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OMFG: Katy Couric Says, ‘Maybe We Need a Muslim Version of ‘The Cosby Show’

Posted on | December 31, 2010 | 66 Comments

Yes, she really said that. When I heard the audio Steve Foley posted at the Minority Report, I could scarcely believe it. How could anyone — even Katie Couric — be so incredibly stupid as to say this aloud?

“Maybe we need a Muslim version of ‘The Cosby Show.’ . . . I know it 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.”

Of the many layers of stupid in Couric’s comment, the first that comes to mind is this: Is the real problem America’s attitudes toward Muslims, or rather is the real problem Muslims’ attitude toward America?

But I’m sure the commenters will be able to point out many other nuances of stupidity here. Meanwhile, go to The Minority Report and listen to the whole two-minute audio clip.

Via Memeorandum, there’s more from Mediaite,  Michelle Malkin, The Right Scoop, Gateway Pundit, Scared Monkeys, Ed Driscoll and Weasel Zippers

UPDATE: OK, let’s peel back another layer or two of Katie Couric’s onion of stupidity. Could her analogy of (a) black Americans circa 1984 and (b) Muslims in 2010 possibly be more insultingly unfair to black people?

Couric expresses almost perfectly the horrible condescension of white liberals: “Oh, look at you poor helpless black people! You’re victims of the prejudice of bad white people who — unlike my enlightened self — are ignorant and hateful. Here, let me prove my moral superiority by throwing a pity party on your behalf.”

The sad thing is, liberals like Katie Couric really think that’s what black people need most: Guilt-ridden sympathy from a bunch of smug white do-gooders.

And it is from such a perspective that Couric brings forth the idea that the greatest benefit — perhaps even the essential purpose — of The Cosby Show was that it changed white people’s attitudes about black people.

What Couric is saying is that, prior to the 1984 debut of Bill Cosby’s hit sitcom, the biggest problem affecting the black community was the bad attitudes of whites — essentially, that black Americans were suffering from a public-relations problem, which Cosby undertook to remedy.

From this stems Couric’s idea that maybe what Muslims need is their own prime-time P.R. project. Not to put too fine a point on it, this idea is nucking futz.

Someone should find an interview in which Bill Cosby explains what he had in mind in conceiving The Cosby Show.

As a professional comedian and actor, of course, Cosby’s first consideration was to produce successful entertainment. Insofar as Cosby had any notion of racial consciousness-raising, however, I’m pretty sure his primary idea was to exemplify a model of bourgeois decency for the black community.

Here was a top-quality program by black people, about black people, for black people — a weekly show that held out to black Americans the same kind of corny old-fashioned middle-class family ideal once embodied by shows like Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver.

The Huxtables weren’t living in the projects and they weren’t speaking ghetto-inflected jive-talk. In fact, although this is sometimes forgotten, many liberals at the time criticized The Cosby Show as inauthentic and insufficiently relevant in addressing Serious Social Problems.

Yet the Huxtable family were about something very different than the kind of didactic issues-based “relevance” beloved by intellectuals. The Huxtables were reflecting the basic American values that Cosby cherishes, values that he dearly wants other black people to embrace, so as to get their own share of the American dream.

 The fact that the show instantly became a mass-market success is, first and foremost, a tribute to Bill Cosby’s genius. But that success in itself undermines the idea that white people’s attitudes toward black people were, in 1984, the principle hindrance to black success. If white people were so ignorant and bigoted, why were they tuning in by the millions each week to watch Cosby?

Beyond the comedic brilliance of Cosby himself, some of the best parts of The Cosby Show were his periodic struggles — especially with son Theo — to get his kids to stay on the right path, and not to be lured into the “street” culture by peer pressure or trying to be “cool.”

This was, and remains, a particular problem that black parents have to deal with. Even though all parents have to deal with rebellious teens getting into trouble, the white suburban middle-class parent does not live in a world where the “troubled teen” routinely goes to prison or ends up shot dead. But these possibilities are a serious worry for many black parents. (To quote a black friend, concerned about gang activity in small-town schools: “We got out of the ghetto and we’re not going back. We sure as hell don’t want the ghetto coming here to get us.”)

Whatever “message” The Cosby Show conveyed to white America, then, was incidental to the message Bill Cosby was trying to convey to black viewers. And, as far as Couric’s idiotic idea of the show as helping black America with its “image problem” is concerned, what does she make of the fact that the Rodney King beating and the L.A. riots occurred in 1992 — the final season of The Cosby Show, eight years into its successful primetime run?

Well, never mind the disconcerting facts. Katie Couric is a liberal, sharing her moral and intellectual superiority with the rest of us. If you’re scratching your head trying to figure out how black Americans are analogous to Muslims — hello, 9/11? — this just goes to show your own bigoted inferiority.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! I didn’t even mention a point that irks The Lonely Conservative:

Katie Couric . . . and this guy Mo Rocca also think they should teach Islam in the public schools! Yes, the same people whose heads explode any time Christian beliefs are mentioned in the public square.

Because they’re so tolerant! And better than you.


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Category: Islam, Media Bias, Terrorism

Comments

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  • Anonymous

    On one of the Muzzie family episodes they could enter their teenage daughter in a Muzzie beauty contest! Imagine the long line of burqa coming down the runway! OOOhhh! Look at those toes!! Those eyes!!! Or they could have a wedding where they marry their 5 year old daughter to a 70 year old uncle living in the desert in Syria!! Think of the neat gifts she would get for her honeymoon! A Barbie doll or a make-it-yourself burqa kit that comes with a black plastic garbage bag and scissors! Oh Perky, you are a genius !!!!!!!

  • Anonymous

    Let’s see, Dad is building a nuclear weapon in the garage. His son is gay, hiding out in SF. The older daughter blew up the mosque and ran off with her Jewish boyfriend, who works for Shin Bet. The younger daughter is a porn queen, and is afraid that mom and dad will find out. Mom number one is the recipient of blood money because her daughter, from a previous marriage, blew herself up on a bus. Mom number two…well, I see how this could be entertaining.

  • Anonymous

    no such thing as a moderate Muslim. Muslims are either jihadists or dormant jihadists.

    —Ali Sina

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_TSQH5JFQXBHCSMM6N5S365DD6Q Mark

    Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped. – Elbert Hubbard

  • DL

    In light of the Egyptian bombing that killed numerous Christians attending Mass, what kind of Cosby show does Egypt need?

  • Anonymous

    Muslim comedians? Isn’t that an oxymoron?

  • http://www.redstateeclectic.typepad.com AngelaTC

    You know, the comments here almost seem to actually be reinforcing Couric’s point.

    Flame away.

  • Anonymous

    Put your money where your mouth is Katie: produce the show yourself. Risk your fortune.

    To assure diversity, get Margaret Cho to play one of the wives in a burka.

  • Anonymous

    you’re not worth it

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ZJAFMW7QZVY7YDIQFU53A4OJAU Patrick

    America has a long familiarity w/Muslim terrorism — the infant
    Republic first paid tribute to, then put down, the Barbary Pirates.

    We’re plenty familiar, Ms. Couric. Stick to what you know best, Ms.
    Couric — tanking your evening broadcast ratings.

  • Agoraphobic Plumber

    Katie sez:

    “I think sometimes people are afraid of things they don’t understand.”

    You know, she’s absolutely right about that. I don’t understand gang-raping a girl as punishment for walking alone, and I’m afraid of it.

    I don’t understand traveling to an autocratic country along with a couple million others each year to participate in a huge walk where hundreds of people traditionally get trampled to death, and while I wouldn’t try to stop someone who really wants to any more than I would stop idiots who want to run down the street in front of a bunch of bulls, I’m afraid of doing it myself and I’m nervous around people who want to do either one.

    I don’t understand banning people from an entire city because of their religious views, and I’m afraid of it.

    I don’t understand people defending mass murderers because they happen to share the same religious label, and I’m afraid of it.

    I don’t understand a population of a particular religious persuasion approving in high percentages of destroying an entire country such as Israel merely because that country’s dominant religion is not shared by the population in question, and I’m afraid of it.

    I don’t understand banning texts of religions other than the dominant ones in a country, and I’m afraid of it.

    I don’t understand a system of laws whereby people of the dominant religion are first class citizens and all others have fewer rights and privileges, and I’m afraid of it.

    I don’t understand when a country bans the construction of any places of worship other than ones for the dominant religion, and I’m afraid of it.

    Yep, there’s a lot about Islam and it’s associated concepts that I don’t understand, and I’m afraid of a LOT of it.

  • Anonymous

    Forget TV, Katie. Go for the Big Silver Screen.

    I suggest “Little Mohammads,” starring Ben Stiller as male nurse Muhamad Muhammad, Barbra Streisand as his Al Jazerra TV sex therapist mother and Dustin Hoffman as the happy-go-lucky live-and-let-live dad, freshly here from his native Saudi Arabia.

    Robert De Niro plays the incredibly narrow-minded WASPy father-in-law who simply can’t believe his daughter (Teri Polo) has married into a Muslim family and who now must wear a burka while sharing the house with two other wives.

    Hilarity ensues when overbearing patriarch De Niro, while visiting Muhamad’s home with his wife (Blythe Danner), takes an erectile dysfunction drug — resulting in a five+ hour erection — and has to have nurse Muhamad inject his penis with adrenalin in the bathroom, only to be discovered in flagrante by Muhamad’s five year-old son, who subsequently draws a picture of the act for his hoped-for future exclusive Kindergarten principle (seriously overplayed by a morally neutral Laura Dern).

    A subplot has an old flame (Owen Wilson) still pursuing Muhamad’s wife Pam. Papa Muhammad (Hoffman) has no real problem with this because his Muslim doctrine is so thoroughly steeped in tolerance.

    Another subplot has a mostly naked drug saleswoman (the super hot but scenery-chewing Jessica Alba) trying to seduce Muhamad after overdosing on booze and her erectile dysfunction samples.

    Can’t miss, Katie! You could easily be one of the executive producers and thus prove how open minded and tolerant our misunderstood and feared Muslim friends are.

    And to boot it should easily outperform “Little Fockers,” which, for some reason, has had disappointing numbers….

  • Anonymous

    Katie has a great idea. The new show could introduce us to wonderful Muslim customs, like female genital mutilation, honor killings, murdering converts, and wife beating.

  • Bruce

    Yes all this hatred directed at Couric means no-one understands her and we need a Cosby-type show which is all about her to break down the walls of ignorance and misunderstanding.

  • Anonymous

    Maybe I can fill the void.

    “In America, we bomb you. But in Iran… we bomb you!”

    “So my brother comes to me. ‘I have bad news and worse news.’ What’s the bad news? ‘Our mother has informed me that I have an arraigned marriage to goat.’ ‘That is awful my brother! But what is the worse news?’ ‘It’s a double ceremony and you’re marrying her sister!’

  • paull

    Couric makes Palin look like a genius. What a stupid, clueless comment. Couric just insulted most Americans, how condescending
    and arrogant of her.

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