When Dad Dies in Disgrace
By Roy Griffis
Like a lot of people my age, I was first introduced to Bill Cosby on vinyl LPs. My father shared his love of Cosby’s comedy with me, and he delighted in watching me discover some of Cosby’s classic bits like “The Chicken Heart that Ate New York City” and his sketches about a dubious Noah trying to understand what God is saying to him. “What’s a cubit?”
For me, Cosby was part of my awakening to, well, the stupidity of racism: watching him on Johnny Carson in the early ’70s when I lived in Tampa, Florida (then struggling with the forced integration of their schools), and hearing my new friends laughing at Cosby’s jokes while they said to one another “That n—–’s funny as hell.” While I could only stare at them and wonder Why would anyone call this smart, decent guy that word?
