October 9, 2013
On October 9, 2013, the Chicago Defender ran an editorial by Aubrey Lynch reflecting on a speech Bill Cosby gave in 2004 at the NAACP fiftieth anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education event. The speech would be later known as “The Pound Cake Speech.” Cosby addressed the black community as a whole and urged them to stop blaming the white man and to end self-destructive practices.
Lynch responds to Cosby’s speech by explaining that the system of racial discrimination and abuse in which black people have had to endure in the United States has created a defiant sense of rejection and “subtle and racist practices” in our society. Lynch parallels the abuse that the black community has suffered to the horrors seen by returned soldiers suffering from PTSD. She explains that the black community must have found ways to cope and prosper even under conditions of rampant violence and abuse. The article says that when the black community is forced to live in a system of racial oppression, it creates a cycle of desperation and violence.