The Cosby Experience – Why TV role models are bullshit for all races.

How many people here actually remember the pain of childbirth from any of your children?

I was admitted to the ward in the early morning hours of a day in August, 1994, and was induced without even a smidge of drugs or an epidural and welcomed my 10 pound boy the next day after over 24 hours of labor.

I remember NONE of the pain.

The Cosby Experience – Why TV role models are bullshit for all races.

How many people here actually remember the pain of childbirth from any of your children?

I was admitted to the ward in the early morning hours of a day in August, 1994, and was induced without even a smidge of drugs or an epidural and welcomed my 10 pound boy the next day after over 24 hours of labor.

I remember NONE of the pain.

Once the kids here you magically cant remember the pain, you just remember the joy and happiness.

This is the same thing people do when they think back to the “Good Old Days” They only recall the picket fences, smiling milk delivery men, Donna Reed...etc. but they dont recall the pollution, the horrific deaths to deadly diseases, the food rationing of WW2, the fact that a husband could beat his wife and she wasnt thought to be “job” material, and if she got a job her boss didnt pay her well and could demand sex. Mothers had little pills to take to cope with multiple births since they didnt have many contraceptive options, Men got black lung in the coal mines, and there was no OSHA to protect them.

But they all forget that...they only recall the good things.

They remember Donna Reed and Mrs Brady and Father Knows Best.

They wistfully recall watching Lawrence Welk at their Grandparents house.

They Oohed and Aahed seeing Joan Crawford showing off each of her adopted babies.

Mrs C was spotless on Happy Days, The Fonz and Lenny and Squiggy were all lovable losers

Even in the 80s Dallas, Dynasty, Love Boat and Fantasy Island all were rose colored dream worlds.

The pageantry of the Reagan Administration when the Reagans would host all star celebrity galas with Emmanuel Lewis (Tvs Webster) and Ben Verreen tap dancing and Bob Hope making jokes.

White people have always had shiny role models, they always look back to the “Good Old Days” as beacons of Christian virtue.

African Americans only had a small amount of TV representations and most were maids, slaves, tap dancers, and hoodlums.

So when The Cosby Show came on Tv, African Americans were seeing a professional well dressed, well spoken intact family with cute kids, and fell for the DREAM.

In 1976 a Tv show came on at 7:00pm everynight called Evening Magazine, hosted by Nancy Glass and Jerry Penacolli it was to me the start of the poisoning of news and peoples minds. It was Celebrity Gossip centeric and was soon followed by Entertainment Tonight another Celeb Gossip show. Before

these shows became what they have become today with TMZ etc, Celebrities lived private lives with no Papparazzi following them around and only studio sanctioned interviews and magazine spreads. This was how 1950s film star Loretta Young was able to get pregnant by Film Stud Clark Gable, flee the USA, have her baby in Europe and bring her back as her newly adopted daughter with nary a question asked. No one even guessed the horrors that Christina Crawford was experiencing at the hands of her outwardly loving adopted Mother, superstar Joan Crawford.

Everything was SHINY GLAMOROUS and beautiful in Hollywood. Everything was wonderful, everyone was ageless, all the marriages were happy and the kids were well behaved.

Then, as I said, the Celeb Gossip shows and Tabloids started showing up. Slowly peeling off that veneer of the glamorous life!

Soon,

We found out Donna Reed was married 3 times and opposed he Vietnam war

Florence Henderson was raised in poverty and had a raunchy side and Robert Reed (Mr Brady) was gay and died of AIDS

Lawrence Welk was a complete racist bigotted asshole

Joan Crawford beat and tortured her 2 oldest adopted kids.

Mrs C was truly spotless on Happy Days, The Fonz and Lenny and Squiggy were indeed all great people in real life, Scott Baio “Chachi” turned out to be an asshole and poor Erin “Joanie” Moran was a drug addict on welfare.

Dallas, Dynasty, Love Boat and Fantasy Island all sold an unattainable lifestyle to the American people where money ruled and stabbing people in the back was just in a days business. People didnt matter, money did.

The Reagans were some of the worst people ever in the White House, with the dirty dealings. The emptying out mental hospitals, screwing up school lunches, helping bring drugs into the inner cities and reducing welfare and social services with the myth of the Welfare Queen. All while selling people the Trickle Down Economics that have KILLED our economy.

So while people like to talk about the Good Old Days and White Role Models.

We had NEITHER.

What we did have is a glitzy cardboard veneer with secrets behind it!

And now the internet and places like TMZ have pulled it all off and shown us the dirty laundry inside.

And they did that to Bill Cosby too. They knew for years he was a perverted rapist and covered it up and sold him to black people as the messiah role model for them and it all came out in the wash.

In all actuality celebrities are highly damaged people. Just wanting to be famous in and of itself says that there is a hole inside that needs filling that cannot be filled without FAME and ADOLATION from outsiders, and once you get famous, you lose all privacy, and anonymity and then have set yourself up to be constantly beholden to keeping yourself young, rich, and playing the game. No one with any sanity would sign up for that!

Instead of CELEBRITY ROLE MODELS we need to look at more real life role models...

But if you must look up to a celebrity as a GOOD role model. Choose some who are imperfect, real and transparent.

Chose people who have persevered thru bad circumstances.

Who show their faults and scars.

Who want to teach others how they overcame

Choose a married couple who stayed married even thru infidelity or the death of a child.

Choose honest people

Choose people who dont blame others for their faults

With all that being said.

Some great role models are:

Ice Cube – Married 26 yrs, lives in the same house with his 5 great children, never see him out causing trouble.

David Letterman – Honest, intellectual, admits his faults. Speaks his mind

Jay Bakker – Preacher son of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. Is the opposite of his father, admits his faults, questions God and preaches out of NYC bars

Snoop Dog – Married to the same woman and has 2 wonderful kids one in college

Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson-- Non flashy genuine long married, decent couple

Denzel Washington – Has had affairs but he and his wife worked thru their issues and are still together and have raised great kids who are in college and arent vapid reality twats

Rene Syler – A woman who is a genuine person and stands up for rights and is a kick ass woman with a long marrige and two great kids

Role models dont have to be an actor on a slickly produced Tv show, that hides their faults behind a mirror.

They should be just a person you can learn from and admire, in spite of their faults, whether they are black or white. After all if a person seems too good to be true and has no faults, they are probably hiding something...