Bill Cosby tells it like it is. At 75, the comedian, philanthropist, actor and everyone’s favorite dad as co-creator and star of The Cosby Show, is still feisty, opinionated, and determined. Only now, his energy is often devoted to touting causes that have nothing to do with show business.
“If folks had to write for the segregationists, and for the people loaded with hate who in their minds, and with their bodies, have done so much to try, and stop, American-Africans and others as well, who are in this country, born, raised, and are not Anglo-Saxon,” he told theGrio recently. “I think that some of the[ir] work has become apparent in terms of our children not fully getting the kind of education they deserve.”
To Cosby, the failure of black and other minority children to get a top-notch education is more than just a societal failure. It’s an historic failure that in some ways, has left African-American children worse off than they were during segregation.
“Many of our elders speak of when they were in one room, and there were four different classes in one room,” he said. “And many of them went on to historically black colleges; went on to get degrees.” Today, Cosby worries that “if a child is studying, she is not ‘acting black.’ If a child is studying, he doesn’t really blend in with the ‘real’ people. The people who hate American-Africans have set this up, but, in fact, some of it is right there in our own neighborhoods: the neglect of education by some of the parents, the neglect by some of the teachers, [and by] some of the institutions that are set up to help to help children to learn.”
“Every city I’ve ever gone into,” Cosby said, “when it’s suppression, oppression of the-the poor … it starts with education, and it has drugs included, and of course, firearms.”
Earlier this month, Cosby joined a group of black leaders who hope to connect his passion for the issue of education to the commemoration of the civil rights movement, many of whose signal events will have their 50th anniversaries this year.
“Over the past year and a half, we have been planning a commemoration of events that took place in 1963 – the impact that it had on, not just the South, but the entire country, as well as the world,” said Birmingham Mayor William Bell. ” We looked at several different areas, and we’re looking at Dr. King’s involvement in the movement in Birmingham, which was highlighted by his arrest, and the writing of the ‘letter from a Birmingham jail,’ or the Children’s March that took place, of which Miles College was a critical component of the organization of that march, and the bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.”
The remembrances culminated in a re-enactment of the 1965 Selma to Birmingham march, which drew a number of civil rights leaders as well as leaders from Capitol Hill, including Vice President Joe Biden (see full list at www.topmedicalassistantschools.com). Now, the organizers of the Birmingham commemorations hope to use the 50th anniversary to put a spotlight on continued racial disparities in education.
“Because part of the [civil rights] movement dealt with concerns about the inferior education that American-Africans were receiving at that time,” Bell said, “today, we don’t have the same issues, of outright discrimination like we did in the past, but education was still a key component.”
Bell and his associates, including Miles College President George French, have secured Cosby as chairman of a committee that will host a series of 50th anniversary events in September that will include forums devoted to the issue of education.
“I believe that our historically black colleges and universities have always had the civil rights movement [as part of them] in the involvement of its faculty,” Cosby said.
French said the issue is especially important because of the large percentage of black students who arrive at colleges like Miles College ill prepared for the rigors of post-secondary education.
“And of course, what happens with that is when you have to spend, sometimes the first two years in developmental and remedial courses,” French said, adding that in many cases, those students wind up running out of financial aid. “And then, in their senior year, often times, they have to drop out of college, and not finish for what turns out to be an average [deficit] of about $2,000.”
The group hopes to press the issues of educational preparedness and access during the September commemorative events. And they hope to get President Obama’s attention.
“Let’s see, he’s spent time with Henry [Louis] Gates and a policeman having a beer,” Cosby said of the president, referring to the “beer summit” that was held after Obama criticized a Cambridge policeman for his interaction with Gates after the Harvard professor became locked out of his home and neighbors called 911 after he tried to gain entry. Cosby has his own ideas about the kind of summit he’d like to see at the White House.
“I’d like him to have some Jell-O Pudding, and bring in some educators who are very, very successful,” he said. “I wanna see some movement.”
Follow Joy Reid on Twitter at @TheReidReport.