By the time The Cosby Show premiered in 1984, I was already a huge fan of Bill Cosby from his comedy albums. I don't remember when I was introduced to those records, but I remember that I had a cassette with some of his most famous bits so I might have been ten or eleven. The timing of my fandom doesn't matter; what matters is the fact that my parents saw Cosby as being "safe" for their young son.
There is a conversation (still ongoing) in our culture about what can and what can't be said, and it's an important conversation. What makes it important is that it revolves around a Great Truth. Neils Bohr is credited with saying, "The opposite of a truth is a lie; the opposite of a Great Truth is also true." Bill Cosby's side of that Great Truth - articulated by Eddie Murphy years later in this clip which is full of "filth, flarn, filth" - was informed by the point of view of a man who was deeply invested in educating and lifting up children.
It was Cosby's pedigree as an educator, and his attitude as a parent, and his aversion to "blue" language in his comedy that made my parents determine that it was safe for me, as their pre-teen son, to listen to his records and watch his TV show.
Of course, there were a lot of other things about Cosby and his show that made my parents feel safe. There was a minimum of what they might think of as activism in Cosby's world. There were plenty of those moments where Cosby's TV wife, Claire Huxtable, would give The Look to someone - but the targets were easy TV-villains. (And woe to the TV-villain who drew the Claire Huxtable side-eye!)
On the positive side of Cosby's ledger, his work and his "safeness" gave me an entry point to a lot of things I still love and appreciate; jazz, smart black women, and "safe" comedy about families. (I have to admit that I see a lot of Cosby's approach in the way I told the stories in my own book.)
Tragically, though, his conviction on sexual assualt charges last year throws a lot of cold water over the positive side of his legacy. While it would be a lie to say his crimes undo the good work he did over the years, it would be a Great Truth to point out that his story illustrates the flaw in the way we all approach the cultural conversation about what is and isn't "safe."
For me, the realization that Cosby wasn't perfect came years ago; and along with it came the realization that my family (myself included) treating him as "one of the good ones" was born out of the racism we did not want to admit to. In fact, the incident that precipitated that realization was the so-called "pound cake speech" he gave in 2004; the same year that the sexual assault Cosby was convicted of took place.
I'm not going to re-litigate the fallout from that speech here, but I came away from it with an understanding that the values that made this man seem "safe" to my white, middle-class family in the 1980s did not translate to the kind of respect and compassion that actually makes someone respectable. Finding out fifteen years later that the man giving that speech was drugging and raping women at the same time just drives home the point: we weren't judging him on the content of his character; we were judging him on his ability to perform his role as one of the good ones.
And of course, one of the good ones means one of us.
Just dwell for a minute on who "us" includes and why.
Which brings us back around to the conversation about what can and what can't be said.
Bill Cosby's old comedy routines still feel important and relevant to me, because, as a kid, I felt like they conveyed my father's humanity to me in a way that I might have otherwise missed. By the time I became a truly rebellious teenager, Cosby's caricatures of himself and of his own father had permeated my psyche, allowing me to realize that my father felt just as lost and clueless in the world as I did. We weren't adversaries when he was trying to steer me into adulthood - we were traveling companions, lost on the same road.
Cosby's "safeness," though, created a gateway from which I could understand the edgier, dirtier comedians, like Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor. If you didn't watch the Eddie Murphy clip above, he does a pretty decent impersonation of both Cosby and Pryor, rather brilliantly highlighting (and mocking) his own style along the way. My parents would probably disapprove of my taking advantage of that gateway, but I learned some important things from comparing these three comedians.
Listening to Richard Pryor made me extremely uncomfortable--it still does. That didn't come from his frequent cursing or his absurd and psychedelic storytelling as much as it came from his approach to describing his own dark view of the world. The sublime discomfort I experienced hearing Richard Pryor forced me to use critical thinking to sort out why the things he was saying were the opposite of Great Truths. That habit of critical thinking made me more selective about Cosby's work than I had been, so by the time his tragic flaws came to light, I had already stopped viewing him as a heroic figure.
And I have to say that while listening to Eddie Murphy made me giggle...his work ultimately didn't hold any long term value for me. If anything demonstrates the emptiness of deriving cheap laughs from curse words, gross jokes, and debasing those around you (thinking of his "bush bitch" routine for one example), it's the career of Eddie Murphy.
So where does that put me in this great national conversation? I don't think it makes sense to tell anyone to simply stop talking. I look at the things that they say, and how the superficially "dirty" things are rarely as damaging or long-lasting as the underlying bad ideas. I look at how events have panned out (how heroes are built up and fall) and I also don't think it makes sense to keep repeating the bad ideas.
I guess the answer is to be open to listening, seek out a diversity of voices, be critical in how you deal with what you hear, and be flexible enough to allow that you will probably have to change your mind and admit you were wrong somewhere along the line.
Of course, after reading this, if you feel like you need a few minutes with a good comedian, I can recommend W. Kamau Bell - I can't guarantee he's "safe" for you, but he'll challenge you.
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