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Tuesday, November 10, 2009 | 8:33am
BEEF 2.0: ‘Old Geezers’ Bill Cosby & Russell Simmons Toe The Line Over Urban Youth
Simmons wants Cosby to cut the kids some slack and focus on society’s role
Both legends in their own right it appears that hip hop pioneer Russell Simmons and legendary actor, Bill Cosby disagree on societies social problems. Recently Cosby has been very outspoken concerning his disappointment over the urban youth’s progression and blames them for many of the ills in black society. In an open letter on his Global Grind outlet, Simmons fired back asking Cosby to focus more on society’s role in the behavioral challenges instead of being critical.
“Bill Cosby is an example of someone from the older generation who has consistently blamed the poets and asked suffering community members to bare the full burden of guilt for the struggles that they endure.”
“What they don’t understand is that the young people who they criticize did not create their own realities,” he continues. “They did not create the crumbling education system that we school them in. They did not create the drug epidemic and drug wars that have resulted in a dysfunctional family structure. They did not create the health care crisis that does not treat them. They did not create the culture of violence that they fall victim to.”
Simmons acknowledges Cosby’s intention as one of motivation and encouragement but feels in some way its his way of exonerating their generation of any responsibility in the problems facing the youth.
I am letting the older generation know that they must admit that young people are less racist, less sexist, less homophobic, less prejudice than their parents and far less than their grandparents. Mr. Cosby, you know that your generation is carrying a lot more dirt, you are all just smart enough to cover it up.
While its not the “beef” we’re used to Simmons did invite Cosby to a closed door discussion about the issues. “If you need an office to do it in, my door is always open,” Simmons said. So its kind of like old man beef. Which leads me to my second point. I find it rather interesting that Simmons in some way tries to assume the voice of the youth. Yeah you’re the father of hip hop but bro, you’re old too. Don’t look at Cosby like he’s some senior citizen and you’re some spring chicken.
As far as the issues, I think they both have valid points. I’ve always told people that the true character of man is not what he can do with what he’s given but what he hasn’t been. Just because society disproportionately dealt the urban youth a bad hand doesn’t mean they can’t succeed. They just have to work that much harder. What are we going to cry foul? Say life cheated us? Whose going to listen. We have the option of accepting our reality or working hard to change it.
FILED IN Editorials, Technology, Web 2.0
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I agree with you that Simmons is old as well but I have to say he is more in tuned with today’s youth. And what he is merely saying to Cosby is instead of bashing our youth, what are you doing to fix it? And this I agree 100%.
I’m going to hold off on my usual long-winded comments to make a single point that I have made before (and will continue to make).
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If the modern-day musicians who target to (or are generally listened to by) predominantly minority groups were to get together and write/release a bunch of songs about how cool it is to work hard and become billionaires in legitimate society (instead of by sports or music alone, which we know is a 1 in a million shot for most people), we could solve most of these problems within a generation.
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For good or bad music is the soundtrack of life. Music and especially lyrics are what define us as we grow into manhood; and they have a lot to do with an individual’s perception of the world and their place in it.
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If a musician makes a million dollars singing about how cool it is to do drive-by’s, then you will have a generation growing up thinking it’s cool to do drive-by’s. If, instead, you teach them that through work and determination they can become rich and grow beyond their backgrounds, then you will raise a generation of millionaires.
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I firmly believe that hip-hop and other modern music has it within their power to solve a large majority of societies ills, if only they will recognize this power and act
I posted the widget for this site and I AM TRULY DISAPPOINTED in the Editoring of this one Blog. Does the voices of “THE YOUTH” have to sound so less Educated? The Author of this Blog is so MisGuided “It Appears”, because he seemed to MISS the whole point of the Issues at hand. Is it because he doesn’t UnderStand the Despair of the Issue. When you grow up in an environment and LIVE the Effects of it, you don’t then make LIGHT of Debates addressing your concerns. One does that when they themselves are UnAware of the very condition in which they are in. Try living in the Issues which Russell addresses the article. Maybe then,you won’t FOCUS so much on who is Fighting for you, but you will (more than likely) FOCUS on the FIGHT! If you don’t think these two of Older GENTLEMEN are equiped to relate to the YOUTH and Fight for the Cause than YOU STEP UP and DO IT!!!!!!!!!
Much PEACE&BLESSINGS~CarleenRenee!
well heck, as long as we’re on the subject…
(just teasing you)
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Editoring??
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so less educated?
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and equipped spelled wrong lol
Editing. Now can we be about the article or is this a site for children only?
Everybody is an editor, huh? LOL!
No need to editor me, Malcolm!
CarleenRenee look. First and foremost thanks for reading and posting the HN widget. Good looks.
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Let me say this in full disclosure. If you think you’re going to get the well edited, grammatically sound post from me you’re unfortunately mistaken. I love my Highbrid Nation and like so many of its readers I am very busy. That’s the uniqueness of the Nation. Its that virtual barbershop or YMCA where for breif second we all take a moment out of our busy lives to say “Did you hear about…”
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My job is simply to moderate the discussion. The Highbrid Nation is yours! Its where you chose to take it. I respect the criticisms and they’re often very well founded. I’m not perfect and would be fake if I tried to pose an online persona that was. This is me. HOWEVER, the discussion above was a very serious one.
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I didn’t excuse myself from the discussion in the writing of the post. If you’re paying attention I often insight controversy with my choice of titles. I’m a Marketer by trade. The posts are designed to fuel emotion, appeal to pathos get you to say something…as you did. So it worked. Here’s a hint, very rarely will I infuse my own personal beliefs within the post.
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Once again the Nation is not mine it belongs to all of us. I just present an interesting angle of discussion upon which I hope you will join in. Somewhere down the road in the comments I’ll chime in with a more directly opinionated statement.
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So if you want to bash my writing, its cool. It likely won’t change. The formula works believe it or not. Instead however, I invite you to focus on the discussion, add something that perhaps the Nation wasn’t thinking about. It is through THESE means that I hope to make my mark and as you have said STEP UP. If I can do more…please let me know.
Juan
Everything that WORKS, isn’t the Right thing to do. Especially when you have the POWER to feed FOOD for THOUGHT to those in need. You took a serious issue and Demeaned it in such a way, that the substance of the issue goes unnoticed. Instead of provoking thought and MOVEMENT, people Focused on typos. What WORKS, is using the BLESSINGS that GOD gives to US for Helping not HURTING, Especially OUR own PEOPLE!!!!! Peace&Blessings~CARLEENRENEE~
I hear your point but it begs the question if its best to not address the issue at all given the constraints under which our organization often is in or to use the time we have to make a difference. Remember it was you who chose to focus on the typos. I still however stand by the title. I think perhaps putting parenthesis around geezers would have been more appropriate but I think Simmons age is a subplot in the overall theme of the story.
Hmmmm…I’m finally getting an opportunity to re-read the post. Can someone please point out the glaring typos and grammatical mistakes that were made? Its commonplace for me even with a quick review but this one seems quite flawless.