BILL COSBY: Shilling New Book, Rattling Cages, Taking No Prisoners & Talking to Oprah

By Karu F. Daniels, AOL Black Voices

bill cosby appears on oprah winfrey show Expect more eyebrows to be raised when Bill Cosby sits in the hot seat with Oprah Winfrey this week.

The legendary entertainer, who is the co-author of the new book 'Come on, People,' is all fired up and speaking out on the controversy over his 2004 remarks about the black community.

"The only thing I regretted was I thought that I was talking to just my people," said the legendary entertainer largely known as "America's Favorite Dad" -- which airs nationally Oct. 17.

"I said, okay, I'm gonna talk to my people and I guess there were some black people who saw some white people sitting around and then they decided that I was dragging out dirty laundry," he continued.

The "dirty laundry" in question are the comments, made during an appearance at the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition's annual conference in the summer of 2004, where he said: "Let me tell you something, your dirty laundry gets out of school at 2:30 every day, it's cursing and calling each other [the N-word] as they're walking up and down the street. They think they're hip. They can't read. They can't write. They're laughing and giggling, and they're going nowhere."

The remarks sent shockwaves through the African-American community, stirring much debate in the media about Cosby and whether or not he had the right to speak such words in a public forum.

On Winfrey's top-rated talk show, Cosby is uncensored, unplugged and utterly unapologetic. Here's some dialogue.

OPRAH: Did you think that you were dragging out dirty laundry?

BILL: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. And have you ever seen dirty laundry?

OPRAH: It's bad, isn't it? It's smelly. BILL: And we have to clean it, don't we?

OPRAH: Yeah. What -- what did you think though, Bill, when everybody really came after you? What did you -- did you think?

BILL: I thought they were crazy.

OPRAH: Did you. (Laughter.)

BILL: I said -- I said, these people have lost their minds.

According to publisher Thomas Nelson, 'Come on, People,' authored with Alvin F. Poussaint, is "always engaging, and loaded with heart-piercing stories of the problems facing many communities."

The hardcover tome hits newsstands this week.

"Our children are trying to tell us something...and we're not listening," Cosby said to Winfrey, while also taking on topics including absent fathers, teenage pregnancy, violence, the "n" word, and spanking.