CBS anchor Katie Couric startled some listeners when she suggested a Muslim "Cosby Show," but the idea actually has merit. It's hard to be afraid of the people we see on TV sitcoms every week.
Such are the recent news items that led Couric in a recent year-in-review discussion to suggest a sitcom response to the "seething hatred" against Muslims.
"Maybe we need a Muslim version of 'The Cosby Show,'" she said. "I know that sounds crazy. But 'The Cosby Show' did so much to change attitudes about African-Americans in this country, and I think sometimes people are afraid of things they don't understand."
She's right. A black TV family like Bill Cosby's Huxtables — or a Hispanic-American family like, say, George Lopez's show — might not seem like such a big deal anymore, now that a real-life black family occupies the White House. But back in the 1980s, "The Cosby Show" was the decade's biggest TV hit and is even credited with changing the way a lot of us black Americans viewed ourselves and our perceptions of opportunity in America's mainstream.
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