Remember the Huxtables? Yup, Racist

Who knew a program about an upstanding middle-class black family was, in retrospect, so irredeemably racist? Salon explains:

Americans on both sides of the color line are upset by Cosby’s behavior not exclusively because of the horrific nature of his crimes, but also because his failings have robbed many of them of an innocent and positive part of their youth. Being disabused of childhood nostalgia is one of the most painful parts of being (and becoming) an adult. But perhaps the focus now should be on the source of that nostalgia itself, and how the politics and values of “The Cosby Show,” which were so attractive to so many and for such a long time, are based on a distorted and inaccurate presentation of the black community, one that has enabled a pernicious type of right-wing “colorblind” racism to flourish.

“The Cosby Show” followed the day-to-day struggles and experiences of a rich black New York family called the Huxtables. The father, played by Cosby, was a successful obstetrician, and his wife, Claire, was a partner in a law firm. They had one son and four daughters. They hail from a long line of successful African-Americans who were graduates of historically black colleges. The show was a response to a white popular imagination that largely saw black and brown Americans as poor, as members of the underclass, as criminal, or beaten down by racism — and as such lacking agency, freedom, or upward mobility.

Popular culture is inherently political and ideological. While the depiction of a rich and “functioning” black family was superficially transgressive, “The Cosby Show” channeled a particular understanding of race, capitalism, “success,” and “middle class” identity that more often than not reinforced dominant American cultural norms and rules basically in line with the the Horatio Alger myth; it offered to viewers a harmless type of “diversity,” where blackness and the “Black experience” were massaged down into a throwaway mention of the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., or the struggle to end Apartheid, or simple guest appearances for accomplished black musicians, artists, and actors.

For most of its 8 seasons, “The Cosby Show” existed inside a bubble that was outside of the day-to-day lived experiences of the vast majority of black Americans. The events in bubble were white fantasies of black folks’ lives.

I know, I know: you can’t make this stuff up. But read the whole thing and understand this: for the Left, there is never an end to its perceived outrages or its incessant demands. They hate you, they really hate you.

Also, from Andrew Klavan: 

Bill Cosby: Is It True?