As someone who practically spent every Thursday evening watching the Cosby Show on NBC from late 1980s until its final episode in 1992, I could not resist clicking the link to the article “The audacity of Bill Cosby’s black conservatism,” written by Ta-Nehisi Coate and published in this month’s Atlantic Monthly. I found the article to be informative and well-written. We need more thoughtful expositions about racial experience, particularly in light of this year’s political, social and religious controversies related to U.S. Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
Somewhat surprisingly, what I ended up appreciating the most about this article was Mr. Coate’s anchoring of Mr. Cosby’s messages into much longer historical context. In addition, I relished sidenotes to two Atlantic Monthly articles from more than a century ago (written by Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois in 1896 and 1897, respectively) which brought back some faded yet fond memories from the U.S. history classes I have taken.
Posted by Matthew
