Bill Cosby defends his controversial remarks about values of Blacks on 'Tavis Smiley' TV show

Jet, June 14, 2004

Comedian Bill Cosby wasn't joking when he said lower-economic Blacks "are not parenting" their children, and that Black youth, especially, need to speak standard English.

Cosby made the controversial remarks at the NAACP gala commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education in Washington, D.C. (JET, June 7).

Cosby said during his speech: "People marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an education, and now we've got these knuckleheads walking around.... The lower-economic people are not holding up their end in this deal. These people are net parenting. They are buying things for their kids--$500 sneakers, for what? And won't spend $200 for Hooked On Phonics."

Cosby also said: "I can't even talk the way these people talk: 'Why you ain't, Where you is' ... And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. And then I heard the father talk. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth."

Cosby also addressed crime in the Black community: "These are not political criminals. These are people going around stealing Coca-Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake, and then we run out and we are outraged. 'The cops shouldn't have shot him.' What in the hell was he doing with that pound cake in his hand?"

Some applauded Cosby for his honesty and candor. Others said his comments were insensitive and elitist.

During an exclusive interview with Tavis Smiley on the PBS talk show, "Tavis Smiley," Cosby stood by his comments.

"The mistake I made was not in clarifying that I wasn't talking about 'all' ... I think I said prior to this the '50 percent dropout in school ... that means 50 percent of our African-American males, from grade 9 through 12, in certain parts of the city, have no education."

He explained, "Now I'm listening to what is a new language, and it's a new language in the area, and it's only good for the people you come in contact with living in that area. It's no good on Wall Street. It's no good at Temple University. It's no good for filing and understanding an employment waiver or blank."

He added, "I want more voices in the home challenging the child to not just stay in school.... I've always wanted to add 'study' because that's a part of it."

Addressing his comments on crime in the Black community, Cosby explained that parents are not teaching their children right from wrong: "A child who continues to go out and take something and does not realize the value of this--the value of a stolen Coca-Cola bottle--is a dead human being. That's the value. The value of a child who carries a gun into a school holds the value of two lives. One, the person who he may kill, and then his life in prison. And there are some parents who don't know what subject their child is supposed to be taking in school. They don't know what grade the child got. And not only that, they don't even know if the child had an exam."

Cosby pointed out during the Smiley interview that he has made comments about Blacks' values and behavior years ago. This is not the first time. "You all are late. I said this at Howard University six years ago. I've said it in the company of audiences--African-American audiences."

He said the White media jumped on the bandwagon this time and made it a national story. "It was the White man who got the word from somebody who was there, who called the White man, who put it in the White paper ... Then they added something that I think was incorrect: that the people came out stone-faced, stunned. I don't think they were. And I heard the audience a couple of times saying, 'Yes.' People were applauding."

Noted psychiatrist Dr. Alvin Poussaint from Harvard Medical School, and a longtime friend of Cosby, explained on "Good Morning America" that the comedian was trying to get out a very important message to Black America.

"I think he was calling attention to a very important problem for Black youth, particularly Black youth from lower socioeconomic backgrounds," Poussaint said. "They're not learning standard English, and they're speaking a combination of so-called Black English and, also Ebonics, and it's frequently not grammatical, and it's dysfunctional in the school system because the school system is using standard English. If the parents speak non-standard English and then also transmit that to the children, it's going to interfere with their achievement."

Dr. Poussaint added, "We're talking about all those youth who are not making it, who are dropping out of school, who are dropping out of high school because they can't get through the academic programs. Part of achieving in school is very closely related to good language skills. And a lot of young Blacks do not have good language skills. They can't communicate. They can't write in Black English; that's not acceptable. They have to learn standard English in order to achieve in school. And parents have to recognize that as being critical and very important to their well-being and to their development and it has to start very early. They have to read to their children and they have to read themselves."