In the May issue of The Atlantic, New York-based writer Ta-Nehisi Coates examines the latest incarnation of Bill Cosby, who’s been shaking up black communities across the country with strong words about overcoming racism and rebuilding families. Philly Grill got Coates on the phone to ask about his time reporting on one of Philadelphia’s most famous sons, and to find out why a piece that examines what’s essentially a moral crusade glossed over allegations of sexual assault Cosby has faced from multiple women over the past few years. — Stephanie Twining

Your article takes a pretty hard look at everything Cosby has been saying at his “call-outs,” and you have some praise for and some criticisms of his message. You wrote that if you took your son to see Cosby, you’d have a long talk afterwards. What would you say?
That he should think critically, always. One of things I think white conservatives and white liberals and black conservatives and black liberals have had in common is that black folks are always a problem — it only differs in how they’re a problem. Liberals say they’re a problem because the system screwed them over. For conservatives they’re a problem because they keep screwing themselves over. I do not want him to develop that sort of simplistic world view. There’s a danger in that sort of stuff, what Cosby puts forth and what he does.

You wrote about how Cosby is fairly shortsighted when it comes to the history of black America. How does that affect his message?
I think it cuts young people off. There are a lot of young people who may be really receptive to what he’s saying, but this sort of idea that young people have somehow screwed things up, it’s unfortunate. Especially when you’re talking about personal responsibility. I mean, where is the responsibility of the civil rights generation to acknowledge that yeah, in fact, we did have problems? We were not the quote-unquote greatest generation that we get sort of cartoonishly portrayed as. These folks had problems too. It didn’t start with, like, Rapper’s Delight. That’s not the beginning, the genesis, of the fall of black America.

That’s pretty serious stuff. Does humor still play a role in Cosby’s life?
Yeah, a lot. I don’t think he could do it without comedy. I mean, if you ever see one of his call-outs, it’s hilarious. I think that’s one of the most underreported aspects of his call-outs: They are funny. I think that is why people come and why people pay attention. Now, he’s a comedian, so he’s going to be funny, but you know, when I was young man I listened to Malcolm X tapes, and Malcolm X was hilarious. I mean he was funny. So Cosby’s pulling on this really ancient self-critical tradition. You look at how Barack Obama handled that whole bitter thing. His thing is to mock it and make jokes about it and do the Annie Oakley thing. I mean, that’s really familiar to black folks. So he’s speaking their language.

Philly Mag did a piece in 2006 that put a lot of focus on the sexual assault claims made against Cosby. In your piece, that entire situation was reduced to a parenthetical.
Yes, I’m sorry about that. I really am.

You are?
I started this piece at Time, and I actually briefly talked to one of the women Bob [Huber, who wrote “Dr. Huxtable & Mr. Hyde” for Philadelphia] talked to out in Arizona. I should start by saying, what is it, like 13 women? That is by far the most disturbing aspect to me about Bill Cosby. And maybe I did think that should have been a bigger part of the story, but everyone that I had deep respect for — and this was before I came to The Atlantic, when I was working on it at Time — their thing was, you should really focus on what’s going on now. Do the story analyzing the call-outs. And I think someone who’s looking at that would say, and I think they could credibly say this, “Well, how could you analyze that and not point out the fact that what’s going on might be directly hypocritical?” I think that is an extremely valid and fair criticism to make. I would certainly cop to that, because I think that’s a significant issue that has not received much media play. And if you want to say, “Well, Ta-Nehisi, you just had 7,000 words and you gave it about 40?” Yeah, that’s probably problematic.

How much cooperation did you get from Cosby? And through that, did you feel any pressure to omit those details?
No, no, certainly not. So that’s something I can put dead right there. The best way I can put it is that it did not fit in with the piece I was writing. And I guess you can tell that I’m still divided about that.

That scene I’ve got at the end of the piece — we talked on the phone once before that — but that is the first at-length, on-the-record interview that he did with me, and the only one, by the way, because we tried to get more questions answered about the Obama thing and he wasn’t talking. And before that, his whole position was “I’m not going to talk at all — you can follow me around, but I’m not going to speak to you at all.” But they certainly weren’t giving us enough stuff to exert any sort of pressure about what we could and could not say.

We hear Cosby is recording a “feel good” hip-hop record featuring guest rappers. He’s been pretty vocal about his feelings about rap and hip-hop being degrading and vulgar. Any thoughts?
I don’t know. What does he intend to do with that? Probably not the best of ideas, right? I think people think hip-hop is one of these things where you just pick up a microphone and you just start talking. Wynton Marsalis tried to do this a few years back, and Wynton and Cosby are kind of on the same page with this sort of thing. It sounded terrible. One of the worst efforts. If anything, it shows the level of respect they have. They don’t really see it as any form of art, they just see it as people talking. I think, regrettably, one of the things that happens is that young people just laugh. I’m 32 — I can’t imagine what somebody 16, who’s in the target range for that, is going to think.

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Posted by Stephanie Twining on 4/18/08 in Bill Cosby, Philly Grill