Pound Cake speech

The Pound Cake Speech was given by Bill Cosby in May 2004, at an event to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the "Brown v. Board of Education" Supreme Court decision. In it, Cosby was highly critical of some members and subsets of the black community in the United States. He criticized the use of African American Vernacular English, the prevalence of single-parent families, the emphasis on material gain at the expense of necessities, and various other social behaviors.

The speech

Comments about crime

The "Pound Cake" line

The speech is often referred to as the "Pound Cake" speech because of these lines, referencing a particular dessert, pound cake, apparently for comedic effect, while contrasting brave political activists who risked incarceration during the 1950s-1960s civil rights movement with common criminals:

Praise for community involvement

In the same speech he had praise for the efforts of the Black Muslims in dealing with crime in the cities:

:"When you want to clear your neighborhood out, first thing you do is go get the Black Muslims, bean pies and all. And your neighborhood is then clear."

After that statement, he pointed out the police's inability to resolve the crime problem:

:"The police can’t do it."

He then had critical remarks for Black Christians' seeming inability to create positive social change for the urban population he was referring to, saying, "I’m telling you Christians, what’s wrong with you? Why can’t you hit the streets? Why can’t you clean it out yourselves?"

Despite his praise for the Black Muslims, he later said: :"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."

External links

* [http://www.eightcitiesmap.com/transcript_bc.htm full transcript]
* [http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/200405/20040526_cosby.html Tavis Smiley interview with Cosby about the media response]
* [http://1918.com/article.php?article_id=5871&type=read The Bill Cosby revolution] - August 28, 2006 op-ed by Nat Hentoff
* [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Pound_Cake_speech Pound Cake speech from Wikisource]
* Ta-Nehisi Coates. " [http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200805/cosby This Is How We Lost to the White Man] " "The Atlantic Monthly".