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Bill Cosby has made many enemies in recent years for airing the black community's "dirty laundry" and calling out what he sees as its apathy toward teenage pregnancy, dropout rates and obscene rap lyrics. But he says he "couldn't care less."

"All the anti-Cosby screaming seems to be coming from the people saying the curse words or talking about having sex without a forethought," he said in a telephone interview. "And sometimes you have to be blunt because people are used to hearing (civic leaders) talk softly. Their reaction is, 'You just said that, so let's move on.' Someone has to yell."

The 70-year-old funnyman will host a scholarship benefit Friday for N.C. A&T. The next day, many kids who were weened on "The Cosby Show" will hear him deliver the school's commencement address, though the man onstage might take a harsher tone than Dr. Cliff Huxtable did on the popular 1980s NBC sitcom.

Cosby has long been known for his family-oriented material and never using profanity in his comedy act. He shot to fame in the 1960s with a series of comedy albums that were more likely to feature routines on playground perils than race relations. But he also was hailed as a pioneer for his work on "I Spy," the first television show to feature a black man and a white man paired on equal terms, and for being among the first black comics to achieve national stardom without pandering to crass stereotypes.

In 2004, however, he made headlines when, during an event commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case, he lambasted what he saw as the black community's failure to address a number of simmering issues such as poverty, crime and education.

Among the comments he made was, "These people are not parenting. They are buying things for their kids -- $500 sneakers for what? And won't spend $200 for 'Hooked on Phonics.' ... They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English."

The statements received a mixed reception from black leaders, some praising him for bringing to light an uncomfortable discussion, others dismissing him as an elitist.

"He should pick on someone in his own class," author and Georgetown University sociology professor Michael Eric Dyson was quoted as saying in a 2005 New York Times article. "If he had come out swinging at Condi Rice or Colin Powell, they could defend themselves. But he's beating up on poor black people, the most vulnerable people in this nation. And why jump on them?"

Dyson further assailed the entertainer in a book titled "Is Bill Cosby Right? Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost its Mind?" in which the author also criticized other upper-class African Americans for looking down on their less-fortunate counterparts.

But Cosby strongly defends what he has said and last year co-authored a book with Harvard University psychiatry professor Alvin F. Poussaint titled "Come On People," exhorting African Americans to avoid falling into the trap of victimhood. He also is releasing a hip-hop album (sans profanity), "Cosby Narratives Vol. 1: State of Emergency," which, according to an Associated Press story, will emphasize themes such as self-respect and education.

Cosby dismisses any notion that he's looking down on the poor, saying his problem is with people who are too accepting of teenage pregnancy and single-parent households and too lax about education.

"It used to be that when we (African Americans) wanted education badly, we had to get it in the dark of night or in some hidden place, and it helped liberate us," he said. "And if you're not guiding your child to be better than you, to get more than you, then what you've got is poor parenting. And another thing, if our males can get together in packs of eight or 10 and stand on a corner in some kind of gang to work drugs, why can't they can't they get together in packs and study towards graduating from high school? That's something I want to see more of."

Too often, he said, people fall back on the legacy of slavery to explain their problems. And though he does acknowledge many socio-economic difficulties are rooted in that tragic history, he said what doesn't happen often enough is African Americans pointing fingers at others in their own communities.

"If a policeman shoots one of our children, and does it illegally, people get upset," he said. "But how about the young men selling drugs, young women being knocked out of motherhood and out of responsibility by crack and cocaine and heroin and alcohol? We're being attacked by these things. And the color of the people selling that stuff happens to be our own color."

Contact Robert C. Lopez at 691-5091 or robert.lopez@news-record.com