Bill Cosby calls for men to be fathers

WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 (UPI) -- Entertainer Bill Cosby Sunday said many ills in U.S. black families can be traced to children raised without fathers, many of whom are incarcerated.

Cosby appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" with Harvard Medical School psychiatry professor Alvin Poussaint -- with whom he co-authored the new book "Come On, People, on the Path from Victims to Victors." The Emmy-winning comedian said children in single-parent homes often don't get the guidance they need.

"If you have this as generational, fatherless situation -- unwed father or whatever -- but the male is not there, then it registers on another person -- on the child -- as abandonment," Cosby said.

One-quarter of black American males reportedly are under the supervision of the U.S. criminal justice system.

Poussaint said many U.S. fathers "don't even know what to do as a father because many of them grew up in homes that were fatherless."

"I think a lot of these males kind of have a father hunger, and actually grieve that they don't have a father," said Poussaint. "I think, later, a lot of that turns into anger -- why aren't you with me?"