 - Fking causes babies. I learned that in third grade. (Don’t most people?) So I learned that if you want to fk, wrap it up. And to this date, I have exactly two kids (both with my wife). And I have only the expenses associated with two kids.

#4

  1. Agreed…cuz he will stick it in your butt.

  2. F*** that nigga

  3. Agreed.,but its really the mexicans doing that shit.

  4. Agreed

  5. I challenge him to have kids inside of mariage.

#5

Good thing you edited your original comment. “Swamp running Nigger”??? Dude those kinds of niggas have been around since the 1865! Is that the type of language they still use in Midland TX?

#6

Why, because he’s gay?

#7

Yes…he is a Fa**o*

#8

Moderators must have gotten to it. And that is a line from a movie. Extra points if you can tell me the name of the movie.

#9

I am a racist from midland TX- featuring GreenMan?

#10

Those all sound pretty reasonable to me.

#11

I have pretty limited exposure to those communities, but I don’t think I could come up with a better 5 pieces of advice. Basically just comes down to a) demonstrate responsibility, b) show respect, and c) actually care about whats going on around you

#12

Not surprising, they were made by Bill Cosby in a 2004 speech.

EDIT: Complete speech here - http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/billcosbypoundcakespeech.htm

So my evil strategem of pulling a CvM (*) succeeded, mwahahahh. (* = quote without attribution.)

#13

Meh. African Americans’ problems are their responsbility, and shouldn’t concern the rest of us.

#14

^That Jim Crow was their responsibility…

There’s something wrong with that logic.

#15

Why am I responsible for Jim Crow? Did you implement Jim Crow? Lemme know why you feel guilty.

#16

I kinda agree with Palantir on this one. At some point, we have to stop enabling people and let them sink or swim. I’m not denying that there was injustice done to blacks once upon a time, but we’ve been “leveling the playing field” for 49 years now. That’s two generations.

#17

I once had a friend of a friend who is black tell me her mom only had 1 goal for her: don’t get pregnant in high school.

#18

And quite a lofty goal it is!!!

#19

The problem with leaving them to their own devices is their problems aren’t contained within their community. They tend to bleed (pun intended) into other communities. There’s a very real economic cost and crime to consider, not to mention the whole social cost…if you’re into that sort of thing.

#20

Not necessarily disagreeing with you, but you’ve described the symptoms without touching on the root cause. And I’m not so sure that the cure isn’t worse than the disease.