Bill Cosby Sounds Off, Again

I watched Oprah Winfrey's interview with Bill Cosby and Alvin Puissant, Co-authors of the book Come On People. Bill Cosby reported that the title of the book came from an incident where he was waiting in a library and there was a little girl who had become tired of waiting for stamps. He remarked to her that the people were moving a bit slow and she shouted, Come on people. My feeling is that he feels the same exasperation that she felt from progress moving far too slowly.

So why is Bill Cosby so hard on his own people? He says it is because parenting is not going on. Some of his many quotes on the state of black people in America are Parents buy $500.00 sneakers but won't spend $250.00 on hooked on phonics. He heard children speaking poorly saying Why you at... where you is... I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk... and then I heard the father talk. He also explained the quote It's not what they are doing to us, its what we are not doing. He told a story about a prizefighter who had won the first five rounds of a fight, and he was winning. Well, he changed the way he was fighting and was getting beat. He told him to go back to his old way of fighting but the person did not change and continued to get beat. Finally, finally the trainer said, It's not what they are doing to you but it's what you are not doing. He suggested that black parents have forgotten that it is a fight to educate their children and so are losing the fight.

According to Bill Cosby, we are living with some frightening statistics. One third of homeless are men African American, almost half or prison pop is black, 28% of black men born today will go to prison, and all of these numbers are disproportionate. To make things worse, homicide is the leading cause of death in black men today.