Detroit plays host to several speaking events this week. On Sunday, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, notable pastor to Presidential Candidate Barack Obama, made a speech at the NAACP's Freedom Fund Dinner. The entire speech is available on hiphopmusic.com and the transcript of it is available on CNN.com. On Wednesday evening, comedian Bill Cosby will host a town-hall meeting in Detroit regarding education and the economy to be aired on the local ABC affiliate, WXYZ-TV.

According to Newsmax.com and Texas on the Potomac blog, both Cosby and Reverend Wright grew up in Philadelphia's Germantown and attended Central High School; yet the two men have two very different points of view regarding race relations. While Cosby advocates against African Americans embracing victimhood, many perceive Reverend Wright as ratifying it. Is this the case? Are their messages in opposition?

Reverend Wright speaks in a "different" way. He speaks in a sermon-type tone, calls for a response from his audience and utilizes sometimes shocking and definitely attention-grabbing examples that are immediately taken up by the media as sound bites. He does, however, repeat his main theme over and over again, so it is a real mystery how the media got hung up on some of the analogies used in Sunday's speech and managed to miss the point of what Reverend Wright was actually saying.

At the NAACP dinner, Reverend Wright pointed out that there are a lot of differences between people. He illustrated the differences in example after example as he explained, "It is just different. Different does not mean deficient." His speech probably served as the best example. While his manner and extreme examples are different from other speakers, they do not automatically make his underlying message wrong, racist or divisive.

Given the controversy Reverend Wright continues to stir and his recent speech in Detroit, it will be interesting to see if Bill Cosby will make comment on Reverend Wright during the Detroit town hall meeting. Considering their perceived differences, Cosby's take on Reverend Wright and his message could be illuminating. Listening to the different points of view of the two men, not just the sensational sound bites in the news, might just make us think in a new way about an old issue.

What do you think?