An African American family is an American family
Gosh, has it been 25 years since “The Cosby Show” debuted? I remember this show fondly. It was the first time that I saw a family that truly seemed like mine on television and, perhaps, as Phylicia Rashad says in this clip from “The Today Show,” the first time many people realized that “An African American family is an American Family.”
About Tami
Tami Winfrey Harris writes about race, feminism, politics and pop culture at the blog What Tami Said. Her work has also appeared online at The Guardian’s Comment is Free, Ms. Magazine blog, Newsweek, Change.org, Huffington Post and Racialicious. She is a graduate of the Iowa State University Greenlee School of Journalism. She is mom to two awesome stepkids and spends her spare time researching her family history and cultivating a righteous 'fro.
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Ouch. Now I really feel old.
Shocking (or maybe disappointing) that we still need someone to utter this sentence in 2009. Did you catch Keshia and Raven’s facial expressions as Phylicia spoke it?
Still, as my family watched the show every week, I don’t remember thinking that there was anything particularly special about the fact that the Huxtable family was African American.
Though I’d like to believe that I had an early start to anti-racist thinking (I’m 34 now), I’ll be honest and admit that it’s probably more likely that this is just white privilege speaking…
I didn’t notice anything special about “Keshia and Raven’s facial expressions as Phylicia spoke.”
Just a confirmation of what Phylicia stated.
As a co-founder of the Ethnic Dialogues at the Univ. of Kentucky (http://www.studycircles.org/en/Article.2.aspx), I remember one dialogue group in which a White female student stated “My uncle won’t allow his children to watch ‘The Cosby Show’…because Blacks don’t live like that.”
His words echo the stereotype that most Whites have of African Americans: poor, crime-prone, welfare recipients, substance abuse, etc. I hear these labels on a daily basis from White callers to a local talk radio program.
Of the approximate 40 million Blacks in America, about 25% or 10 million live in poverty. The other 30 million are in the working-, middle-, and upper-classes.
The White-owned media, whether radio, movies, magazines, sitcoms, books, etc. tends to overwhelmingly focus on poor Blacks….which leads most people to believe that “most Blacks are poor.”
After decades of TV families like the Waltons, Father Knows Best, the Brady Bunch, Leave It to Beaver, etc., showing an middle upper-class African American family had to be quite a shock to most White viewers.
Rashad’s words were right on the money.
As I understand it, there’s a Black section of Martha’s Vineyard that has existed for decades, yet it has never been shown to the masses of Americans (higher social class than the Huxtables).
Gotta agree with “JennMomto3″ that to me (and I’m well over a decade older than she is as a 40-something) the beauty of the show was always the timeless, hilarious writing and universal, seamless, depiction of ‘family’—not any singular race message or contrived ‘trying too hard to make a point’ scripting.
The same level-headed aplomb that Mr. Cosby and Felicia Rashad brought to the interview, they also brought to the show…
…A lack of self-consciousness about race, and more of a knowing shoulder shrug as if to say ‘normalize, schmormalize, we’re just waiting for society to ‘catch up,’ as she so poignantly phrased.
Can’t thank you enough for posting this clip; as I was planning to Tivo it and zoned.
Before he was the beloved ‘Mr. Cosby, big shot PhD’ he was simply ‘The Cos’ in my household, as our all time favorite figure…Living overseas for a stint my bro and I used to buy his comedy albums in the ginza and perform his monologues for each other (TV was in Japanese)—
In fact, I did “Noah” for the Sr. Talent show in Hawaii ‘back in the day’…and now, have his shows in my Netflix queue to share with my teen as to what ‘good TV’ looks like…(sure isn’t ‘Gossip Girl’ ya know? bleh)
I still have some of the Cosby show shooting scripts that I use with kids to show how to write ‘authentic conversational dialog’ too…He’s imprinted my life forever, as has the show.
P.S. And I’ll also add…Is Obama the new Cliff Huxtable? I think I have a blog story there…
http://www.ShapingYouth.org
I think that the amount of racism has decreased significantly in this nation. Unfortunatly, assumptions that white families continue to hold racist feelings toward black families is counteractive and ironic. It’s not entirely white peoples faults that there is still a negative perception of African-American culture i.e. hip hop and rap culture isn’t exactly beneficial to this sort of movement.
In such a multi-cultural society, it’s time to truly know each other, by which I mean ALL races. Not the demonized one of two generations ago.
Ryan,
This…
It’s not entirely white peoples faults that there is still a negative perception of African-American culture i.e. hip hop and rap culture isn’t exactly beneficial to this sort of movement.
…is all kinds of wrong. Really? Black culture is defined by a musical genre–one that is created for and consumed by primarily suburban white kids? Do death metal or the antics of old hair bands like Poison represent white culture and set back race relations, too?
Cosby Show is timeless. I can quote so many lines and favorite episodes. Cosby and A Different World were what we called The Black Power Hour. Never missed it. Great television. Get me a boxed set of all 8 seasons please.
Ms. Rashad was totally schooling Matt Lauer. I I know he was just asking the question for the benefit of the viewing public but she was not amused.
And Tami re: Ryan’s comments, well said. To blame hip-hop for the negaitve portrayal of people of color is laughable. What was the excuse in the jazz era, or in the swing era, or in the era of Motown? The media does not paint white people in a negative light because Ozzy Osbourne bit the head off a bat, or because of Britney’s antics, or the antics of any performers, actors, celebrities etc.