Cosby's on right track, sticking to his guns

Sheryl McCarthy discusses the Cosby factor and effect upon the Black community. Whether Cosby is criticized or applauded, bottom-line is that he is right.//JW sends

'Let them stay mad," Bill Cosby told CNN's Paula Zahn last week.
He was speaking of the flak he's catching from African-Americans since he criticized the behavior of some low-income blacks last spring during a commemoration of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision. He angered some black folks, who thought his remarks were insensitive and inflammatory, and that he resorted to ugly racial stereotypes.
But Cosby has no plans to shut up. "This is about little children and people not giving them better choices," the 67 year-old actor-comedian told Zahn. "How long you gonna whisper about a smallpox epidemic in your apartment building when bodies are coming out under the sheets?"
Cosby's onto something. Since May he's taken his no-nonsense message on the road, instigating town hall-style meetings in black communities, where teachers, ministers and other role models discuss how they can improve the outcomes of young blacks.

Among his targets:

- Parents who teach the wrong values by buying their kids expensive clothes instead of educational aids.
- Young people who who don't learn to speak proper English, thereby eliminating their chances of getting good jobs someday.
- Black criminals who prey on others, but are then portrayed as victims by their communities.

At a Jesse Jackson confab in Chicago over the summer, Cosby kept up the scolding, despite being accused of airing African-Americans' dirty laundry in public. Cosby shot back that this dirty laundry is displayed on a daily basis by black youths who use profanity, call each other the "N" word, and think they're hip even thought they're barely literate.