Bill Cosby to Blacks: Stop Blaming 'The White Man'
By Marc Morano
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
July 02, 2004
Chicago (CNSNews.com) - Bill Cosby pleaded with blacks to stop blaming the "white man" for their problems on Thursday, and he reiterated his harsh critique of the current state of African-American culture.
"It is almost analgesic to talk about what the white man is doing against us, and it keeps a person frozen in their seat. It keeps you frozen in your hole that you are sitting in to point up and say, 'That's the reason why I am here.' We need to stop this," Cosby said in an address before Jesse Jackson's 33rd Annual Rainbow/PUSH Coalition conference in Chicago.
The 66-year-old Cosby struck an introspective tone. "There is a time, ladies and gentlemen, when we have to turn the mirror around," he told the crowd of 500 people at the Sheraton hotel.
Cosby bristled at any notion that he should tone down his views so they will not be taken out of context and exploited.
"I couldn't care less about what white people think about me at this time," he said to loud applause.
"Let them talk! What are they saying that is different from what their grandfather said? What are they doing or trying to do us that their grandfathers didn't try to do to us? But what is different is what we are doing to ourselves," Cosby said.
The entertainer has been at the center of a racially charged controversy since May when he ridiculed the poor grammar of some blacks. "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," Cosby said in Washington, D.C. on May 17, at an event marking the anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education desegregation ruling.
On Thursday, Cosby urged blacks to take personal responsibility for their lives, and he hinted that social welfare programs may be having unintended consequences for African-Americans.
"The housing project was set up for you to move in, move up, and move out," he said.
Being poor had a different meaning to older generations, according to Cosby.
"If you go up to people -- when you ask them and you say, 'Were you poor?' they would say, 'No, no, our parents were broke, but we were not poor.' There was a spirit in that house," he explained.
His message to black people who say he's exposing the "dirty laundry" of the black community was blunt.
"Let me tell you something, your dirty laundry gets out of school at 2:30 every day. It's cursing and calling each other 'nigger' as they're walk up and down the street. They think they hip -- can't read, can't write-50 percent of them," he said.
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