NEW YORK – On a night where President Obama addressed the 20th National Action Network conference, Bill Cosby nevertheless stole the commander in chief‘s thunder when he ripped off an impassioned, unapologetic speech about intergenerational dysfunction and criminality in the black community.

The legendary actor, activist and comedian incited loud and prolonged choruses of “ooohs,” “ahhhs” and applause when he tore into black Christians about their so-called adherence to their faith — all while living in drug-infested, crime-ridden neighborhoods with dilapidated educational facilities and other deplorable conditions.

“You cannot go to the black Muslim neighborhoods and sell drugs. They shut down drug dealers,” Cosby said, comparing Christian and black Muslin neighborhoods. He was inferring to black Muslims being subjected to nationwide vilification despite cleaning up their communities. “They don’t carry guns. That’s a myth. They just walk up with their sunglasses and bean pies and say, ‘Brother you can’t do that here,’ and the drug dealers, even with their guns and rap music, the Muslims run him out of town [and] to the emergency ward.”

Cosby, one of America’s most celebrated comedians ever, then caused the black-tie room full of dignitaries, celebrities and athletes to recoil — some out of shock, others out of appreciation — when he tore off a piece of black Christian hide for doing little to nothing as iniquity and criminality rages around them and swallows up black children.

“There are too many preachers [but] not enough service,“ Cosby began after the roar of shock and applause died down. “Tell me where Jesus would allow drug dealing on the corner? Tell me where Jesus would allow people to shoot guns for no reason, missing and then hitting a child who is paralyzed for life? And we don’t do anything but have a funeral. But let a cop shoot [a black man], and you set his car on fire and burn up the police stations. Contradictions.

“The black Muslims take time to explain who they are, so that by the time the children are 12 years old, male or female, they are proud of who and what they happen to be,” he said.

And, normally, what a man or woman thinks of themselves internally is reflected externally, including the neighborhoods where they live. So look around at yourselves: what do the people in your neighborhood think of themselves?

–terry shropshire