Morehouse College President Robert Michael Franklin Jr. joined comedian Bill Cosby on Tuesday in urging parents to keep their sons out of the "cradle-to-prison pipeline" where African-American youg men now have a one-in-three chance of spending time behind bars.
On one hand, systemic racism still hinders African-Americans in society, Franklin told an audience at Howard University. But on the other hand, there is "important cultural work" to be done within the black community — from rebuilding families to developing good character and academic excellence.
The culture must be changed so the norm for young African-Americans is to "finish school, get a job, then get married and have children," Franklin told a symposium sponsored by the Children's Defense Fund.
A report issued by the liberal advocacy group for children said that a black boy born in 2001 has a one-in-three chance of going to prison in his lifetime, compared to a one-in-six chance for a Latino boy and a one-in-17 chance for a white boy.
"I am often asked, 'What's wrong with our children?'" Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund, wrote in the report, "America's Cradle to Prison Pipeline."
"Well, adults are what's wrong with our children," she said. "Parents letting children raise themselves or be raised by television or the Internet. Children being shaped by peers and gangs and foul-mouth rappers instead of parents, grandparents and kin. Children roaming the streets because there's nobody at home or paying enough attention."
Cosby said the answer is "old-time parenting."
"Don't tell me you don't have time" to spend with your children, he said. "You're going to have time later in front of a judge."
Cosby said reporters "misrepresented what I said" in his 2004 address to the NAACP on the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision that struck down racial segregation in public schools. Some critics accused him of blaming poor African Americans for their own plight.
"I was talking to my people. I wasn't talking to white people. I was talking to black people," he said. He recalled his anecdote about parents buying their children $500 basketball shoes instead enrolling them in "Hooked on Phonics."
"If you buy $500 sneakers because you want to buy your child's love, you're in trouble," he said.
The comedian kept the auditorium full of students of the historically black university laughing and shouting in agreement.
"Somebody made you do your homework," he told them. "You are what you are because of what went on in your house."
And he said, "We need some sure enough black teaching males" in public school classrooms. That will stop African American boys from being able to say that math and history are girl things.
Cosby said racism may be involved in lesser prison sentences for white drug dealers selling powder cocaine than for black dealers selling crack cocaine. But, more importantly he said, the black community needs to demand of the crack dealer: "Why are you selling this mess" to neighbors and ruining their lives?
"You're black and they're black, my brother," said Cosby.
He said, "There is a lot of talk about unwed mothers" in the black community, but "what about unwed fathers?"
"It's not like the mother can wed herself," he said. Rather than being locked up in prison, he said, black fathers need to be home caring for their children.
Franklin said churches could help with the "re-entry" of former inmates.
The report said that 580,000 black males are serving sentences in state or federal prison. Black juveniles are about four times as likely as their white peers to be incarcerated and 48 times as likely to be jailed for similar drug offenses.
AJC.com
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/news/stories/2007/09/25/cosbymorehouse_0926.html
