"The audience laughed and black leaders frowned when Bill Cosby mocked underclass blacks at a D.C. event commemorating the desegregation decision. From the Washington Post:
'Ladies and gentlemen, the lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal,' he declared. 'These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids -- $500 sneakers for what? And won't spend $200 for 'Hooked on Phonics.' . . .
'They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English,' he exclaimed. 'I can't even talk the way these people talk: 'Why you aint,' 'Where you is' . . . And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. And then I heard the father talk. . . . Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. . . . You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth!'
The Post's Hamil Harris reports that Cosby also turned his wrath to 'the incarcerated,' saying: 'These are not political criminals. These are people going around stealing Coca-Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake and then we run out and we are outraged, [saying] 'The cops shouldn't have shot him.' What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand?' "