Weir thinking about it

Bill Cosby said it bluntly, albeit accurately: 'I am talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange jumpsuit. 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?"

The legendary comedian was speaking at a ceremony in Washington commemorating the Supreme Court decision; Brown vs. Board of Education, which ended mandated segregation in public schools. He was blaming black parents for their failure to raise their children properly, thereby creating increasingly higher dropout rates in schools, among other problems impacting their future. 

'They are standing on the corner and they can't speak English. Black parents are not parenting. They are buying things for their kids — $500 sneakers for what? And won't spend $200 for Hooked on Phonics.' Mr. Cosby was admonishing blacks whom he said had forgotten what their ancestors had to go through to fight for an education. He noted, 'There were people who marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an education. But now there are knuckleheads walking around who don't take their schooling seriously.'

Several black leaders at the function, including NAACP President Kweisi Mfume, were reportedly upset by the remarks. But which comments were untrue? Perhaps the reason for their chagrin was because the truth can often be hard to take. However, there may be another reason for the glum looks that greeted Mr. Cosby after his stinging comments. It's just possible that what he was saying could also apply to whites.

How many parents of white kids are also guilty of failing to supervise and discipline them? Bill Cosby scolded blacks for allowing their kids to dress provocatively and pierce their bodies with all kinds of trinkets. Well, I seem to recall lots of young white boys and girls with rings and things poking out from all parts of their anatomy while wearing clothing that leaves nothing to the imagination.  He quite correctly criticized the way many young blacks speak: 'Where you is?' and 'Who you be? But whites have little reason to be proud of the way many of their children use the language. 'I don't, like, yunno, want to, like, be a part of, like, yunno, like society,' is one example of the educated utterances we hear these days.

Very few people in this politically correct country could say what Mr. Cosby said, and survive the aftermath. 'We have millionaire football players who can't read. We have million dollar basketball players who can't put 2 paragraphs together.' It reminded me of a discussion I had with a black friend who complained about the low percentage of black basketball coaches and upper level managers. He maintained that they were being discriminated against because there weren't enough black managers to represent their population figures. I told him we could rectify that by placing the same amount of whites on the basketball court as their percentage of the population indicates. When he realized that it would mean replacing most of the black players with whites, he changed the subject. The point is that sometimes we must violate the PC principle and talk openly about the real problems we face. In his speech, Mr. Cosby could have done a Jesse Jackson or an Al Sharpton, and blamed white people for every social ill since time began.

Instead, he decided to put the onus where it belonged: 'People used to be ashamed... Today, a woman has 8 children with 8 different 'husbands' or men or whatever you call them now. We cannot blame white people for that.' He's right! And white women who do the same can't blame blacks for it either.

In the past few decades, we have seen a precipitous decline in personal responsibility and accountability. Too many Americans have been told that their circumstances are the result of what has been done to them, rather than what they have done to themselves. There was a time, maybe,  when some could have pointed a finger at blacks and accuse them of neglecting their education and their opportunities for upward mobility. Now it seems as though we've achieved a type of equality in America because whites can be similarly accused. Everything Mr. Cosby said about blacks can be applied to their white counterparts. The courage he displayed makes him a credit to his race, the human race.

Bob Weir is a columnist for The American Thinker. The author of 7 books, he is a retired NYPD sergeant, living in Flower Mound, Texas. BobWeir777@aol.com