‘Meet the Press’ transcript for Oct. 14, 2007

MR. RUSSERT:  Your callouts around the country—I watched the video of them. I also watched Bill Cosby when you went to Jesse Jackson’s group, Rainbow Push Coalition, and said some things in a very blunt way, maybe even for shock value.  I want to watch that and come back and ask you what kind of reaction you got.

DR. POUSSAINT:  Good.

RUSSERT:  Let’s watch.

(Videotape, July 1, 2004)

MR. COSBY:  Hey, man, let me tell you something.  Your dirty laundry gets out of school at 2:30 every day.  It’s cursing and it’s calling each other niggers as they walk up and down the street.  They think they’re hip.  They can’t read; they can’t write.  Fifty percent of them.  They, they, they take it into the candy store.  They, they put it—they put themselves on the train and on the buses, and they don’t even care what color or what age somebody else is. It’s about them and their cursing and grabbing each other and laughing and giggling and going nowhere.  And the book bags are very, very thin because there’s no books in them.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  The audience seemed to be responsive.

MR. COSBY:  Yes, because the people know exactly what I’m saying.  See, a great deal of, of the negative is about people not wanting so much attention in that area, but it has to come out.  If it is what it is and that is a horrible, horrible problem, then we must direct ourselves to it.  I keep thinking about a parent who’s called in to, to the principle’s office because the child is misbehaving, and so many teachers have, have said, “And the parent comes in yelling at us that their child would never do that and why are they called, and all of a sudden it’s, it’s no longer about ‘We’re, we’re here to talk about making corrective behavioral changes in your child,’ but about the parent who is using all kinds of language and threatening people.” It’s something that goes into the person.

Now, just let me, let me say this.  When I say it the way I say it, I felt and I still feel that it has been said so softly, so intelligently, so carefully that people are used to it and they’re not responding.  There’s inertia and there’s entropy.  Now, when I was in the service, the first great shock I had was when this man with a cigarette hanging, smoke going up into one eye, with his Navy hat on in charge of us, and I had done something—I don’t even remember what it was.  It was sort of innocent, but I was only two days in the Navy.  And this man up this face to mine—it was a white man—they never curse.  He never called me the N-word, but they had words they would call you like a one-eyed maggot.  You know, and it hurt.  You said, “What?” But what he said was, “I’m not your mother.” And, man, I wanted to knock him out, but I knew that I didn’t want to go to the brig.  And, and what’s happening here is when I used that, that, that language and I use it that way, I’m trying to wake people up, that inertia, I’m trying to move them from that entropy because we’re, we’re in the stage now we can’t take much more with all—we need our men to be fathers.  The book you wrote, the book you have about your father, kids grow up with, not—I mean, they know somebody was the other half, but they don’t know who.  And by the time, if they ever met the person, they, they would have to go way, way back and not realize why—and within themselves, they, too want to Domestic violence—what are the numbers on the domestic violence?

DR. POUSSAINT:  Well, I don’t know the exact numbers.  It’s widespread, and it’s a problem in the black community and many communities.  And domestic violence, I think people have to understand, is also a form of child abuse. That the domestic violence in and of itself is a form of child abuse. Children are damaged if they see a father punch a mother or vice versa, which occurs less often.  But in those cases, those childs are damaged just as much as if they were abused by a parent themselves physically or neglected.  And many of the abused children in these situations later turn out to be, be violent.  Not all of them.  But they become violent.  They see violence used in the home.  They become angry, they become damaged.  It’s very, very, very devastating to the black community.

MR. RUSSERT:  What...

DR. POUSSAINT:  And we spend a lot of time in the book talking about parenting...

MR. COSBY:  And reinforcing it.

DR. POUSSAINT:  ...that, that—for that reason.

MR. RUSSERT:  Over and over again.

MR. COSBY:  One of...

DR. POUSSAINT:  Over and over again.

MR. COSBY:  One of the great things that, that I saw witnessing in the callouts was the successful child, now successful, who came to the podium, whether he or she was homeless or whether there was one parent or whether there was foster homes.  And, and the kid admitted that, when they came, they were sad and they had a great deal with anger, and they brought with them all kinds of baggage, and they, and they, they wanted to follow what they wanted to do, and it—and that the giver, the, the, the care, or the love giver—love giver, that’s very important.  Not caregiver, but the love giver stayed on his or her course.  “No, you won’t.  You’re going to do it this way.” It’s going—and the, and the, the person who’s made the transformation says, “And he or she stayed on me.” I mean, it’s just, just, if you, if, if I may. There’s a white girl in Birmingham, and she pointed to this white woman, and she said, “When I came to her, schools had rendered me in terms of, of, of just not being able to do anything.  Retarded, they called me.  And when I moved in with her,” and she pointed to the woman, and they started to (makes gesture of tears falling down face)--both of them.  She said, “And, and, and we were so angry, and almost come to blows.  And I wanted to—and as I began, to over the months, the years, all of a sudden,” she said, “I just want you to know,” and looked at this audience of predominantly African-American people, she said, “Today I, I am, I have a degree, an RN, and I graduated from community college with 3.A--8 GPA.” And the place went crazy.  So what we have to do is parenting.  We have to stay on these kids.  These children are telling us something.  There’s not a person who’s ever raised a kid has—kid says, “Oh, no, I never had a problem.” You have problems.  And these kids—my little joke, they’re brain damaged.  But not really.  But you have to stay on them.  And if we can do that, stay on them, stay on them, then we’re going to win.

DR. POUSSAINT:  With, with, with love, and not through beating.  See, there are a lot of people—parents who feel the way to help their kids stay on the right track is to beat them a lot.  And actually it does the very opposite of what they think it’s going to do.  It makes angry children.  It makes it more, more difficult for them in school, makes it—makes them accept violence as a way of coping out in the street with their friends, and that we really take a stand against parents using a lot of physical punishment on their children.

MR. RUSSERT:  You can have tough love and discipline...

DR. POUSSAINT:  Right.

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