I always enjoy it when a celebrity who is rich and powerful enough to take the heat gets into the kitchen to cook up something seriously politically incorrect. We got to see this, for example, when Mel Gibson bypassed the Hollywood chain-of-command and delivered The Passion of the Christ to an eager public.
And we're seeing it now, because beloved and filthy-rich entertainer Bill Cosby is angry and vocal about the cultural and educational deprivation from which many young black kids suffer - or bring upon themselves:
Bill Cosby (news) went off on another tirade against the black community Thursday, telling a room full of activists that black children are running around not knowing how to read or write and "going nowhere." He also had harsh words for struggling black men, telling them: "Stop beating up your women because you can't find a job."
Cosby made headlines in May when he upbraided some poor blacks for their grammar and accused them of squandering opportunities the civil rights movement gave them. He shot back Thursday, saying his detractors were trying in vain to hide the black community's "dirty laundry."
"Let me tell you something, your dirty laundry gets out of school at 2:30 every day, it's cursing and calling each other n------ as they're walking up and down the street," Cosby said during an appearance at the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition & Citizenship Education Fund's annual conference.
"They think they're hip," the entertainer said. "They can't read; they can't write. They're laughing and giggling, and they're going nowhere"...
Cosby elaborated Thursday on his previous comments in a talk interrupted several times by applause. He castigated some blacks, saying that they cannot simply blame whites for problems such as teen pregnancy and high school dropout rates...
Cosby lamented that the racial slurs once used by those who lynched blacks are now a favorite expression of black children. And he blamed parents. "When you put on a record and that record is yelling `n----- this and n----- that' and you've got your little 6-year-old, 7-year-old sitting in the back seat of the car, those children hear that," he said...
Cosby also said many young people are failing to honor the sacrifices made by those who struggled and died during the civil rights movement. "Dogs, water hoses that tear the bark off trees, Emmett Till," he said, naming the black youth who was tortured and murdered in Mississippi in 1955, allegedly for whistling at a white woman. "And you're going to tell me you're going to drop out of school? You're going to tell me you're going to steal from a store?"
Cosby also said he wasn't concerned that some whites took his comments and turned them "against our people."
"Let them talk," he said.
Bravo.
Posted by kswygert at July 2, 2004 11:35 AM