Bill Cosby compares today’s Republicans to racist segregationists
Last week the Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments on whether Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act was still needed in America, or whether we’re now in a post-racial society.
On Monday morning’s (March 4, 2013) episode of Starting Point on CNN, comedian and actor Bill Cosby pointed out that racism today is not that different from racism in the 1960’s.
During a panel discussion about the 1965 b****y Sunday march across Selma, Alabama’s Edmund Pettus Bridge, and the commemorative march this past weekend, O’Brien recounted how things may’ve appeared post-racial to Cosby back then, given his achievements. “I read about you, at the same time the fight for rights in the South was going on,” she said to Cosby, “you were on the verge of winning an Emmy award. First Black man – in 1966 you would win an Emmy award. And the show, I Spy, was banned in the South.”
“It’s just hard to believe,” co-panelist, Rep. Connie Mack (R-FL) said. “It’s unbelievable.”
“I don’t think so,” Cosby quickly responded. “Not when you look at the President’s speech recently.”
Cosby, referring to President Obama’s State of the Union Address, continued: “To see people sitting down when there are others standing and cheering. I think we have people sitting there who are as bad as the people who were against any kind of desegregation. And then in place of a better America, they want their own sick feelings put across, and it’s — it isn’t — it isn’t a good time, but I think, also on our part as professors and presidents of colleges all over, and in public schools, we need to get the education of the correct history that happened so people can say, ‘Yes, this really did happen.’”
