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Larry Wilmore: Black on the Air

W. Kamau Bell on 'We Need To Talk About Cosby'

Larry Wilmore: Black on the Air

The Ringer

Society & Culture

4.83.6K Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2022

⏱️ 70 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Larry weighs in on Joe Biden's first year as president of the United States. He's then joined by W. Kamau Bell to discuss his documentary 'We Need To Talk About Cosby.' They start their conversation by touching on how Bill Cosby influenced them through his TV shows and albums in the '60's and '70's and American culture in general with 'The Cosby Show' in the 1980's. They then pivot to Cosby's infamously controversial behavior and the turning points that led to them coming to light, starting with the "Pound Cake" speech (24:14), the viral Hannibal Buress rant (32:16), and Barbara Bowman's essay on her firsthand experience with him (38:30). Finally, they talk about how the film highlights society's treatment of victims of sexual assault and what we can do as a community to fix those issues. (46:00) Host: Larry Wilmore Guest: W. Kamau Bell Producer: Kaya McMullen Production Assistant: Chris Sutton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Let's get everybody out of Zanzi Stewsky hosting the New York New York with CheJay, the first podcast on the ringer in Spotify dedicated to you the New York Sports Band.

0:10.0

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0:17.0

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1:23.0

Hey everybody, welcome back. This is Larry Wilmore and you are listening to Black on the Air.

1:29.0

Appreciate you choosing this podcast. We have a pretty juicy one today. Mylpal W. Comout Bell has a docu-series that is premiering at Sundance Film Festival this weekend and on Showtime next week.

1:49.0

We need to talk about Cosby and for all my friends out there, my responses, I haven't forgotten about you motherfucker.

1:59.0

It's kind of interesting. It's really kind of the black community about what do you do with Cosby? Where does he fit?

2:09.0

He's really a put-em. It really does kind of a thorough examination of the phenomena of Cosby. His fame, his importance to the bi-community and how it was difficult for people to deal with that.

2:29.0

How strong that persona is in the light of those horrible accusations. As you guys know, for those who are fans of mine on the Nightly Show, I covered that from the very beginning.

2:40.0

Second episode, we led with, and tonight we will ask the question of did he do it? And the answer will be yes. That's how we started our second episode on the Nightly Show.

2:53.0

I covered it in real time. I'm not in the documentary, but I just thought I would mention that from the beginning. For those of you who are like, where's Liam Wilmer? How come he's not in there?

3:04.0

I was not asked to be in it. But I think it's still a very important piece of work here. I think it's real fascinating.

3:12.0

From the beginning, I was one of the black voices on television that stood up for the women immediately. I didn't need to.

3:25.0

He's black. Should I say anything? No, motherfucker. These stories are too real. You can't just assault women and just because you're famous or because you're trying to hide behind black. I think you can get away with it. Sorry. Not my book. That issue of this sexual assault for me was just too powerful as far as I'm concerned.

3:49.0

Hopefully, there's a good that comes out of all of this. You never know. Hopefully, if you're going to find something positive, a positive might be that because so many women came out and told their stories.

4:03.0

It was very painful for most of them to do that, reliving some of that. Many of them were attacked for too. They personally didn't get any completion. If you would, certainly not legally or that type of thing or probably not even emotionally.

...

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