Bill Cosby at Carter High in Rialto
Bill Cosby spoke to a crowd of hundreds of mostly parents in the Carter High School gym Tuesday night. Click below for photos and story ...
photo by r. rogers
Cosby's nearly two-hour speech was interesting, and put on full-display his curious brand of old-school sensibilities and urgent calls for parents to take more responsibility in the raising of their children.
Alternately sitting in a fold-out chair and pacing about the stage, Cosby repeatedly harkened to "back in the day," an era he espoused as one in which common sense and swift parental justice put youths on straighter paths.
"I don't know what you call friendship, but it's not parenting," Cosby said.
photo by r. rogers
Cosby railed against violent video games, "intellectual panhandlers," youtube, teenaged promiscuity and what he called "thug admiration" to describe kids' proclivity for choosing the wrong role-models.
Cosby was overwhelmingly well received. But he did touch on many of the notions that have made him a lightning-rod among many intellectuals, white and black. As he is known to do, Cosby dismissed many societal factors in the lives of youths, including laws in some states that punish more severely the possession of certain types of drugs that predominate in black communities.
"They give more time to somebody selling crack cocaine than regular cocaine?" Cosby said. "Who cares?"
But Cosby wasn't completely doctrinaire. He did bemoan the imbalance between spending on individual incarceration over education, and repeatedly criticized the low pay of teachers and proposals in California to cut education funding.
But Cosby's main thrust, as usual, was personal responsibility of parents. He called on them not to rely on schools to raise their children, and to confront drug dealers and other community ills and to "forget about this don't snitch stuff."
"This is the place" for education, Cosby said of the school. "But the home is where the revolution is."
Cosby also made mention of Barack Obama's presidential run.
"We got Obama," Cosby said. He said whether audience members voted for Obama or not, he could tell his grandchildren about Obama's historic run.
"He was there," Cosby said. "And he represented everything about education."
In the end Cosby, who appeared for the second time this year in Rialto free of charge, struck a touching chord.
"Why am I here?" he said. "Old people want to see good things before they die."
I'm a parent that was in the audience during Dr. Cosby visit at Carter High School. I went there to "listen" to him. I wanted to know what he had to say to us parents. He was amazing! He said so much, many subject matters, that others don't dare to talk about. I'm so grateful that he made time from his busy schedule to speak to us. To the School District Superintendent and the staff "thank you" for making this visit possible.