Share It Spread It <Back to 'On the Frontlines' Frontlines Article

Organizers-in-Chief

Watching little Sasha Obama steal the show at the Democratic National Convention last night — the seven-year-old blew kisses and happily intercepted the compliment her daddy, the party's presumptive presidential nominee, had meant for his wife — I couldn't resist making the joke: Finally, the Cosbys are going to run the nation.

Of course, that required explaining to my teenage son just what The Cosby Show was and how, back in the '80s, the whole country had been delighted to tune in week after week to watch Bill Cosby play Dr. Huxtable, a wise-cracking but wise daddy who made it seem so much fun as he and his lovely, accomplished wife raised their adorable, if incorrigible, kids.

(The Cosbys were fresh in my mind because I was flipping back and forth between the convention and the HBO documentary The Black List, where comedian Chris Rock revealed that his daughters go to sleep holding Bill Cosby dolls.)

Then as I played out the comparison in my mind, I was surprised to realize that although TV's Huxtables and the Democrats' Obamas are both successful, photogenic, and intelligent African-American families, there's a very big difference between the two when it comes to community service.

Sure, Dr. and Mrs. Huxtable were in the helping professions as an obstetrician and a lawyer, but there really was not much of a sense in the show of the world beyond the walls of their well-appointed Manhattan townhouse.

By contrast, the Obama family lore that was playing at the Convention kept coming back to the community: how Barack eschewed Wall Street to serve the community; how Michelle left a high-paying law firm to serve the community.

Previous Page  1  2  Next Page