From Ebony magazine’s “cracked” Cosby Show cover to Eddie Murphy’s Bill Cosby crack at the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor awards—it’s about time.
Judging from Black Twitter and beyond, many African-Americans are livid and hurt by the November issue, which shows the beloved 80s family smiling under cracked glass:
I hear some of the hack contributor writers for #EbonyMag are upset with me for continuing to point out their disrespect for Black society
— Tariq Nasheed (@tariqnasheed) October 16, 2015
#EbonyMag has gone the way of BET both OWNED & OPERATED by White folk & will do & say anything 2 uphold WHITE SUPREMACY #cosbyshow
— Charlie Peach (@PoliticsPeach) October 16, 2015
Folks have tissue for Cosby tears in 1 hand & R Kelly tix in the other. #CosbyvsCliff #hypocrisy #stopit #EbonyMag
— Tackling Tomfoolery (@MalikkaRogers) October 17, 2015
“Sure Heathcliff and Claire were highly educated, successful, and members of the upper class, far surpassing where most families fall in everyday America,” she adds. “Yet their lives were regular in a normal, white privileged way.”
The Ebony cover is refreshing because the magazine has clearly evolved. Instead of being caught up in the debate of whether or not Cosby is guilty as charged or whether he should be forgiven, the magazine took a critical and reflective look back at the show everyone seemed so intent on protecting. Not only does Ebony come back with a disapproving acknowledgment of Cosby’s probable rapes, but the editors go many steps further, unearthing other kinds of damage that have resulted from the powerful, once flawless image of the black middle class.
Brown cautions that the fundamental problem of this controversy is not that African-Americans are upset by Ebony’s decision to present an image that shatters the pristine memory of America’s first black family. Nor is it our frustration that black people would overlook the troubling aspects of a beloved black figure to preserve a sliver of an image of black respectability.
