Cosby Takes Black Folks to The Cleaners

By James Hill, BET.com Staff Writer

Comedian/actor Bill Cosby has caught the media’s eyes again for his Thursday appearance at the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition & Citizenship Education Fund's annual conference when he said, among other things, that Black men need to “stop beating your woman up because you can’t find a job.”

The comedian, actor and author made headlines in May when he said that poor Blacks were not “holding up their end of the deal,” while speaking at a 50th anniversary gala for the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision. Those earlier remarks brought both applause and condemnation, but Cosby dismissed his critics as being afraid to air the Black community’s dirty laundry; he spoke to them again Thursday. "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. They think they're hip. They can't read; they can't write. They're laughing and giggling, and they're going nowhere."

Cosby’s remarks were met with applause as the Rev. Jesse Jackson stood by and nodded in agreement. "I can't even talk the way these people talk,” the “Fat Albert” creator said, "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."

"For me there is a time ... when we have to turn the mirror around," he said. "Because for me 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 you're sitting in."

Jackson appeared on CNN where he dismissed the notion of Cosby’s statements as being controversial. “This is a common message,” Jackson said, “Go into any Black church and you’ll hear the same message.” The reverend went on to say that the comic is not trying to tear Black people down, “He’s trying to lift up. Bill is saying let's fight the right fight, let's level the playing field."

Apparently cognizant of the controversy his May comments sparked, Cosby intimated that he didn’t care what White people thought of his statements or if they tried to use them "against our people. Let them talk."

DISCUSS NOW: Does discussing our dirty laundry (school drop-out rates, unemployment and even the word “nigger,”) in public help or hurt us? Do you think Cosby is saying anything new or just saying it out loud?