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Did this show make you falsely believe Racism was gone in the 80s?

posted 9 years ago by Joel_S
5 replies | jump to latest

I grew up in the 80s when The Cosby Show was on the air, and I honestly as a young kid believed that racism was something that belonged in the 1950s and 60s just b/c The Cosby Show told me it didn't exist. The Cosby kids never mentioned it. The Cosby family lived in a perfect utopia where race never mattered. Beyond the occasional racial joke (no not N word) I would hear someone throw at another person (usually a more harmless jab at Mexicans or Middle Easterners), I honestly thought the racial divide was something long gone. Strangely as a kid in the 80s I never heard ANYONE use the N word, no kid or adult ever used the N word that I heard of anyway. But then as a teenager and very young adult in the 90s....suddenly I started to hear the N word used more and more frequently, like left and right. Weird huh? So to me as a young kid in the 80s, I honestly thought bigotry was by in large gone. But I look back and realize most children and even young teenagers in the 80s were way too dumb and naïve to use the N word and older teenagers and adults likely didn't want to throw racial slurs around infront of us. But all this contributed to my belief as a 10 year old that racism and bigotry was most mostly gone.

Towards the end of The Cosby show and by the early 90s, it was clear this was not at all the case. I would hear blacks and other minorities say Cosby Show was too fake and not real life, there is still plenty of bigotry going on and just b/c you're not in the KKK and schools are integrated, doesn't mean racism died with the 1950s. When they started to bring "the real world" more into the show in the early 90s, showing poor blacks that felt discriminated against, it felt awkward and weird.

I never liked it when the Cosby show brought those real world black folks into the series.....it ruined the fantasy of the series. And my perception of the world from 1988 to 1990 or 1991 was drastically different.

[–] louiseculmer 9 years ago

Personally i thought it was good that they had a sitcom about black people that didn't revolve around racism. I think one of the best ways to combat racism is to show black people as ordinary people doing ordinary things.

[–] tooclosetothetv 9 years ago

Most young children don't know that racism exists. People want their kids to have the luxury of innocence, and not have their entire world view be shaped around discrimination.

The haters who complained about The Cosby Show just did it to promote their own brand, they were paid to come up with some kind of cultural criticism. I remember when all these intellectuals complained about "The Color Purple."

[–] BEoutbox 9 years ago

(Well Color Purple the movie left out a huge topic that was a big focus of the author: Alice Walker is gay and portrayed a same-sex relationship in the book. Even Steven Spielberg said he wish he'd been courageous enough to tackle that topic. But I digress.)

[–] svetaswan 9 years ago

The haters who complained about The Cosby Show just did it to promote their own brand, they were paid to come up with some kind of cultural criticism.

While there is some truth to this, it isn't completely true. There were plenty of "ordinary" black people who had no agenda who were complaining about The Cosby Show - I remember having a conversation with at least one of these people in the late '80s (a black classmate who was glad that Pam and her buddies were added to the show because finally some "real" black people were on the show).

Although plenty of middle-class black people existed who could actually relate to the Huxtables on some level - there were plenty of others who considered the Huxtables too "bourgeois" to be real. I think the reasons for this ranged from envy, to narrow-mindedness, to resentment that the Huxtables seemed to have it so easy, and never seemed to struggle with problems (i.e. racism, economic strains) that plague most black people in real life. When you have to struggle and fight against various problems - it can be difficult to see people who sail through life as though these problems don't exist - even if these people are fictional.

At the same time, though - The Cosby Show offered kind-of an escape. Racism is such a heavy, painful reality that sometimes people want to be able to "turn off their minds" and escape these realities in various ways. When people are looking to be entertained - they often don't want to be confronted with heavy racial topics, they want "lighter" plotlines. Sometimes, shows that deal with racism are difficult for me to watch - they conjure up all of the painful feelings that plague me when I am confronted with racism in real life.

It seems that black shows (or any show, for that matter) can never please anyone. With a show like "Good Times", for instance - things may have gotten a little "too real" - and people grew weary of these poor black people who were paraded before the nation week after week with their constant struggles against social ills. People longed for black people with a "better image". So when the Cosby Show came along - it placated people who were tired of shows like "Good Times" and "Sanford and Son" - but a different set of complaints emerged.

[–] AmyJolamb 9 years ago

Nope. My parents and moms family were very racist in the 80s. I grew up in MS. I couldn't babysit anyone who was black and went to contry club that forbid blacks to join. We moved when blacks move into our neighborhood in 1989.

I think the show taught my sister and I not to be racist. We don't have a racist bone in our bodies and often wondered how
that happened. I give the show credit for that.

While my parents have gotten better they still whisper the word "black" like its a cuss word. They actually grew up in Jackson during the time of Martin Luther King and all the marches.

I hated how they talked about blacks. My sister and I adored the show and it blocked the negative comments thrown to us by my parents. I'm thankful for that.