Bill Cosby was on CNN’s “State of the Union with Candy Crowley” to discuss everything from the presidential election to the tragic shooting of Trayvon Martin. Using some strong words to comment on the job the first African American commander-in-chief was doing, Cosby said, “There are people who actively go out of their way to undermine him by saying things that they can’t prove.” He said that Obama’s “just trying to do his job,” but many obstacles are standing in his way, no matter what he does. The former television superstar predicted Obama would be a much better and more effective leader in his second term.
When the conversation shifted to the shooting of Trayvon Martin, Cosby, who also lost a son to gun violence, tackled the issue of guns in America head on. Choosing to focus on the one fact that George Zimmerman shot Trayvon, Cosby brought up what he perceives to be an issue with gun ownership mentality:
“When a person has a gun, sometimes their mind clicks that this thing… it will win arguments and straighten people out. And then in the wrong hands, in the wrong mind, it’s death, it’s wounding people. People who don’t have money to buy a decent meal for themselves, yet someone will put an illegal gun in their hand? And we in this country have got to continue to be out there in the streets about the gun.”
Adding that people do have a right to own a gun in their home, Cosby mentioned that some of the racial elements being spotlighted in the media were overplayed and don’t actually answer any real questions. “What is solved by saying he’s [Zimmerman] a racist? That’s why he shot the boy. What solves that? This [the gun], and what is he doing with it, and who taught him and told him how to behave with this, it doesn’t make any difference whether he’s racist or not racist,” Cosby said. “If he’s scared to death, and not a racist, it’s still a confrontational provoking of something.”
