An Open Letter to Bill Cosby from Kiah, Age 13

By Kiah Thomas
The Black Comentator

"…with names like Shaniqua, Taliqua and Mohammed and all of that crap, and all of them are in jail.”  
– Bill Cosby quoted at the gala event honoring the 50th anniversary of Brown v Board of Education, May 17, 2004

Mr. Cosby, you may think my name is “crap,” but it actually means “seasons beginning” in Kiswahili. I was born on December 20th, the end of fall and the beginning of winter. My parents bought a book of names before I was born and read it over and over again until they found one they liked. At school, some of my friend’s names are: Shameka, Makeeba, Shaquana and Kashia and none of us are in jail. I don’t know what all my friends’ names mean, but I know they don’t mean failure.  We go to middle school, get decent grades and live pretty normal lives. 

When I read the remarks you made, I wondered whether Shaniqua was sitting in the audience that night, and what she felt when she heard you mention her name. I wonder if she went to school the next day feeling proud to have been able to attend a gala event to celebrate a historic occasion like the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, whether she felt like she had been kicked in the stomach, or whether she just blew off the whole thing as just another old man talking too much.

My parents talk to me a lot about what goes on in the world.  Mostly, they try to get me to understand that sometimes there’s more to a person than what meets the eye and that I shouldn’t make assumptions. I hope that when I am ready to send in my resume for a job, that the person reading it will judge me by my qualifications and not the spelling of my name. I think that someone should not stereotype a child by their name and definitely not tease them because it is different. One of my grandfathers’ names is Rolumus. My dad said that it was supposed to be Romulus, but my great-grandparents couldn’t spell. That happened a lot with black people who were freed slaves. You have a simple and common name. I have an aunt and uncle named Bill and Camille and they are white. I also know that some of your children have unusual names and I think that’s great.  You and your wife made the decision to give them different names and no one is going to hold that against you and hopefully not against your kids either.

All I wanted to say Mr. Cosby is that I truly hope you didn’t mean to insult anyone named Shaniqua or Taliqua or Mohammed because I know they are out there. I’ve watched reruns of your show on Nick at Nite and it seemed to me that if one of your TV kids had made fun of someone’s name, that “Cliff Huxtable” would have taught them a lesson.  Maybe you were just in a bad mood that night at Constitution Hall.  But I think you owe all of us an apology.

This essay was edited by Joan Grangenois-Thomas, Kiah’s mom.

Comments

[john Bay]

Wow, I`m new to this Elders guy; what a fatuous out
dated maroon. He sounds something like Cosby: the
basic ideas are good but these old relics are either
so isolated by wealth or the vestiges of what were
their brains have deteriorated, and this Elders
doesn`t know the ground under his feet has shifted,
along with the landscape for all Blacks. Elders is
stuck in another universe, and time 30 plus years ago:
he and his ilk need to be benched. There are no
retrofits for out dated bio material.

[Carrie Maurer]

I read this letter and am currently working at The Larry Elder Show in Los Ångeles. We just aired a show called "Is Bill Cosby Right?" and got so many reponses from viewers. Because of this large reponse we have decided to do a follow-up to this show. Please email me if you have any strong opinions on this topic. We know how important it is and want to get everyone's voice out about it. Recently, Bill Cosby has made more comments on the same topic. I would love anyone's feedback. Thanks.

[Ekpedeme M. Bassey]

I thought this was very well written and thoughtful. Although I do hear Bill Cosby's comments and give some of the content some credence, I think the subject of what we name our children is a personal choice, and nobody's business but the parents of the child in question.

Having a name that people have butchered for years, I bristle at the thought that people should judge me in any way because of my name, which I have grown to love and respect.

In Barack Obama's DNC speech, he said (and I am paraphrasing)--in this country, someone's name should not stand in the way of their prospects or possibilities. Young Kiah has it correct when she says she hopes that her resume is read with an eye towards her qualifications and her accomplishments, rather than an eye towards whether her name is Anglo enough.

When I graduated from Stanford, I was talking to a good friend of mine about what name I should put on my resume. I have a nickname, Pamay, which people have called me for years (although that too is not Anglo, or easy for some people, who insist on calling me Pam, which is not my name). He told me to choose Pamay, because my full name, Ekpedeme, sounded too "foreign."

Well, the fact is, my name is "foreign"--it is a Nigerian name that was proudly chosen for me. And at that point I realized that if something so trifling would cause someone not to hire me, then I probably didn't want to work in their organization anyway.

I could go on and on about this, but the fact of the matter is--lets make sure we are talking about things that matter. Giving a child a unique name is not what holds them back; not giving them the love and support they need, and the opportunities they deserve, holds them back. And maybe that is part of what Bill Cosby was saying; but if the Kiah's of the world heard differently, that is very sad.

Ekpedeme Bassey

I'm a 42 year old woman in desprite need of college funds if my prayers aren't meet by Wed. this week 9/8/04 I will have to give up my Dreams of becoming a Funeral Director I have no one who could or would help only hundreds asking me for a job once I graduate. Please here my Prayers Mr. Bill Cosby. I so don't want to give up.

[Harolynne Bobis]

This still doesn't connect when I use Mozilla Firefox as my browser. The hyphen in your name is missing. There should also be a way to email articles directly from your website. After all that ranting, I'm very pleased to read your site and thanks for alerting me to other Black-oriented blogs. I was aware of uppity negro but not the others.