These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids. $500 sneakers for what? And they won't spend $200 for Hooked on Phonics. I am talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit.
Where were you when he was 2?
Where were you when he was 12?
Where were you when he was 18?
And, how come you didn't know that he had a pistol?
And where is the father?
Or who is his father?
People putting their clothes on backward. Isn't that a sign of something gone wrong? People with their hats on backward, pants down around the crack, isn't that a sign of something? They're walking around with their nasty underwear showing, and holding onto their pants to keep them from falling to the ground!
Or are you waiting for Jesus to pull his pants up? Isn't it a sign of something when she has her dress all the way up to her panty line, and got all types of needle piercings going through her body? What part of Africa did this come from? We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans; they don't know a thing about Africa. With names like Shaniqua, Taliqua and Mohammed and all of that crap, and all of them are in jail. Brown or black versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person's problem. We have got to take the neighborhood back.
People used to be ashamed. Today a woman has eight children with eight different 'husbands' - or men or whatever you call them now. We have millionaire football players who cannot read. We have million-dollar basketball players who can't write two paragraphs. We as black folks have to do a better job. Someone working at Wal-Mart with seven kids saying... you are hurting us.
We have to start holding each other to a higher standard. We cannot blame the white people any longer. It is not for media or anyone of this time anymore to say whether I'm right or wrong. It is time, ladies and gentlemen, to look at the numbers. Fifty percent of our children are dropping out of high school. Sixty percent of the incarcerated males happen to be illiterate. There's a correlation. Tell the media to stop asking me what I think about people who don't believe what I'm saying or feel that I'm too harsh or feel that I'm just running my mouth because I'm old. Seventy percent of the teenagers pregnant happen to be African American girls. Don't ask me to soften my message.
--Bill Cosby--
