TR: There is no Cosby Show today, no strong black family on TV. Does today’s entertainment culture contribute to this state of affairs?

I don’t know. I do know that because of A Different World and The Cosby Show back to back that enrollment in black colleges went up 50 percent all around. Now, Cliff and Clair are married. But somewhere along the line in some neighborhoods, the male drops and the female is head of the house. And at some universities the ratio of female to male at some are as high as 70 to 30 ….

Years ago, Jesse Jackson, [Louis] Farrakhan and [Rev. Al] Sharpton and maybe someone from the NAACP called a meeting with the rappers and these people. And I’m saying, ‘Hello, black fellows—you’re talking about your black women.’ I’m not talking about the ones where there are lyrics and they’re pretty good. But in terms of what are you saying except: ‘You’re wet; I’m wet, let’s do it.’ We got 28 percent in terms of venereal disease that our children are giving each other. We’re knocking each other out of the box. Sexually.

TR: Is it harder for young black women, or for young black men to be successful?

Theo was the one who caused this ‘regular people’ problem. But on the first show, Sondra is at Princeton. The next child is Denise. She’s got problems, too. [Cliff] has to go around that whole house and deal with kids. So it wasn’t just the males—that house was loaded with women ….

But there’s a need to look at the numbers where the children happen to be failing. There’s a need for us to address and attack why some children cannot fathom jobs or a career, and we need to … discuss it with the children. These are our children … I’ve seen the difference with the parents who give love and recognize where the dangers happen to be and do their darndest to protect them … So these things have to be taught. Our black children, by the age of 12, should get from the home as much black history as possible, so they feel like they know their blackness and know the black people who have done well and not only succeeded but came from damn near worse conditions than where they’ve come from.

TR: Fatherhood is very important to both you and to the president. Have you ever spoken with him about this?

I could throw a dart in a room and hit somebody and ask: ‘Do you know your father?’ And it’s: ‘He’s not in our life.’ People need to do something about it, instead of saying it and walking away as though it’s a part of life. This is a part of life we need to make corrections on. Our children are trying to tell us something.

If we have a black president and black first lady and black first children and black first grandmother and all that, we have got to pull up and say: ‘This is it everybody; this is the example; we had excuses before, but here it is.’

If you don’t teach your children about it, we’re never getting better. It’s not on Obama. It’s really still on us. And there are many who don’t like the idea that somebody brings up all these ills. It proves that our people are not perfect. Dislike me for whatever harshness. But I want people to take note. Somebody’s gotta say, ‘Don’t go there.’ When you say it nicely—they keep going there.

Read Part I of Cosby’s exclusive interview with The Root.

Dayo Olopade is Washington reporter for The Root.