Bill Cosby to black people: "Stop fucking, start acting responsibly"

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Bill Cosby gives Essence visitors his old-school views on teen pregnancy, gun violence

Published: Saturday, July 03, 2010, 6:39 PM

Comedian Bill Cosby, who drew the biggest crowd of the afternoon, took on teen pregnancy, gun violence and cussing rappers before concluding with remarks about schools.

As usual, Cosby’s old-school admonitions to parents drew huge applause, as he talked about a man whose 14-year-old daughter had just gone through a pregnancy scare.

Cosby’s advice: Sit down and talk with teenagers who you know are sexually active. “Lay it out to them: ‘You’re out here humping without a rubber, and she’s humping without the pill or a diaphragm,’” he said.

If she gets pregnant, she’s stopping herself “in the middle of the road of life,” he said.

Cosby advised his listeners to talk not only to their children but also to cousins, nieces, nephews and neighbors. “Get into people’s business,” he said. “You’re a taxpayer and you’re tired of picking up the tab for someone’s sexual moments.”

Essence magazine news editor Wendy Wilson asked Cosby about statistics showing that violence — mostly gun violence — is now the leading cause of death for black youths age 10 to 24, killing an average of 16 people a day.

People would “riot in the streets” if that many black children were killed each day by white lynch mobs who pulled them out of their houses and hanged them in the public square, Cosby said.

Ultimately, he holds parents culpable. “Whose fault is it that gun is in your child’s room?” he asked. “Look under the mattress. Say, ‘I’m raising you. This is my job, to raise you.’”

Young black males do have to contend with police profiling, Cosby said. But he quoted Earl Lloyd, the first black player in the National Basketball Association, who said that his mother would question him closely when he came home about where he had been and with whom. “She’d tell him, ‘If you’re not in the picture, you can’t be framed.’”