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Bill Cosby Criticizes African-American Culture, Parenting; Space Craft Returns Stunning Saturn Photos
Aired May 27, 2004 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, ANCHOR: Welcome back to the CNN center in Atlanta. This is LIVE FROM, and I'm Miles O'Brien.
KYRA PHILLIPS, ANCHOR: And I'm Kyra Phillips. Here's what's all new this half hour.
Comedian Bill Cosby's comments about African-Americans are no laughing matter to some people. He fires back at critics who say he went too far.
O'BRIEN: And before you click that next e-mail in your box, wait till you hear what the sender can now find out about you.
But first, the top stories we're looking at right now.
A jury of six men, six women now seated in the Scott Peterson murder trial. The panel will decide whether Peterson killed his pregnant wife, Laci, and their unborn son. Opening statements begin Tuesday. The trial is expected to last about six months.
John Kerry talking security. The Democratic presidential contender addressing a meeting in Seattle. Today at the start of an 11-day campaign focusing on national security in what advisers billed as a major policy speech, Kerry said if elected he would build alliances, update the military and end the dependence on foreign oil.
A hostage drama ends in Puerto Rico. A man, armed with a knife, held a woman for three hours in a mailroom of the governor's mansion and demanded to talk with Governor Sila Calderon. The man released the woman after the governor entered negotiations.
And former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman and two others indicted in a bid rigging scheme. The charges accuse the Democrat and his chief of staff of helping a Tuscaloosa doctor rig bids while Siegelman was governor. Siegelman was narrowly defeated for reelection in 2002 by Bob Riley.
PHILLIPS: Comedian Bill Cosby's fatherly image took a stern turn last week. Cosby took African-American parents to task during a speech commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling.
CNN's Tom Foreman fills us in.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL COSBY, COMEDIAN: I see those people...
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Cosby came to public television to explain why he is speaking out against problems in the black community.
COSBY: You can't just blame white people for this, man. You can't. Whether I'm right wing or left, some people are not parenting.
FOREMAN: Back in Washington, D.C., the switchboard is still lighting up at radio station WOL every time they air the speech Cosby made which started this controversy.
COSBY: Lower economic and lower middle economic people are not holding up their end in this deal.
FOREMAN: The comedian said those words during a fund-raiser for Howard University, and went on to attack African-Americans who waste money, who use improper English, who are single parents.
COSBY: No longer is a person embarrassed because they're pregnant without a husband. No longer is a boy considered an embarrassment if he tries to run away from being the father.
FOREMAN: Cosby's comments came in the wake of two highly publicized incidents in which two young girls in Washington were hit by stray bullets. One died. The police chief criticized the culture of violence. Cosby went after the families of young men who wind up arrested.
COSBY: Where were you when he was 2? Where were you when he was 12? And how come you don't know he had a pistol?
FOREMAN (on camera): Cosby has angered some African-Americans, despite many years of fund-raising and activism in the black community.
(voice-over) But if they are waiting for an apology...
COSBY: For God's sake, turn around and let's have some meetings and say, "Brother, let me explain to you."
FOREMAN: He is making it clear, they can keep waiting.
Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: All right. Here to talk more about the uproar over Cosby's remarks, in Dallas, Roland Martin, a syndicated columnist, editor of BlackAmericaToday.com. He's also the author of "Speak Brother: A Black Man's View of America."
And in St. Louis, radio talk show host Lizz Brown. She's also an attorney, an adjunct professor in communications at Webster University.
Hello to both of you.
ROLAND MARTIN, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: How are you doing, Kyra? Good to see you again.
PHILLIPS: Very good.
Well, let's set up where both of you are coming from. Lizz, first of all, your reaction to the speech when this all started. Did it offend you? Did you think that Cosby was right on the mark?
LIZZ BROWN, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: I was very concerned about what Bill Cosby said. Because on some levels, it is self-loathing. On some level -- most levels, actually, it is an out and out lie about the African community.
And it is absolutely inappropriate for him to attack an entire race of people and define an entire race of people by the actions of a few.
PHILLIPS: Roland?
MARTIN: Kyra, he was on the money. Anybody could listen to the comments, and they understand that Bill Cosby was not painting a broad brush. The fact of the matter is he was speaking truth to what actually is taking place.
And sometimes what we have to understand is you have to have somebody who is willing to say what other folks are afraid to say. And so Bill Cosby was on the money. The comments that I've received on the web site and in e-mails, people said that he was right on it.
And frankly, you need to have somebody who is standing up for truth and righteousness and holding people accountable for their actions.
PHILLIPS: Well, of course, this controversy brought Bill Cosby to the forefront once again. He spoke last night on national television.
Let's just take a little clip of what he had to say after everyone started talking about the speech.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COSBY: I don't give a blank about those right wing white people. They can't do any more to us than they've already started with. They can't try to throw us back any farther than they've tried to throw us back. And they're doing a very good job of it.
But by the same token, for God's sake, turn around and let's have some meetings and say, "Brother, let me explain to you. You're the father of so forth and so on. Brother" -- you've got to reel them in, man. You've got to go talk to him.
"What do I do, man? I got a son, he won't listen to me."
"Hey, brother, that's your son."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: So Lizz, when we're talking about black Americans, getting into the mainstream culturally, economically, is it still the fault of white America?
Or is Cosby making a good point that, hey, parents have got to get more involved; parents have got to talk to their kids. And black America itself has to take responsibility?
BROWN: I agree with Camille Cosby when she wrote a letter after her son was killed -- was murdered, actually. She said that there are no institutions in the United States of America that are not racist institutions.
It is absurd for Bill Cosby to say at this point in our history that dealing with racism is something that we should not be dealing with or that we should not put in its proper perspective. Racism is out there.
And quite frankly, singing the song that black people -- it's black people's fault. Black people are not having meetings. Black people are not doing things. That's a song that is as old as America.
MARTIN: OK, Kyra...
BROWN: And we'll always have people that are willing to sing that song.
The fact of the matter is this. If Bill Cosby hasn't been to any meetings or on the issues that are confronting the African community, that's on Bill Cosby. There have been plenty of meetings.
Black people have paved this country's ground with blood, of all of the meetings, all of the actions, all of the things that we have done and we have been working forward -- working towards to change this country.
Bill Cosby is clearly out of touch with those of us that have been involved in America.
MARTIN: Kyra...
PHILLIPS: Should Cosby be talking more about the triumphs, Roland, versus the failings?
MARTIN: Bill Cosby did not say what she just said. What Bill Cosby is saying is we understand systematic racism. We understand the glass ceiling. We understand sexism.
But while we are fighting that battle, at the same time, we must be emphasizing the education of our children.
The problem with this...
BROWN: And who doesn't do that?
MARTIN: One second. Excuse me.
BROWN: Who doesn't do that?
MARTIN: Hold on. This is a man who has contributed 30, 40, to 50 million dollars to keep black kids in school. I don't think anybody can question his integrity when it comes to education.
BROWN: And that doesn't give him -- that doesn't give him license. That doesn't give him license to attack African people.
MARTIN: Oh, stop it.
BROWN: Donating a billion dollars, that does not give you license.
MARTIN: We have...
PHILLIPS: Roland, finish your thought. And then you brought up a good point about education. I want to roll another part of that interview in a minute.
Roland, finish your thought.
MARTIN: That's the whole point. This all revolves around education.
The problem with the Brown vs. Board of Education commemoration is that we did not understand nor celebrate the parent of pre-Brown who gave their hard earned dollars and told their children, "I may not be able to read, but I'm going to make sure that you're able to read."
And what it comes down to is, as a parent, as an uncle, as an aunt we must say I'm going to fight racism, but I'm going to make sure that you are reading and writing and learning while I'm fighting those battle, as well. That's what Bill Cosby is saying.
PHILLIPS: OK. Lizz, on the note of education -- hold on. I want to get you both to respond. But just a little more Cosby here, on that note of education.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COSBY: The mistake I made was in saying that there are people who are striving and working in the lower economic area.
The people who are not holding up their end is quite obvious to me, and that happens to be those people who don't have a clue in terms of what education, learning standard English, math and graduating from school, what that has for them in terms of empowerment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: So Roland, when you hear that, OK, shouldn't Cosby have come forward and talked about empowerment, about improving education for blacks, for talking about maybe black on black crime, creating more opportunities for diversity. You know, talking about moving forward instead of backwards?
MARTIN: Well, bottom line is he made a statement. He could have couched it in a different way. But the bottom line is the only reason we're talking about this issue is because he said it the way he said it.
Kyra, take any major stat -- drug use, sexual abuse. If you take all these major problems, when you look in the prisons, all of them have a central factor. And that is a lack of a quality education. That's the central factor.
BROWN: But...
MARTIN: So what Bill Cosby is saying if we are to empower African-Americans, it must be done through education, which requires personal responsibility and self-involvement from black parents and black family members.
PHILLIPS: Lizz?
BROWN: And as -- and as Bill Cosby said, he made an overbroad statement about an entire race of people. He said that -- he picked upon -- he assaulted poor women. He said that poor people are not holding up their end of the bargain. And nothing could be...
MARTIN: Oh, stop it.
BROWN: And nothing could be further from the truth. That's why he said what I should have said is that some people are.
Now anybody in the world, white people, Asian people, all people in the world can have a discussion about the people in their community that are not holding up their end.
But to get to that conversation, you do not begin with an assault on the entire race of people. And then you do not say, inaccurate things about your people.
For instance, when Bill Cosby said that poor women, poor people are out here purchasing $500 shoes, first of all, I've never seen a pair of $500 tennis shoes.
MARTIN: OK, Lizz. They've got a $500 throwback jersey. Stop it.
BROWN: Well, I'm talking about tennis shoes and what he said, not what you're interpreting him to say. He said that poor people are purchasing $500 tennis shoes instead of trying to get to education. Where is the proof of that? Where is the evidence of that?
MARTIN: Oh, come on, Lizz.
PHILLIPS: Roland, final thought here. Something that just came to me -- I was watching BET over the weekend. And I was caught up in this whole video craze.
And for a number of hours, there were these videos that rolled on and on and on. And it was the -- it was the gold and the T-shirts and, you know, talking about pimps and dressed, you know, scantily clad. And I thought, oh, my gosh, this is not the -- this is totally what Bill Cosby was talking about. This is the image he's trying to fight.
BROWN: No, it's not.
MARTIN: Excuse me -- Excuse me, Lizz.
BROWN: Most white kids are into rap. More white kids do more purchasing of rap videos and are into rap more than black and so forth.
MARTIN: OK. Fine, Lizz.
BROWN: To put this on the black people, it's inaccurate.
MARTIN: OK...
PHILLIPS: Final thoughts, Roland. Final thoughts, Roland.
MARTIN: White kids are into rap. Black kids are into rap.
BROWN: More so than blacks.
MARTIN: But the bottom line is, African-Americans are lagging behind educationally, and it is -- it is important that African- Americans step up, man up and woman up to get our kids educated to advance in this society.
BROWN: And you don't assault them in order to get that done. And that's what Bill Cosby did.
MARTIN: OK. He said all and not some. That's semantic.
BROWN: That's an assault. It's an assault.
MARTIN: That's semantics. The fact of the matter is the educational achievement gap is major.
BROWN: It's an assault. It's an assault, and it's not true.
MARTIN: That's the bottom line. I'm talking about educating black people, not criticizing Bill Cosby.
BROWN: I wish that he would.
MARTIN: That's the focus.
BROWN: And I wish that he would, too. And if he were focusing on education, he would know the things that people like me that have been out here fighting on this issue of education.
We know that we've been fighting on this front. Simply because he hasn't seen it doesn't mean that it's not happening.
MARTIN: He gives $50 billion to black education and you say he's not doing enough. Way to go, Lizz. Way to go. Come on.
BROWN: If he doesn't know what's happening in education, then clearly $50 million hasn't given an education to him about the reality of his own community.
MARTIN: Well, Kyra, Bill Cosby has given a wake-up call to black America.
BROWN: It has isolated him. It has isolated him...
MARTIN: Kyra, Bill Cosby has given a wake-up call to black America, and they should heed the advice.
BROWN: No, he hasn't. Black America has already been well awake.
PHILLIPS: Well, if anything -- if anything, Lizz Brown -- Lizz Brown and Roland Martin, the two of you, have gone beyond the call of duty here and gotten a great conversation. Education wise, success wise, you guys represent successful black Americans. And my hats off to both of you.
BROWN: Black people represent successful people.
MARTIN: Thanks, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Thanks, guys.
BROWN: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: This just in to CNN, according to our reporters on the ground in Baghdad, a convoy carrying a female member of the Iraqi Governing Council was ambushed earlier today after leaving Najaf on its way back to Baghdad.
A total of four people in the convoy were killed. But the member of the Iraqi Governing Council, a female member of that council, Dr. Salama al-Khafaji, seen here, did in fact survive that assassination attempt. Just to underscore that point.
The apparent target of the assassination attempt, Salama al- Khafaji, survived the attempt. Four others were killed, however, in that ambush on the road from Najaf to Baghdad. We'll give you more details as we get them.
Ever think nobody reads your e-mails? Well, now you can find out if you're right. How to do that and how to stop people from doing it to you, perhaps more important, coming up.
And it's gorgeous. Solar system enchantress Saturn. She's winning me over. She shows more than ever, a breathtaking centerfold of sorts. She's Miss May. A provocative peek into deep space next. She's rather curvaceous, too. And "American Idol" fans know what Simon thinks about this, but we want to know what you think. Is last night's winner, Fantasia, the best idol ever? E-mail us at LiveFrom@CNN.com and we will be sharing those e-mails with everyone next hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: A little Hitchcock moment for space producer Dave Santucci in Control Room B.
Well, now, I know you've all missed it, the Mars minute. It hasn't been around in awhile -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: I've missed it tremendously.
O'BRIEN: You're pining away. A moment ago she asked for a hall pass to take a little break. But she couldn't miss this.
PHILLIPS: Yes, I did.
O'BRIEN: Today we've got much, much more because there's just such pent-up demand. So are we starting the clock or not? But -- no clock. Just imagine a couple of minutes. All right?
PHILLIPS: Oh, no!
O'BRIEN: We're going to start with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which is -- this is brand new images. This is a telescope, as you know, Kyra, that focuses on the infrared realm of the deepest parts of the universe.
And what we're seeing here are, this is like a planetary nursery. These are little baby planets that we're homing in on here. About 300 newborn stars, first of all, uncovered.
Those are 13,700 light-years from earth. In other words, don't bother trying to communicate with them. You'd be long gone by the time the signal got there, much less returned.
And also, the formation of this planet. Check out this baby planet. This is just a little toddler of only a million years old. The Earth, as you know, Kyra, is what?
PHILLIPS: I didn't hear the question because our producer was talking to me.
O'BRIEN: How old? Do you know how old the Earth is?
PHILLIPS: Billions and billions and billions of years old.
O'BRIEN: Four point five billion years old.
PHILLIPS: Yes.
O'BRIEN: So a million-year-old planet is a planet in its earliest formation stages. OK. That's enough of Spitzer. Spitzer is the man, by the way, the real Spitzer, the human, invented the concept of the Hubble Space Telescope.
And if you look at the top of your image here, that is a picture of Saturn from the Hubble. This particular shot was shot on March 22, a billion or so miles away. You've got a great image showing the rings.
This one down here comes from the Cassini spacecraft. As it homes in on Mars, it will arrive in the orbit of Saturn on June 30.
Let's go to the next image, and I'm going to show you -- I'm controlling the next image. I can do that myself. So let's do it.
And as we go to the next image, I'm going to show you exactly what this spacecraft is going to do. It's going to fly right through the rings, twice. And then enter the orbit of Saturn for four years, do all kinds of science, drop a probe on one of the moons, Titan. It's going to give some interesting things.
All right. Now, we're going to do a quick moon check here. Can you see those teeny little blips there?
PHILLIPS: I can see them. Moon check. Moon check.
O'BRIEN: There's Mimas up there, OK? And the next one is Epimetheus. And then there's Enceladus.
PHILLIPS: All Greek to me.
O'BRIEN: Enceladus is all there. And there are 30 moons of Saturn. That was just three of them.
Quickly, one final shot. I want to show you a quick shot of Mars. The reason I show you this, that and then this, is that the Mars rover Opportunity is being put to sleep, deep sleep every night.
PHILLIPS: He found great pictures.
O'BRIEN: Yes. Just going to take a rest at night. They're going to turn off the heaters. Hopefully it will get a little more activity by day as it does its work. The concern is that it might get too cold. So it's kind of a risky thing. But nevertheless, they hope to keep on rolling.
PHILLIPS: Nice to have you back.
O'BRIEN: My pleasure.
PHILLIPS: Well, you might find garbage in your e-mail inbox, but would you pay for actual garbage sent to your mailbox? Stand by for a story that made us go, what's up?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PHILLIPS: Right out of the trash. Just in case you weren't aware of this, you can find a lot of trash on the Internet. But you might not know you can find actual bona fide garbage. Not just any garbage, mind you, but New York City garbage. Going for $10 a box.
Now when we found out about this site. We first said what the -- then we said, let's get this guy on the phone.
Justin Gignac is with us now, and he's going to talk more about how he became the guru of garbage, the titan of trash, the ruler of rubbish. OK, stop me.
Justin, tell us how this all happened. You were an intern at MTV. You told me you got bored. How did you come up with this idea?
JUSTIN GIGNAC: Well, I was just looking for something to package. I wanted to see if I could actually have a successful package design. So I figured the only way to do that was to find something that absolutely nobody would want. And then if I could actually convince people to purchase it with my packaging, then I'll know that it was successful.
PHILLIPS: And you've sold about 500...
GIGNAC: So far, yes.
PHILLIPS: ... of these pieces of art. How do you pick good trash and bad trash?
GIGNAC: Well, I make sure, first of all, that I don't pick up anything wet or anything that's going to rot or get moldy. And then -- so I pick a lot of dry things.
Then I also go around and try to find things that are unique and specific to New York. You know, they kind of -- represent an actual piece of the city.
PHILLIPS: Are you picky about your trash?
GIGNAC: Absolutely. I'm highly, highly selective. Actually, people have given me a hard time about it.
I actually don't mix trash from different days. Since each cube of garbage is labeled with a date the garbage is picked, I make sure I stay true to that.
And you know, I go out, I don't take anything out of garbage cans. There's plenty of trash on the street itself. So I don't have to actually go picking through the cans.
PHILLIPS: All right. So you're just a street sweep. Now, what's the most unique piece of trash that you found?
GIGNAC: I found -- I actually found a piece of Heidi Klum's mail, which I thought was kind of interesting. And someone ended up purchasing that. Hopefully didn't run into any problems for that. But yes, and I found that, and I found, you know, wine glasses and Martini glasses and undergarments and all sorts of fun stuff.
PHILLIPS: What's the grossest thing you found?
GIGNAC: I found a latex glove that was kind of slimy. And I picked up the can and found a family of roaches, too.
PHILLIPS: Who's buying your boxes of trash?
GIGNAC: Everybody, actually. People -- New Yorkers are getting it for their friends as -- kind of as a gift. Because obviously New Yorkers could get it themselves, but they're buying it for their friends to have on their desk at work or whatever. And tourists are getting it to bring home with them. And people are also getting it to send to their friends and family that don't live in the city to actually give them a piece of New York.
PHILLIPS: So what's the trashiest part of New York that you go to to find the best pieces of box trash?
GIGNAC: Actually, the trashiest place I found is right around Times Square and Rockefeller Center late at night. It seems to be a lot of leftover trash from tourists. So it's very fruitful.
PHILLIPS: And you've had to advertise that you have a girlfriend because everyone things you're nuts. Is that right?
GIGNAC: Yes. People assume that I'm a hermit, and I'm, you know, holed up in my apartment with trash piled to the ceiling. But no, I actually have a girlfriend and I'm a pretty clean guy.
PHILLIPS: Justin Gignac. You've got to log onto the site. It's absolutely hysterical. You're a pretty creative guy. I know that you're working for an advertising company now. I bet they're very proud of you, and I can't wait to see what your next project is.
GIGNAC: Thank you.
PHILLIPS: Keep me abreast, would you please, of the latest trash?
GIGNAC: Absolutely.
PHILLIPS: Thank you. Justin Gignac. Pretty creative.
All right. We're going to take a quick break. More trashy LIVE FROM, coming up.
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Aired May 27, 2004 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, ANCHOR: Welcome back to the CNN center in Atlanta. This is LIVE FROM, and I'm Miles O'Brien.
KYRA PHILLIPS, ANCHOR: And I'm Kyra Phillips. Here's what's all new this half hour.
Comedian Bill Cosby's comments about African-Americans are no laughing matter to some people. He fires back at critics who say he went too far.
O'BRIEN: And before you click that next e-mail in your box, wait till you hear what the sender can now find out about you.
But first, the top stories we're looking at right now.
A jury of six men, six women now seated in the Scott Peterson murder trial. The panel will decide whether Peterson killed his pregnant wife, Laci, and their unborn son. Opening statements begin Tuesday. The trial is expected to last about six months.
John Kerry talking security. The Democratic presidential contender addressing a meeting in Seattle. Today at the start of an 11-day campaign focusing on national security in what advisers billed as a major policy speech, Kerry said if elected he would build alliances, update the military and end the dependence on foreign oil.
A hostage drama ends in Puerto Rico. A man, armed with a knife, held a woman for three hours in a mailroom of the governor's mansion and demanded to talk with Governor Sila Calderon. The man released the woman after the governor entered negotiations.
And former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman and two others indicted in a bid rigging scheme. The charges accuse the Democrat and his chief of staff of helping a Tuscaloosa doctor rig bids while Siegelman was governor. Siegelman was narrowly defeated for reelection in 2002 by Bob Riley.
PHILLIPS: Comedian Bill Cosby's fatherly image took a stern turn last week. Cosby took African-American parents to task during a speech commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling.
CNN's Tom Foreman fills us in.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL COSBY, COMEDIAN: I see those people...
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Cosby came to public television to explain why he is speaking out against problems in the black community.
COSBY: You can't just blame white people for this, man. You can't. Whether I'm right wing or left, some people are not parenting.
FOREMAN: Back in Washington, D.C., the switchboard is still lighting up at radio station WOL every time they air the speech Cosby made which started this controversy.
COSBY: Lower economic and lower middle economic people are not holding up their end in this deal.
FOREMAN: The comedian said those words during a fund-raiser for Howard University, and went on to attack African-Americans who waste money, who use improper English, who are single parents.
COSBY: No longer is a person embarrassed because they're pregnant without a husband. No longer is a boy considered an embarrassment if he tries to run away from being the father.
FOREMAN: Cosby's comments came in the wake of two highly publicized incidents in which two young girls in Washington were hit by stray bullets. One died. The police chief criticized the culture of violence. Cosby went after the families of young men who wind up arrested.
COSBY: Where were you when he was 2? Where were you when he was 12? And how come you don't know he had a pistol?
FOREMAN (on camera): Cosby has angered some African-Americans, despite many years of fund-raising and activism in the black community.
(voice-over) But if they are waiting for an apology...
COSBY: For God's sake, turn around and let's have some meetings and say, "Brother, let me explain to you."
FOREMAN: He is making it clear, they can keep waiting.
Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: All right. Here to talk more about the uproar over Cosby's remarks, in Dallas, Roland Martin, a syndicated columnist, editor of BlackAmericaToday.com. He's also the author of "Speak Brother: A Black Man's View of America."
And in St. Louis, radio talk show host Lizz Brown. She's also an attorney, an adjunct professor in communications at Webster University.
Hello to both of you.
ROLAND MARTIN, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: How are you doing, Kyra? Good to see you again.
PHILLIPS: Very good.
Well, let's set up where both of you are coming from. Lizz, first of all, your reaction to the speech when this all started. Did it offend you? Did you think that Cosby was right on the mark?
LIZZ BROWN, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: I was very concerned about what Bill Cosby said. Because on some levels, it is self-loathing. On some level -- most levels, actually, it is an out and out lie about the African community.
And it is absolutely inappropriate for him to attack an entire race of people and define an entire race of people by the actions of a few.
PHILLIPS: Roland?
MARTIN: Kyra, he was on the money. Anybody could listen to the comments, and they understand that Bill Cosby was not painting a broad brush. The fact of the matter is he was speaking truth to what actually is taking place.
And sometimes what we have to understand is you have to have somebody who is willing to say what other folks are afraid to say. And so Bill Cosby was on the money. The comments that I've received on the web site and in e-mails, people said that he was right on it.
And frankly, you need to have somebody who is standing up for truth and righteousness and holding people accountable for their actions.
PHILLIPS: Well, of course, this controversy brought Bill Cosby to the forefront once again. He spoke last night on national television.
Let's just take a little clip of what he had to say after everyone started talking about the speech.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COSBY: I don't give a blank about those right wing white people. They can't do any more to us than they've already started with. They can't try to throw us back any farther than they've tried to throw us back. And they're doing a very good job of it.
But by the same token, for God's sake, turn around and let's have some meetings and say, "Brother, let me explain to you. You're the father of so forth and so on. Brother" -- you've got to reel them in, man. You've got to go talk to him.
"What do I do, man? I got a son, he won't listen to me."
"Hey, brother, that's your son."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: So Lizz, when we're talking about black Americans, getting into the mainstream culturally, economically, is it still the fault of white America?
Or is Cosby making a good point that, hey, parents have got to get more involved; parents have got to talk to their kids. And black America itself has to take responsibility?
BROWN: I agree with Camille Cosby when she wrote a letter after her son was killed -- was murdered, actually. She said that there are no institutions in the United States of America that are not racist institutions.
It is absurd for Bill Cosby to say at this point in our history that dealing with racism is something that we should not be dealing with or that we should not put in its proper perspective. Racism is out there.
And quite frankly, singing the song that black people -- it's black people's fault. Black people are not having meetings. Black people are not doing things. That's a song that is as old as America.
MARTIN: OK, Kyra...
BROWN: And we'll always have people that are willing to sing that song.
The fact of the matter is this. If Bill Cosby hasn't been to any meetings or on the issues that are confronting the African community, that's on Bill Cosby. There have been plenty of meetings.
Black people have paved this country's ground with blood, of all of the meetings, all of the actions, all of the things that we have done and we have been working forward -- working towards to change this country.
Bill Cosby is clearly out of touch with those of us that have been involved in America.
MARTIN: Kyra...
PHILLIPS: Should Cosby be talking more about the triumphs, Roland, versus the failings?
MARTIN: Bill Cosby did not say what she just said. What Bill Cosby is saying is we understand systematic racism. We understand the glass ceiling. We understand sexism.
But while we are fighting that battle, at the same time, we must be emphasizing the education of our children.
The problem with this...
BROWN: And who doesn't do that?
MARTIN: One second. Excuse me.
BROWN: Who doesn't do that?
MARTIN: Hold on. This is a man who has contributed 30, 40, to 50 million dollars to keep black kids in school. I don't think anybody can question his integrity when it comes to education.
BROWN: And that doesn't give him -- that doesn't give him license. That doesn't give him license to attack African people.
MARTIN: Oh, stop it.
BROWN: Donating a billion dollars, that does not give you license.
MARTIN: We have...
PHILLIPS: Roland, finish your thought. And then you brought up a good point about education. I want to roll another part of that interview in a minute.
Roland, finish your thought.
MARTIN: That's the whole point. This all revolves around education.
The problem with the Brown vs. Board of Education commemoration is that we did not understand nor celebrate the parent of pre-Brown who gave their hard earned dollars and told their children, "I may not be able to read, but I'm going to make sure that you're able to read."
And what it comes down to is, as a parent, as an uncle, as an aunt we must say I'm going to fight racism, but I'm going to make sure that you are reading and writing and learning while I'm fighting those battle, as well. That's what Bill Cosby is saying.
PHILLIPS: OK. Lizz, on the note of education -- hold on. I want to get you both to respond. But just a little more Cosby here, on that note of education.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COSBY: The mistake I made was in saying that there are people who are striving and working in the lower economic area.
The people who are not holding up their end is quite obvious to me, and that happens to be those people who don't have a clue in terms of what education, learning standard English, math and graduating from school, what that has for them in terms of empowerment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: So Roland, when you hear that, OK, shouldn't Cosby have come forward and talked about empowerment, about improving education for blacks, for talking about maybe black on black crime, creating more opportunities for diversity. You know, talking about moving forward instead of backwards?
MARTIN: Well, bottom line is he made a statement. He could have couched it in a different way. But the bottom line is the only reason we're talking about this issue is because he said it the way he said it.
Kyra, take any major stat -- drug use, sexual abuse. If you take all these major problems, when you look in the prisons, all of them have a central factor. And that is a lack of a quality education. That's the central factor.
BROWN: But...
MARTIN: So what Bill Cosby is saying if we are to empower African-Americans, it must be done through education, which requires personal responsibility and self-involvement from black parents and black family members.
PHILLIPS: Lizz?
BROWN: And as -- and as Bill Cosby said, he made an overbroad statement about an entire race of people. He said that -- he picked upon -- he assaulted poor women. He said that poor people are not holding up their end of the bargain. And nothing could be...
MARTIN: Oh, stop it.
BROWN: And nothing could be further from the truth. That's why he said what I should have said is that some people are.
Now anybody in the world, white people, Asian people, all people in the world can have a discussion about the people in their community that are not holding up their end.
But to get to that conversation, you do not begin with an assault on the entire race of people. And then you do not say, inaccurate things about your people.
For instance, when Bill Cosby said that poor women, poor people are out here purchasing $500 shoes, first of all, I've never seen a pair of $500 tennis shoes.
MARTIN: OK, Lizz. They've got a $500 throwback jersey. Stop it.
BROWN: Well, I'm talking about tennis shoes and what he said, not what you're interpreting him to say. He said that poor people are purchasing $500 tennis shoes instead of trying to get to education. Where is the proof of that? Where is the evidence of that?
MARTIN: Oh, come on, Lizz.
PHILLIPS: Roland, final thought here. Something that just came to me -- I was watching BET over the weekend. And I was caught up in this whole video craze.
And for a number of hours, there were these videos that rolled on and on and on. And it was the -- it was the gold and the T-shirts and, you know, talking about pimps and dressed, you know, scantily clad. And I thought, oh, my gosh, this is not the -- this is totally what Bill Cosby was talking about. This is the image he's trying to fight.
BROWN: No, it's not.
MARTIN: Excuse me -- Excuse me, Lizz.
BROWN: Most white kids are into rap. More white kids do more purchasing of rap videos and are into rap more than black and so forth.
MARTIN: OK. Fine, Lizz.
BROWN: To put this on the black people, it's inaccurate.
MARTIN: OK...
PHILLIPS: Final thoughts, Roland. Final thoughts, Roland.
MARTIN: White kids are into rap. Black kids are into rap.
BROWN: More so than blacks.
MARTIN: But the bottom line is, African-Americans are lagging behind educationally, and it is -- it is important that African- Americans step up, man up and woman up to get our kids educated to advance in this society.
BROWN: And you don't assault them in order to get that done. And that's what Bill Cosby did.
MARTIN: OK. He said all and not some. That's semantic.
BROWN: That's an assault. It's an assault.
MARTIN: That's semantics. The fact of the matter is the educational achievement gap is major.
BROWN: It's an assault. It's an assault, and it's not true.
MARTIN: That's the bottom line. I'm talking about educating black people, not criticizing Bill Cosby.
BROWN: I wish that he would.
MARTIN: That's the focus.
BROWN: And I wish that he would, too. And if he were focusing on education, he would know the things that people like me that have been out here fighting on this issue of education.
We know that we've been fighting on this front. Simply because he hasn't seen it doesn't mean that it's not happening.
MARTIN: He gives $50 billion to black education and you say he's not doing enough. Way to go, Lizz. Way to go. Come on.
BROWN: If he doesn't know what's happening in education, then clearly $50 million hasn't given an education to him about the reality of his own community.
MARTIN: Well, Kyra, Bill Cosby has given a wake-up call to black America.
BROWN: It has isolated him. It has isolated him...
MARTIN: Kyra, Bill Cosby has given a wake-up call to black America, and they should heed the advice.
BROWN: No, he hasn't. Black America has already been well awake.
PHILLIPS: Well, if anything -- if anything, Lizz Brown -- Lizz Brown and Roland Martin, the two of you, have gone beyond the call of duty here and gotten a great conversation. Education wise, success wise, you guys represent successful black Americans. And my hats off to both of you.
BROWN: Black people represent successful people.
MARTIN: Thanks, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Thanks, guys.
BROWN: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: This just in to CNN, according to our reporters on the ground in Baghdad, a convoy carrying a female member of the Iraqi Governing Council was ambushed earlier today after leaving Najaf on its way back to Baghdad.
A total of four people in the convoy were killed. But the member of the Iraqi Governing Council, a female member of that council, Dr. Salama al-Khafaji, seen here, did in fact survive that assassination attempt. Just to underscore that point.
The apparent target of the assassination attempt, Salama al- Khafaji, survived the attempt. Four others were killed, however, in that ambush on the road from Najaf to Baghdad. We'll give you more details as we get them.
Ever think nobody reads your e-mails? Well, now you can find out if you're right. How to do that and how to stop people from doing it to you, perhaps more important, coming up.
And it's gorgeous. Solar system enchantress Saturn. She's winning me over. She shows more than ever, a breathtaking centerfold of sorts. She's Miss May. A provocative peek into deep space next. She's rather curvaceous, too. And "American Idol" fans know what Simon thinks about this, but we want to know what you think. Is last night's winner, Fantasia, the best idol ever? E-mail us at LiveFrom@CNN.com and we will be sharing those e-mails with everyone next hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: A little Hitchcock moment for space producer Dave Santucci in Control Room B.
Well, now, I know you've all missed it, the Mars minute. It hasn't been around in awhile -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: I've missed it tremendously.
O'BRIEN: You're pining away. A moment ago she asked for a hall pass to take a little break. But she couldn't miss this.
PHILLIPS: Yes, I did.
O'BRIEN: Today we've got much, much more because there's just such pent-up demand. So are we starting the clock or not? But -- no clock. Just imagine a couple of minutes. All right?
PHILLIPS: Oh, no!
O'BRIEN: We're going to start with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which is -- this is brand new images. This is a telescope, as you know, Kyra, that focuses on the infrared realm of the deepest parts of the universe.
And what we're seeing here are, this is like a planetary nursery. These are little baby planets that we're homing in on here. About 300 newborn stars, first of all, uncovered.
Those are 13,700 light-years from earth. In other words, don't bother trying to communicate with them. You'd be long gone by the time the signal got there, much less returned.
And also, the formation of this planet. Check out this baby planet. This is just a little toddler of only a million years old. The Earth, as you know, Kyra, is what?
PHILLIPS: I didn't hear the question because our producer was talking to me.
O'BRIEN: How old? Do you know how old the Earth is?
PHILLIPS: Billions and billions and billions of years old.
O'BRIEN: Four point five billion years old.
PHILLIPS: Yes.
O'BRIEN: So a million-year-old planet is a planet in its earliest formation stages. OK. That's enough of Spitzer. Spitzer is the man, by the way, the real Spitzer, the human, invented the concept of the Hubble Space Telescope.
And if you look at the top of your image here, that is a picture of Saturn from the Hubble. This particular shot was shot on March 22, a billion or so miles away. You've got a great image showing the rings.
This one down here comes from the Cassini spacecraft. As it homes in on Mars, it will arrive in the orbit of Saturn on June 30.
Let's go to the next image, and I'm going to show you -- I'm controlling the next image. I can do that myself. So let's do it.
And as we go to the next image, I'm going to show you exactly what this spacecraft is going to do. It's going to fly right through the rings, twice. And then enter the orbit of Saturn for four years, do all kinds of science, drop a probe on one of the moons, Titan. It's going to give some interesting things.
All right. Now, we're going to do a quick moon check here. Can you see those teeny little blips there?
PHILLIPS: I can see them. Moon check. Moon check.
O'BRIEN: There's Mimas up there, OK? And the next one is Epimetheus. And then there's Enceladus.
PHILLIPS: All Greek to me.
O'BRIEN: Enceladus is all there. And there are 30 moons of Saturn. That was just three of them.
Quickly, one final shot. I want to show you a quick shot of Mars. The reason I show you this, that and then this, is that the Mars rover Opportunity is being put to sleep, deep sleep every night.
PHILLIPS: He found great pictures.
O'BRIEN: Yes. Just going to take a rest at night. They're going to turn off the heaters. Hopefully it will get a little more activity by day as it does its work. The concern is that it might get too cold. So it's kind of a risky thing. But nevertheless, they hope to keep on rolling.
PHILLIPS: Nice to have you back.
O'BRIEN: My pleasure.
PHILLIPS: Well, you might find garbage in your e-mail inbox, but would you pay for actual garbage sent to your mailbox? Stand by for a story that made us go, what's up?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PHILLIPS: Right out of the trash. Just in case you weren't aware of this, you can find a lot of trash on the Internet. But you might not know you can find actual bona fide garbage. Not just any garbage, mind you, but New York City garbage. Going for $10 a box.
Now when we found out about this site. We first said what the -- then we said, let's get this guy on the phone.
Justin Gignac is with us now, and he's going to talk more about how he became the guru of garbage, the titan of trash, the ruler of rubbish. OK, stop me.
Justin, tell us how this all happened. You were an intern at MTV. You told me you got bored. How did you come up with this idea?
JUSTIN GIGNAC: Well, I was just looking for something to package. I wanted to see if I could actually have a successful package design. So I figured the only way to do that was to find something that absolutely nobody would want. And then if I could actually convince people to purchase it with my packaging, then I'll know that it was successful.
PHILLIPS: And you've sold about 500...
GIGNAC: So far, yes.
PHILLIPS: ... of these pieces of art. How do you pick good trash and bad trash?
GIGNAC: Well, I make sure, first of all, that I don't pick up anything wet or anything that's going to rot or get moldy. And then -- so I pick a lot of dry things.
Then I also go around and try to find things that are unique and specific to New York. You know, they kind of -- represent an actual piece of the city.
PHILLIPS: Are you picky about your trash?
GIGNAC: Absolutely. I'm highly, highly selective. Actually, people have given me a hard time about it.
I actually don't mix trash from different days. Since each cube of garbage is labeled with a date the garbage is picked, I make sure I stay true to that.
And you know, I go out, I don't take anything out of garbage cans. There's plenty of trash on the street itself. So I don't have to actually go picking through the cans.
PHILLIPS: All right. So you're just a street sweep. Now, what's the most unique piece of trash that you found?
GIGNAC: I found -- I actually found a piece of Heidi Klum's mail, which I thought was kind of interesting. And someone ended up purchasing that. Hopefully didn't run into any problems for that. But yes, and I found that, and I found, you know, wine glasses and Martini glasses and undergarments and all sorts of fun stuff.
PHILLIPS: What's the grossest thing you found?
GIGNAC: I found a latex glove that was kind of slimy. And I picked up the can and found a family of roaches, too.
PHILLIPS: Who's buying your boxes of trash?
GIGNAC: Everybody, actually. People -- New Yorkers are getting it for their friends as -- kind of as a gift. Because obviously New Yorkers could get it themselves, but they're buying it for their friends to have on their desk at work or whatever. And tourists are getting it to bring home with them. And people are also getting it to send to their friends and family that don't live in the city to actually give them a piece of New York.
PHILLIPS: So what's the trashiest part of New York that you go to to find the best pieces of box trash?
GIGNAC: Actually, the trashiest place I found is right around Times Square and Rockefeller Center late at night. It seems to be a lot of leftover trash from tourists. So it's very fruitful.
PHILLIPS: And you've had to advertise that you have a girlfriend because everyone things you're nuts. Is that right?
GIGNAC: Yes. People assume that I'm a hermit, and I'm, you know, holed up in my apartment with trash piled to the ceiling. But no, I actually have a girlfriend and I'm a pretty clean guy.
PHILLIPS: Justin Gignac. You've got to log onto the site. It's absolutely hysterical. You're a pretty creative guy. I know that you're working for an advertising company now. I bet they're very proud of you, and I can't wait to see what your next project is.
GIGNAC: Thank you.
PHILLIPS: Keep me abreast, would you please, of the latest trash?
GIGNAC: Absolutely.
PHILLIPS: Thank you. Justin Gignac. Pretty creative.
All right. We're going to take a quick break. More trashy LIVE FROM, coming up.
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