Reply #121: Why all the hate for Bill Cosby?

[Frank Booth]

I think the Cosby Show had a tremendously positive effect on racial perceptions in this country.

I, for one, am glad I grew up watching it. I'm white, and grew up in a small town with almost no black people. Through The Cosby Show (which was my favorite show for a long time) I was exposed to a highly educated and high-achieving AA family. TV has a great ability to shape perceptions, especially kids', and black people had always been "ghettoized" on TV as uneducated/violent/lazy/goofy/dumb/clowns (and, to an extent, still are). If it weren't for the Cosby Show, I'm sure I would have been much more impaired by these unfair depictions -- it's hard for a kid of 10 to distinguish fiction from reality, and because of where I grew up much of what I learned about people of other races and cultures came from TV. The Cosby Show was groundbreaking -- it dared to show a successful, cohesive, happy black family -- and I honestly think it had a substantial positive impact on me, other kids, and society in general.