Black viewers were not foolish to enjoy The Cosby Show or to need what Bill Cosby was selling
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"Even if you did not live in Compton or New York or Chicago in the 1980s, the racist tropes used to legitimize the war on drugs affected all Black Americans," says Tressie McMillan Cottom, one of the interview subjects in W. Kamau Bell's We Need to Talk About Cosby. "We were not wrong to look for progress in culture as economic progress stalled and declined. We were only human. What we wanted from Cosby is what a child wants from a parent: an illusion of security. But as the Bible says, there is a time for putting away childish things. His carefully cultivated facade was always as much about what we needed from him as it was about anything he created for us. Adults have to face reality. We Need to Talk About Cosby is a moment to start dealing with that reality. 'America’s Dad' was a fiction. A lot of women paid a price for our believing in it. It is never too late to say that the price was too high."
TOPICS: Bill Cosby, Showtime, The Cosby Show, We Need to Talk About Cosby, Documentaries
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