On May 17, 2004, the NAACP staged a gala celebration at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court Decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Comedian, actor, and philanthropist Bill Cosby was asked to deliver the main address. Cosby unexpectedly used the occasion to deliver a controversial speech that profiled current African American social, economic and cultural deficiencies. His speech ignited a firestorm of protest and debate. It appears below.
Ladies and gentlemen, I really have to ask you to seriously consider what youโve heard, and now this is the end of the evening so to speak. I heard a prize fight manager say to his fellow who was losing badly, โDavid, listen to me. Itโs not whatโs heโs doing to you. Itโs what youโre not doing.”
Ladies and gentlemen, these people set — they opened the doors, they gave us the right, and today, ladies and gentlemen, in our cities and public schools we have 50% drop out. In our own neighborhood, we have men in prison. No longer is a person embarrassed because theyโre pregnant without a husband. No longer is a boy considered an embarrassment if he tries to run away from being the father of the unmarried child.
Ladies and gentlemen, the lower economic and lower middle economic people are not holding their end in this deal. In the neighborhood that most of us grew up in, parenting is not going on. In the old days, you couldnโt hooky school because every drawn shade was an eye. And before your mother got off the bus and to the house, she knew exactly where you had gone, who had gone into the house, and where you got on whatever you had one and where you got it from. Parents donโt know that today.
Iโm talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit. Where were you when he was two? Where were you when he was twelve? Where were you when he was eighteen, and how come you donโt know he had a pistol? And where is his father, and why donโt you know where he is? And why doesnโt the father show up to talk to this boy?
The church is only open on Sunday. And you canโt keep asking Jesus to keep doing things for you. You canโt keep asking that God will find a way. God is tired of you. God was there when they won all those cases. 50 in a row. Thatโs where God was because these people were doing something. And God said, โIโm going to find a way.โ I wasnโt there when God said it — Iโm making this up. But it sounds like what God would do.
We cannot blame white people. White people — white people donโt live over there. They close up the shop early. The Korean ones still donโt know us as well — they stay open 24 hours. Iโm looking and I see a man named Kenneth Clark, he and his wife Mamie. Kennethโs still alive. I have to apologize to him for these people because Kenneth said it straight. He said you have to strengthen yourselves, and weโve got to have that black doll. And everybody said it. Julian Bond said it. Dick Gregory said it. All these lawyers said it. And you wouldnโt know that anybody had done a damned thing.
Fifty percent drop out rate, Iโm telling you, and people in jail, and women having children by five, six different men. Under what excuse? I want somebody to love me. And as soon as you have it, you forget to parent. Grandmother, mother, and great grandmother in the same room, raising children, and the child knows nothing about love or respect of any one of the three of them. All this child knows is โgimme, gimme, gimme.โ These people want to buy the friendship of a child, and the child couldnโt care less. Those of us sitting out here who have gone on to some college or whatever weโve done, we still fear our parents. And these people are not parenting. Theyโre buying things for the kid — $500 sneakers — for what? They wonโt buy or spend $250 on Hooked on Phonics.
Kenneth Clark, somewhere in his home in upstate New York — just looking ahead. Thank God he doesnโt know whatโs going on. Thank God. But these people — the ones up here in the balcony fought so hard. Looking at the incarcerated, 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! Then we all run out and are outraged: โThe cops shouldnโt have shot him.โ What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand? I wanted a piece of pound cake just as bad as anybody else. And I looked at it and I had no money. And something called parenting said if you get caught with it youโre going to embarrass your mother.” Not, “Youโre going to get your butt kicked.” No. “Youโre going to embarrass your mother.” “Youโre going to embarrass your family.” If you knock that girl up, youโre going to have to run away because itโs going to be too embarrassing for your family. In the old days, a girl getting pregnant had to go down South, and then her mother would go down to get her. But the mother had the baby. I said the mother had the baby. The girl didnโt have a baby. The mother had the baby in two weeks. We are not parenting.
Ladies and gentlemen, listen to these people. They are showing you whatโs wrong. People putting their clothes on backwards. Isnโt that a sign of something going on wrong? Are you not paying attention? People with their hat on backwards, pants down around the crack. Isnโt that a sign of something or are you waiting for Jesus to pull his pants up? Isnโt it a sign of something when sheโs got her dress all the way up to the crack — and got all kinds of needles and things going through her body. What part of Africa did this come from? We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans; they donโt know a damned thing about Africa. With names like Shaniqua, Shaligua, Mohammed and all that crap and all of them are in jail. (When we give these kinds names to our children, we give them the strength and inspiration in the meaning of those names. Whatโs the point of giving them strong names if there is not parenting and values backing it up).
Brown versus the Board of Education is no longer the white personโs problem. Weโve got to take the neighborhood back. Weโve got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. Itโs right around the corner. Itโs standing on the corner. It canโt speak English. It doesnโt want to speak English. I canโt even talk the way these people talk. โWhy you ainโt where you is go, ra.โ I donโt know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows itโs important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You canโt land a plane with, โWhy you ainโtโฆโ You canโt be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that theyโre moving ahead on this. Well, they know theyโre not; theyโre just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when youโre just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out.
Now, look, Iโm telling you. Itโs not what theyโre doing to us. Itโs what weโre not doing. 50 percent drop out. Look, weโre raising our own ingrown immigrants. These people are fighting hard to be ignorant. Thereโs no English being spoken, and theyโre walking and theyโre angry. Oh God, theyโre angry and they have pistols and they shoot and they do stupid things. And after they kill somebody, they donโt have a plan. Just murder somebody. Boom. Over what? A pizza? And then run to the poor cousinโs house.
They sit there and the cousin says, โWhat are you doing here?โ โI just killed somebody, man.โ โWhat?โ โI just killed somebody; Iโve got to stay here.โ โNo, you donโt.โ โWell, give me some money, Iโll goโฆ.โ โWhere are you going?โ โNorth Carolina.โ
Everybody wanted to go to North Carolina. But the police know where youโre going because your cousin has a record.
Five or six different children — same woman, eight, ten different husbands or whatever. Pretty soon youโre going to have to have DNA cards so you can tell who youโre making love to. You donโt who this is. It might be your grandmother. Iโm telling you, theyโre young enough. Hey, you have a baby when youโre twelve. Your baby turns thirteen and has a baby, how old are you? Huh? Grandmother. By the time youโre twelve, you could have sex with your grandmother, you keep those numbers coming. Iโm just predicting.
Iโm saying Brown versus the Board of Education. Weโve got to hit the streets, ladies and gentlemen. Iโm winding up, now — no more applause. Iโm saying, look at the Black Muslims. There are Black Muslims standing on the street corners and they say so forth and so on, and weโre laughing at them because they have bean pies and all that, but you donโt read, โBlack Muslim gunned down while chastising drug dealer.โ You donโt read that. They donโt shoot down Black Muslims. You understand me. Muslims tell you to get out of the neighborhood. When you want to clear your neighborhood out, first thing you do is go get the Black Muslims, bean pies and all. And your neighborhood is then clear. The police canโt do it.
Iโm telling you Christians, whatโs wrong with you? Why canโt you hit the streets? Why canโt you clean it out yourselves? Itโs our time now, ladies and gentlemen. It is our time. And Iโve got good news for you. Itโs not about money. Itโs about you doing something ordinarily that we do — get in somebody elseโs business. Itโs time for you to not accept the language that these people are speaking, which will take them nowhere. What the hell good is Brown V. Board of Education if nobody wants it?
What is it with young girls getting after some girl who wants to still remain a virgin. Who are these sick black people and where did they come from and why havenโt they been parented to shut up? To go up to girls and try to get a club where โyou are nobody….โ This is a sickness, ladies and gentlemen, and we are not paying attention to these children. These are children. They donโt know anything. They donโt have anything. Theyโre homeless people. All they know how to do is beg. And you give it to them, trying to win their friendship. And what are they good for? And then they stand there in an orange suit and you drop to your knees: โHe didnโt do anything. He didnโt do anything.โ Yes, he did do it. And you need to have an orange suit on, too.
So, ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for the award — and giving me an opportunity to speak because, I mean, this is the future, and all of these people who lined up and done — theyโve got to be wondering what the hell happened. Brown V. Board of Education — these people who marched and were hit in the face with rocks and punched in the face to get an education and we got these knuckleheads walking around who donโt want to learn English. I know that you all know it. I just want to get you as angry that you ought to be. When you walk around the neighborhood and you see this stuff, that stuffโs not funny. These people are not funny anymore. And thatโs not my brother. And thatโs not my sister. Theyโre faking and theyโre dragging me way down because the state, the city, and all these people have to pick up the tab on them because they donโt want to accept that they have to study to get an education.
We have to begin to build in the neighborhood, have restaurants, have cleaners, have pharmacies, have real estate, have medical buildings instead of trying to rob them all. And so, ladies and gentlemen, please, Dorothy Height, where ever sheโs sitting, she didnโt do all that stuff so that she could hear somebody say โI canโt stand algebra, I canโt standโฆ” and โwhat you is.โ Itโs horrible.
Basketball players — multimillionaires canโt write a paragraph. Football players, multimillionaires, canโt read. Yes. Multimillionaires. Well, Brown v. Board of Education, where are we today? Itโs there. They paved the way. What did we do with it? The White Man, heโs laughing — got to be laughing. 50 percent drop out — rest of them in prison.
You got to tell me that if there was parenting — help me — if there was parenting, he wouldnโt have picked up the Coca Cola bottle and walked out with it to get shot in the back of the head. He wouldnโt have. Not if he loved his parents. And not if they were parenting! Not if the father would come home. Not if the boy hadnโt dropped the sperm cell inside of the girl and the girl had said, โNo, you have to come back here and be the father of this child.โ Not ..โI donโt have to.โ
Therefore, you have the pile up of these sweet beautiful things born by nature — raised by no one. Give them presents. Youโre raising pimps. Thatโs what a pimp is. A pimp will act nasty to you so you have to go out and get them something. And then you bring it back and maybe he or she hugs you. And thatโs why pimp is so famous. Theyโve got a drink called the โPimp-something.โ You all wonder what thatโs about, donโt you? Well, youโre probably going to let Jesus figure it out for you. Well, Iโve got something to tell you about Jesus. When you go to the church, look at the stained glass things of Jesus. Look at them. Is Jesus smiling? Not in one picture. So, tell your friends. Letโs try to do something. Letโs try to make Jesus smile. Letโs start parenting. Thank you, thank you.
