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‘Meet the Press’ transcript for Oct. 14, 2007
DR. POUSSAINT: And guns.
MR. COSBY: Drugs work. Drugs work. It—there’s a domino effect that the dealer—and we’ve heard this over and over—feels, “Well, what else, what else can I do? I might as well do that.” But I don’t think people draw enough to the reality that “I sell you, you use it.”
DR. POUSSAINT: Mm-hmm.
MR. COSBY: That knocks you out of any wanting to become anything other than a user. If I give it to a woman, that knocks her out of doing anything other than being a user. She also can become pregnant, and this goes to her child, better known as crack babies. There’s something that’s still going on when the child is born, in the physiological part, so we don’t know what is, is happening with the child like this. But the more we see it in neighborhoods, the more we will accept it that we can’t help it. And what we need to do is give people more of a confidence that they can. They must realize that the revolution is in their apartment now. The revolution is in their house, their neighborhood, and then they can fight strongly, clearly the systemic and the institutional racism.
DR. POUSSAINT: And that was the spirit, I think, in many of the callouts. People who have reached rock bottom—drugs, jail and so on—were able to pull themselves together, sometimes with a self-revelation, but because other people cared and helped them, were able to come back and still succeed and make something of themselves. And I think that’s the spirit that we’re—we would want to create in the communities. But one other thing about this systemic problem, even in, in the incarceration rate, you know that the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world? The United States of America. And that the prison population has gone up for black men because of—particularly because of disparities in the sentencing laws around crack and cocaine.
MR. RUSSERT: Well, this is a very important point. If powder cocaine, 80 percent of those arrested are white; crack cocaine, 75 percent arrested are black. And you need 100 times more powder cocaine...
DR. POUSSAINT: Right.
MR. RUSSERT: ...to get the same penalty mandatory...
DR. POUSSAINT: Right, right. Yeah.
MR. RUSSERT: ...that you would get with crack cocaine.
DR. POUSSAINT: Yeah.
MR. RUSSERT: There’s a disparity.
DR. POUSSAINT: Right.
MR. RUSSERT: There’s no doubt about it.
DR. POUSSAINT: Disparity. That—that’s right. And these mandatory sentences you see are a problem. Five, five year mandatory sentence for carrying five grams of, of cocaine. So a lot of the increase in the prison population has been because of these mandatory sentences, three strikes you’re out type of thing, revoking parole because you, you test positive for drugs. And this is creating, really, a disaster for the black community, and it has to be a lot of—we have to put much more into what happens to these young men and women when they come out of jail. There’s very little for them.
MR. RUSSERT: But Dr. Poussaint, you grew up in East Harlem, eight children.
DR. POUSSAINT: Mm.
MR. RUSSERT: Bill Cosby grew up in Philadelphia. And to your point, there was racism through your life, and yet your families were able to stay together and fight it as a unit and, and learn from each other and take inspiration from each other. Has that broken down?
MR. COSBY: Yes.
DR. POUSSAINT: Yes.
MR. COSBY: Tremendously. I cannot fully tell you how disappointing it is to hear philosophies come from people—and the only way I can describe it is a friend of mine who says people—some people are, are, are acting with abnormal behavior, trying to make it normal, and that’s insane. And that’s, that’s what he said. I hear things coming out of the mouths of babes, things that they believe—example, and what—one of the most old-fashioned things. Kid us studying, and so they say to the kid, “You’re acting white,” which is a put-down to make this kid stop studying. Well, let’s examine this. If you’re black and you say to me, because you see me studying, “You’re acting white,” what is it you’re saying about black people? You see, these are things that have to be discussed with, with—and nobody—people aren’t coming up enough to challenge these statements, to, to, to do character corrections on these things.
DR. POUSSAINT: Mm.
MR. COSBY: If a young girl says, “I want to have a baby because I want something that, that loves me,” that young lady is saying something. And we’ve got to talk to her about herself and her idea of love. She hasn’t graduated from high school, she’s willing to, to have a child. All of these character corrections are not being done while record companies are putting out records inviting people to continue that kind of behavior, to, to not talk about get an education. It’s just as easy to put that to a rhythm.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask about that--(clears throat) excuse me—because you write about gangster rap in your book. And this is from page 144. Let’s look at it: The “Gangsta rap promotes the widespread use of N-word to sell CDs among people of all ethnic groups. In fact, the audience for gangsta rap is made up predominantly of white youth, who get a vicarious thrill from participating in a black thug fantasy, including the degradation of women. Black youth, as well as some misguided adults, have defended the use of the N-word, suggesting they are somehow making it a positive term.
“Don’t fall for that nonsense. The N-word is a vile symbol of our oppression by slave masters.”
DR. POUSSAINT: I agree. And it does damage to our children from the very beginning, very young ages, because it’s such a derogatory word that it’s going to make them feel like kind of worthless that they’re called that. And there’s no way that you can make that word positive in this, in this culture, in terms of what it meant for black people, their oppression, slavery, lynching. That can never be made positive. And even the people who suggest that it can, say a gangster rapper or the kids in, in the street, say it’s positive and “You’re my brother,” use the word.’ They also use it when they’re shooting and killing each other. They’re calling them that, that same name in a derogatory way.
MR. RUSSERT: And when white youth are the primary buyers of these CDs, is there a license given to them to say, “You know what? You can use the word. Black artists use it. It’s OK”?
MR. COSBY: I think so.
DR. POUSSAINT: Hm.
MR. COSBY: I think, I think just looking, I’ve, I’ve—if, if they’re putting out and it’s public. But I also think that the, the white male and the black male putting—the black male putting this on record, and then, of course, you have white rappers. You have to look at what they share—my belief—what do these two men or boys share, the white boy and the black boy, 70 percent of whatever? And not all black males agree with the rap music.
DR. POUSSAINT: Hm.
MR. COSBY: OK. So what is it they, they, they have a position for the female. That’s what they’re saying. If you’re going to use those words and the white male is buying the CD, then they’re buying into those words, and those words are being used on their women. Hint, hint. Domestic violence in the police department. Now they also share in the N-word. And it’s OK to say it, according to them, because it’s on the record. I have a fellow, drives a limousine, I got in the car with him, this is a black fellow, and he said, he said, “Mr. Cosby, I picked up six white kids for the prom, and I rang the doorbell, the door opened, the parents were very nice. I said, “Limousine.” And the music that they were listening to was country-western music. I hear it coming out of the house. The kids come out, they get in the car, and I’m driving, they put the CD in and it’s rap, full of all of the profanities, all of the horrible words and the N-word, as well.” And he said, “I’m 55 years old, Mr. Cosby, and I’m listening to this,” he said, “and I had to call my dispatcher. I said, ‘Look, we’re going to this address and when I get there I, I, I have to change cars. Get, get another driver for this because I’m getting very, very angry.’”
DR. POUSSAINT: Remember, too, that for a while that white kids who were into some of this rap and so on started calling themselves “wiggers”? Remember? And where a wigger was—they hyphenate...
MR. COSBY: Yeah.
DR. POUSSAINT: They took part of the N-word and put part of the white word and called themselves wiggers.
MR. COSBY: But you see, when youth does that, you have to understand that youth—these are, these are kids, they, they don’t have the responsibilities that, that we have. They don’t have to have a job. They don’t have to support a family. They don’t have to buy insurance. They—so they’re, they’re free-forming and they’re freewheeling. It’s the people who make these records. It’s the, it’s the guy in the boardroom. I have another friend of mine who said to me, “I, I write rap lyrics.” He said, “And I went to a man”—I mean, “I went to work, and the guy said, the executive said to me, ‘I want lyrics about rape. Rape is good.’” He said, “And I looked at the guy, and I said, ‘You’re talking about my mother.’ And the guy said, ‘Well, if you don’t want to write it, then I’ll get somebody else who will.’” But, see, all these things, this dopamine-raising level. Alvin has a very interesting viewpoint on whether or not kids are listening to the lyrics. Because if you, if you challenge them, you say, “Why are you listening to that?” They say, “I’m not listening to the words. I just like the beat.”
DR. POUSSAINT: Which is nonsense. They’re listening to the—they got to hear the words. And the, the young, young girls will be dancing to words that degrade women and degrade them and they’re dancing to it. It shows you how much values have been corrupted, you know, by some of the media influences, and the young people can’t distinguish between what’s right and wrong. It’s like the, the bad stuff has become normal, and then they even see it as part of their culture instead of something that’s abhorrent and, and, and, and hurtful to their, to their lives and to their community.
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