As The Cosby Show celebrates its 25th anniversary this coming Sunday, star Bill Cosby is posed the question:
Did the black family that he presented to the American television-viewing audience in the 1980s pave the way for President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama?
No, Cosby replies.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and the movement he led in the 1960s, had a lot more to do with the election of the first African American president, Cosby suggests.
But without the legacy of former President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and "the Republican Party and what it did to people,'' Cosby adds, Obama might not have won the White House.
"Along comes this man and this woman, and he is what the people are looking for,'' Cosby says in an interview with The Root. "The people [were] trying to get out of this mess, and it didn't make a difference to them what color [Obama was], if he created a feeling of honesty and as he said, change.''
Cosby, the comedian whose Emmy Award-winning sit-com, The Cosby Show, ran for eight seasons on NBC - from 1984-92 - portrayed the fictional African American family of Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable comfortably ensconced in middle-class American life.
Cosby sat for an interview with The Root, an online magazine whose editor-in-chief, Harvard Prof. Henry Louis Gates Jr., recently gained some national attention of his own in an arrest at his home in Cambridge, Mass., which Obama denounced as another instance of racial profiling in America - the president later apologizing for his choice of words in saying police had "acted stupidly,'' and invited Gates and arresting officer Sgt. James Crowley to the White House for a beer.
The Root asked Cosby if his show, displaying a "black middle class to a mainstream audience who might otherwise only have seen them as gangbangers, shift-workers or athletes,'' had paved the way for Obama. Without Cliff and Clair Huxtable, "would there have been Barack and Michelle?''
"My answer is yes, he would be,'' Cosby says in the intervew.
"Yes. Because before Cliff and Clair, there was Dr. King. ''
Cosby's talk could not be more timely, arriving at a time when former President Jimmy Carter is suggesting that the most extreme criticism of Obama is coming from people who cannot accept that a black man is president. "Jimmy Carter, True Son of the South, Hits Nail on the Head,'' reads one piece in the newest edition of The Root. The White House, for its part says criticism for Obama is not explained by the "color of his skin.''
Cosby says the path for Obama's election was opened decades ago.
"And that movement brought down a whole lot of things that were against black people. In those participations against racism, against segregation, there were people of all colors, cultures, races, creeds, who joined, marched, took hits, gave money, were fired from jobs, were called communist and anti-American by the New York Times and the Washington Post,'' Cosby says.
" Because the government and institutions were treating black people negatively. So when these people joined together and they began to win, they also married ... integrating and marrying, so that it was Latin, brown people, black people, white, mixing. I think that this United States has come to a point--or had--where this man and his wife could do it.
"You know, I'm not sure if (Obama) didn't have a George W. and a Cheney and that Republican Party and what it did to people, he could have been elected,'' Cosby adds. "More than anything, I think people also woke up, and they were being used; they were using soldiers and holding them up as shields to keep this inept president and vice president. The nation became very, very tired of this foolishness--and they were tired of being used.
"And so along comes this man and this woman, and he is what the people are looking for,'' Cosby says. "The people [were] trying to get out of this mess, and it didn't make a difference to them what color [Obama was], if he created a feeling of honesty and as he said, change.''
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2009/09/bill_cosby_obama_has_bush_to_t.html
Did the black family that he presented to the American television-viewing audience in the 1980s pave the way for President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama?
No, Cosby replies.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and the movement he led in the 1960s, had a lot more to do with the election of the first African American president, Cosby suggests.
But without the legacy of former President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and "the Republican Party and what it did to people,'' Cosby adds, Obama might not have won the White House.
"Along comes this man and this woman, and he is what the people are looking for,'' Cosby says in an interview with The Root. "The people [were] trying to get out of this mess, and it didn't make a difference to them what color [Obama was], if he created a feeling of honesty and as he said, change.''
Cosby, the comedian whose Emmy Award-winning sit-com, The Cosby Show, ran for eight seasons on NBC - from 1984-92 - portrayed the fictional African American family of Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable comfortably ensconced in middle-class American life.
Cosby sat for an interview with The Root, an online magazine whose editor-in-chief, Harvard Prof. Henry Louis Gates Jr., recently gained some national attention of his own in an arrest at his home in Cambridge, Mass., which Obama denounced as another instance of racial profiling in America - the president later apologizing for his choice of words in saying police had "acted stupidly,'' and invited Gates and arresting officer Sgt. James Crowley to the White House for a beer.
The Root asked Cosby if his show, displaying a "black middle class to a mainstream audience who might otherwise only have seen them as gangbangers, shift-workers or athletes,'' had paved the way for Obama. Without Cliff and Clair Huxtable, "would there have been Barack and Michelle?''
"My answer is yes, he would be,'' Cosby says in the intervew.
"Yes. Because before Cliff and Clair, there was Dr. King. ''
Cosby's talk could not be more timely, arriving at a time when former President Jimmy Carter is suggesting that the most extreme criticism of Obama is coming from people who cannot accept that a black man is president. "Jimmy Carter, True Son of the South, Hits Nail on the Head,'' reads one piece in the newest edition of The Root. The White House, for its part says criticism for Obama is not explained by the "color of his skin.''
Cosby says the path for Obama's election was opened decades ago.
"And that movement brought down a whole lot of things that were against black people. In those participations against racism, against segregation, there were people of all colors, cultures, races, creeds, who joined, marched, took hits, gave money, were fired from jobs, were called communist and anti-American by the New York Times and the Washington Post,'' Cosby says.
" Because the government and institutions were treating black people negatively. So when these people joined together and they began to win, they also married ... integrating and marrying, so that it was Latin, brown people, black people, white, mixing. I think that this United States has come to a point--or had--where this man and his wife could do it.
"You know, I'm not sure if (Obama) didn't have a George W. and a Cheney and that Republican Party and what it did to people, he could have been elected,'' Cosby adds. "More than anything, I think people also woke up, and they were being used; they were using soldiers and holding them up as shields to keep this inept president and vice president. The nation became very, very tired of this foolishness--and they were tired of being used.
"And so along comes this man and this woman, and he is what the people are looking for,'' Cosby says. "The people [were] trying to get out of this mess, and it didn't make a difference to them what color [Obama was], if he created a feeling of honesty and as he said, change.''
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2009/09/bill_cosby_obama_has_bush_to_t.html
