This created some shockwaves:
These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids - $500 sneakers for what? And won't spend $200 for 'Hooked on Phonics.'"I can't even talk the way these people talk: 'Why you ain't,' 'Where you is' ... You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth!"
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/195095p-168538c.html
I am glad to see him say this- because if a white person said it they would have been called racist.
Posted by dr at May 20, 2004 06:19 PM | TrackBackBill Cosby was absolutely, 100% correct. We have to stop blaming Whites for the deeply dysfunctional behavior of the Black underclass. We have huge problems facing that part of the Black community - drugs, crime, Black-on-Black violence, the huge numbers of Black men in the criminal justice system, AIDS and "down low" bisexuality, gangs, Black disdain for education as "acting White", "Ebonics" instead of standard English, fatherless families, rampant teen pregnancy and a 73% illegitimacy rate, lack of respect for the larger society, and a subculture that glorifies "thug life". But the worst problem is that we are still unwilling to face these problems head-on and at least admit that virtually all of them are self-inflicted. "We" have to fix "us" first. Thanks, Bill Cosby, and Amen! I appreciate you speaking truth to ignorance. We need to stop blaming Whites for our own self-inflicted problems, we need to get over this "cult of victimhood" mentality (nod to Professor John McWhorter), and we have to admit that the Black underclass bears almost all the responsibility for its current sorry condition. It's just that simple. One final point - I think we should nominate Bill Cosby to be the next president of the NAACP. I'm serious. Cosby just did more to help Black America in one 30 minute speech than Kwesei Mfume has done in the last five years.