Bill Cosby: Come on people, it's time for change

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Please read completely before replying. This is by far more complete and more rational than any of Cosby's previous public inflammatory statements. A little bit of everything and put into a perspective that goes beyond playing the typical blame game and scapegoating as well as ignoring the truthful historical circumstances that partially create today's realities. Pardon the length but the read is worthwhile.

LINK

Four years ago, entertainer Bill Cosby found himself deep in controversy after saying low-income blacks weren't holding up their end of the bargain years after landmark civil rights decisions. Since the controversy began, Cosby has traveled the country holding what he’s called “fireside chats” urging parents to become more responsible. I talked to Cosby on Friday because he wanted to discuss Chicago’s recent spike in shootings. But he didn’t dwell much on guns and gangs. Instead, he returned to his theme of parents failing to parent, a major part of the book he co-authored with Dr. Alvin Poussaint, “Come On People: On the Path from Victims to Victors.” During our 90-minute-long interview, he also talked about why he doesn’t want to be pitted against Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton; why his critics are off base in believing he’s too elitist and too old to be speaking out; and why “it’s just plain silly” to look at what some blacks are doing to themselves and not see it as being just as destructive as racism. I asked Cosby if I could turn the interview into an essay. He said, “Go right ahead.” So, this is Bill Cosby’s essay:

These killings aren’t just happening in Chicago. They’re happening in Detroit, Philadelphia, and Atlanta. There’s a Fulton County juvenile court judge in Atlanta who's black. He grew tired of so many young black men coming through his courtroom. He said they made up 95 percent of his cases. So in April, he cleared the courtroom of all the white people and began to chastise these young black men. He scolded them, told them what they should be doing instead of standing before him for conduct and crimes against society and their ancestors.

There are two things a mother who comes before the judge says as her son is being sentenced. She says, “You take him because I can’t do anything with him.” But there’s a new one coming out with the mother saying, “Please take him so I can sleep at night. I don’t want to get a phone call saying he’s been murdered…”

So this in effect is where some of us happen to be. With these conditions, yes I’m concerned because this is about murder and I don’t see any politicians or law-and-order people really trying to solve this.

I’m not talking about the presidential candidates only. It used to be that when people (blacks, whites, whoever) were fighting during the civil rights movement against racism there was a certain resistance from the people who didn’t want change. Because of this resistance certain politicians in the South ran on the law-and-order platform. If elected, they would restore law and order. They would quiet the marchers and demonstrators.

Now since we’re killing each other in the areas where we live, no politician is running on law and order. They’re afraid they're going to be accused of picking on the poor.

But some people in these embattled communities want to regain the peace. They want more programs and more alternatives for their kids than the streets. But they’re not being heard. In some communities, though, there aren’t enough voices calling for change. They can’t galvanize enough numbers and sustain the pressure needed to make demands of politicians and law enforcement.

So, again, this is where we are. Some are trying. Some frankly are not. To these people, we say, "Come on people. Do you really know---are you really aware ---that what is going on in your community, you have to treat the same way you would if you were being attacked by people wearing white sheets and hoods?" If you really love your children, you have to take them out of danger’s way. The bridge is out and they are in danger.

It’s very clear that we have looked the other way. And when I say “we,” I’m not talking about "all." In my mind, it’s not a good argument to say the black middle class has not helped. We have school teachers or social workers who are working their butts off. These poor teachers are looking at books that have pages missing. They're taking their pay that’s way below what it should be and they’re purchasing books, clothing, toothpaste and shampoo for their students.

But I still say too many others have looked the other way on so many things and those things are beginning to pile up and they’re becoming as commonplace as somebody saying, “Pass the salt.”

Look at teen pregnancy. We have young boys 13, 14, having sex with no cover and then walking away from the situation. Traditional planning used to go something like this: “This is our child. We will now plan for our child. We will work together to make sure he has good health and a good education and a good home.” But that’s not happening.

We missed out by not immediately saying things like: “You know, these young boys are wearing their pants hanging off their rear ends with no belt.” We never said, “Boy, pull your pants up and stop this stuff.” Instead we glorified the rappers and their videos and their low-slung pants.

There was a demonstration in Harlem the other day because somebody drove by and shot up five or six innocent bystanders. The people demonstrating were saying Fannie Lou Hamer-type things: “We’re sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

I met a woman recently who said she was dating a Muslim man whose favorite saying was, “Trust in Allah, but tie up your camel.” I think it’s a great saying and I don’t care if you’re a Muslim or Christian. You’ve got to make the home you're bringing your child up in a place of love, where confidence is built; a place that gives answer to questions. You’ve got to give them boundaries and rein them in.

As parents we can’t look the other way any longer. We’ve got to demand our kids tell us who their friends are. We’ve got to know where they are and how they’re doing in school. Some people feel it’s a lot of work. But we’re talking about saving our children. There’s an absence of love and teaching, of giving and caring, of sitting down and having dinner together, of asking questions and expecting answers.

There was a young black man who was driving me around Philadelphia and he said he had just been called up to school for his 14-year-old daughter. She had missed her period. She had to reveal to him that she was having sex. He asked how old was the boy and she answered, 14. And he asked where they had been because he thought he was keeping track of her. She said they had been in his parents’ bedroom, in his parents’ bed.

He shook his head. Well, it turns out that she isn’t pregnant. And I said to him: “Man, here’s what you got to do: You need to tie up your camel.” I told him to call his wife and call a meeting with the boy’s parents. I said, stay calm, stay balanced and say you want to sit and talk about what could have happened.

The girl and boy have to stop before they become two more children in need of another program to save them. The girl has to understand that the next time a boy whispers in her ear, “I don’t want to put anything on because I want to feel,” she has to say, “Oh no, not me.” Tie up your camel. And, that’s what we have to do.

I know there are black people who don’t like what I’m saying. They say, “Bill Cosby is too elitist. Bill Cosby is too old and out of touch. He’s a millionaire. How does he know?" I didn't grow up with means. My mother was on what used to be called relief and I spent at least three Christmases with no Christmas tree and I wouldn’t let any of my friends in my house because they would see we had no presents. I had to go outside and lie and tell people about imaginary gifts and hope and pray no one was evil enough to say, months later, ‘OK man, where are all the toys you said you had?”

My critics were brought up with parents who spent time with them. Somebody spent time with them. That’s why they graduated from high school and college and graduate school. And for some reason they don’t want to see this happen for other people. They say, “Bill’s airing the dirty laundry.” Dirty Laundry? Your children aren’t dirty laundry, but they are going to jail. Let’s see what happens if we continue to keep quiet.

Everybody gives reasons for not doing things. Some say we don’t have leaders? Well, you don’t need a leader. People aren’t all of a sudden dumb or stupid. But they may feel depressed or powerless. If you continue to devalue this child of yours, then you are going to keep getting what you get. There won’t be change.

I’ve gone to about 50 different places since I’ve been going out and saying what I’m saying. The incident that’s made the most difference is not what I’ve said but that whole Don Imus situation with him calling the women of the Rutgers University basketball team “nappy-headed hos.”

After that, there was a clarity that came from white people who said, “So what do you expect from us? We didn’t make up these names. You call yourselves that.” Rev. Al Sharpton led some protests over disparaging lyrics. There have been demonstrations in front of the Black Entertainment Television network for those videos.

The other help that we need is from radio stations, the really popular ones that the kids flock to. They can play the music but they should also put on genuine educational spots that tell our kids that Africa is the birth place of algebra. Then they’d know learning is in their blood. It’s in their curly hair. That, as opposed to, “Well the old people don’t know what they’re talking about.” But the people doing the rapping on that music do? What does the corner or the gang teach you?

I haven’t heard one fellow yet say, “I went to medical school all because my gang members encouraged me to do so while we were breaking into the gas station.”

While some people don’t want to hear what I’m saying, others have said: Why don’t blacks listen to Bill Cosby and not Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. But I say, don’t pit me against Jesse and Al because they speak the truth. The things that Jesse has come out for and he’s been against, these are things I’m talking about, too. Yes, there is such a thing as institutionalize racism.

But if people are marching against racism and bigotry and police brutality, then it makes no sense that we aren’t marching and rallying against our own young men who are shooting and killing one another and often innocent people in the process. It makes no sense that we don’t have the same anger about people who aren’t parenting or have totally abdicated their responsibilities for whatever reasons.

When you look at the number of African American children in foster care around the country and you look at the woe that has befallen the children, it breaks your heart. A lady said to me in Oakland, Ca., “Mr. Cosby, you should see them when they get out of the van and they’re being transferred from one house to another and they have everything they own in the world in a black Hefty bag that they’re carrying. They look like refugees.” She said that you look at the children’s faces and there’s neither happiness nor anger. There’s nothing left.

If by age 18, you’ve been in over 20 homes, how do you trust anybody anymore? Our people need to feel these things and hear these things. They need to feel it like when you rip a Band-Aid off. We need to feel the sting. Otherwise, it becomes as ordinary as saying, “Pass the salt.”

My race, my people, has got to be able to respond in a better manner to the call of our children. We can respond. I know stories from the past of people treated so poorly because they were black and in spite of physical and mental torment, they reached back and made sure that their children would be in better shape to face the world. Come on people.

I talked to a young woman graduating from Spellman College in Atlanta who said her grandmother and mother both were teen mothers. But they were determined to not let that happen to another generation.

People don’t want their children shot. Parents want their children to succeed. They need road maps. How many more stories do we have to hear? I was in Springfield, Mass., when a woman told me about a young man who’d just gotten a basketball scholarship to Brandeis University. He went to a party and somebody killed him. We’ve got these same stories in Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit and Oakland. The same stories.

I’m just trying to tell people the bridge is out up ahead. We’re in danger. We can pray, but it’s time for us to do something more. We’ve got to tie up our camels. And, we’ve got to do it now.

Photo credit: Comedian Bill Cosby speaks at a conference for community organizations in Newark, N.J., Thursday, May 1, 2008. Cosby spoke about the responsibilities of families in raising children. (AP Photo/Mike Derer)

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very worth the read. very moving and thought provoking. Thanks maviwaro.

I wonder if his words will be "heard" by anyone in a way that will affect any change.

As a white woman I can't help the community from within but I can be an ally. I hope I already am in my actions, but I know that there is a whole lot more I can do.

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very worth the read. very moving and thought provoking. Thanks maviwaro.

I wonder if his words will be "heard" by anyone in a way that will affect any change.

As a white woman I can't help the community from within but I can be an ally. I hope I already am in my actions, but I know that there is a whole lot more I can do.

I know you do your part from the work you do... and that speaks volumes, H. Race aside on that one, even though many a times first impressions can be quite a shock to some.

Cosby's words here are much more complete than those cherrypicked earlier on. Hopefully the reading is done to its entirety and we'll see what information gets highlighted selectively.