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Speaker 1: up on the Getting Even show page in Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: or at Pushkin dot Fm. As a black man in
Speaker 1: America who grew up through this, we need to talk
Speaker 1: about Bill Cosby. That's filmmaker and comedian W. Kamal Bell,
Speaker 1: who recently released the documentary series We Need to talk
Speaker 1: About Cosby or Bell, who is drawn to challenging conversations.
Speaker 1: This was a conversation that had to happen, you know.
Speaker 1: Series comes out of the fact that as a black
Speaker 1: kid who was born in the early seventies, who grew
Speaker 1: up in an America where Bill Cosby was part of
Speaker 1: the wallpaper of Black America, and I was right there
Speaker 1: every week wanting to be one of the Huxtables. I
Speaker 1: just sort of thought in some sense that I was
Speaker 1: walking in the path that Bill Cosby had created, and
Speaker 1: to try to aspire to be like him, to be
Speaker 1: a comedian who is funny but also does good in
Speaker 1: the world, who is intelligent but also silly and helps
Speaker 1: pull other people along who may not be pulled along otherwise.
Speaker 1: And then the sixty women came forward that I was
Speaker 1: like wrestling with how does all this make sense? Because
Speaker 1: they seem to be such disparate truths, And so the
Speaker 1: documentary is just me inviting people to have that conversation
Speaker 1: about how do we make sense of all of this?
Speaker 1: And it's not a conversation, and lots of people want
Speaker 1: to have. More people said no than yes, But the
Speaker 1: people who showed up really showed up, including many of
Speaker 1: the survivors. Bill Cosby is the trojan horse for having
Speaker 1: the bigger conversation about rape culture in America. I'm Anita Hill.
Speaker 1: This is Getting Even, my podcast about equality and what
Speaker 1: it takes to get there. On Getting Even, I speak
Speaker 1: with people who are improving our imperfect world, people who
Speaker 1: took risks and broke the rules. In this episode, w
Speaker 1: Kamal Bell and I discuss the importance of having hard conversations,
Speaker 1: the kind of conversations that move us forward as a society,
Speaker 1: and how Bell's documentary we need to talk about Cosby
Speaker 1: accomplishes exactly that tell us about your series. It's title,
Speaker 1: We need to talk Who's the Wii? That's funny? I
Speaker 1: see the wei as people who see that title and go, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we do. I think it's one of those things that
Speaker 1: you opt into it if it resonates with you. I've
Speaker 1: seen many people go, I don't even talk about Cosby,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, well, good, there's lots of other TV
Speaker 1: for you to watch, you know. But I think for me,
Speaker 1: when we release the trailer and the title, to see
Speaker 1: many people go finally, we're gonna have this discussion. And
Speaker 1: I think we were very clear about like we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about all of its career and the crimes,
Speaker 1: and to see a lot of people go, I've been
Speaker 1: wanting to have this conversation but not knowing where to
Speaker 1: have it. At the core because I'm a black man.
Speaker 1: Black people are the core part of this conversation, because
Speaker 1: his effect on us is very different than the effect
Speaker 1: on the greater world. But certainly the Cosby Show was
Speaker 1: not just the biggest show in Black America. It was
Speaker 1: the biggest show in America. So a lot of people
Speaker 1: who are not black also are defined by that. We
Speaker 1: there's also a generational divide here. I think if you're
Speaker 1: under the age of thirty five, maybe you're like, I
Speaker 1: don't understand what we need to talk about. I get
Speaker 1: it's a he's a criminal who raped a lot of people.
Speaker 1: I don't know what we need to talk about, and
Speaker 1: I've seen some of that, but I think there is
Speaker 1: like if you were my generation, was the gen X
Speaker 1: or the jet or Baby boomers, you came up sort
Speaker 1: of admiring this man. And so I really do think
Speaker 1: that part of this is a generational conversation. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: generational conversations are really really difficult to translate sometimes. Yes,
Speaker 1: but you are letting the public in to your conversation,
Speaker 1: your way of making sense out of the whole episode
Speaker 1: in the scandal that is whirling around Bill Cosby. Now,
Speaker 1: who do you think should hear this conversation? I mean,
Speaker 1: a big part of this is about really examining a
Speaker 1: rape culture in America, and not all of that is crime.
Speaker 1: A lot of that is things that are quote unquote
Speaker 1: jokes or ways in which we talk about sexual salt
Speaker 1: and rape, but also ways in which we have been
Speaker 1: acculturated to treat women at the workplace. I sort of
Speaker 1: came of age in the nineties when a lot of
Speaker 1: these conversations started to happen, When we started to you know,
Speaker 1: I think about, like specifically related to you, the Clarence
Speaker 1: Thomas case. I was a teenager who was like trying
Speaker 1: to understand what was going on and not really able
Speaker 1: to have that conversation. Yet I think about like the
Speaker 1: Mike Tyson case, and times in my life when it's
Speaker 1: like I have been sort of acculturated not by my
Speaker 1: mom but by rape culture overall to sort of ask
Speaker 1: those were what was she doing there? Why would she
Speaker 1: say that? Why? Why can't you make that joke? Why
Speaker 1: are people being so sensitive? And then luckily I grew
Speaker 1: out of that, and so for me, a part of
Speaker 1: this is like we still haven't figured out how pervasive
Speaker 1: rape culture is in this country and how damaging it
Speaker 1: can be. Where then a woman says she's been raped
Speaker 1: or actually assaulted, that many of us immediately go what
Speaker 1: was she doing there? Instead of going how can we
Speaker 1: help you? How can we heal you? How can we
Speaker 1: get you some justice? Do you think your role as
Speaker 1: a father influenced your desire to explore this topic? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think that for me, I have three daughters.
Speaker 1: When my wife got pregnant with our first kid, I
Speaker 1: wasn't one of those men who was like, I need
Speaker 1: a boy because we need to play football. I didn't
Speaker 1: play football as a kid, so I didn't know what.
Speaker 1: I was just happy that the child was healthy. But
Speaker 1: then when my oldest daughter was born and we started
Speaker 1: hanging out and I saw her personality and mostly got
Speaker 1: pregnant again, I was like, I want another one of these,
Speaker 1: I want another girl. We'd ended up having three girls,
Speaker 1: and I was sort of always aware, and I would
Speaker 1: joke about this that my role was to be a
Speaker 1: double agent, to tell them this is what men are doing,
Speaker 1: this is what men are saying, this is how you
Speaker 1: have to be prepared. So I think that yes, being
Speaker 1: a father has affected me definitely, being a father of
Speaker 1: three girls. But when I'm doing the work on the series,
Speaker 1: I'm not doing that thing where it's like, as a
Speaker 1: father of three girls, we need to talk about cosbia.
Speaker 1: I'm very careful to not use my daughters as props
Speaker 1: for becoming a better person. I think I want to
Speaker 1: be a better person because I have these daughters, but
Speaker 1: I don't want them to become public props for me
Speaker 1: becoming a better person. Well that's interesting because I often
Speaker 1: hear from a man who say, well, I never really
Speaker 1: understood this issue until I had daughters, and I wonder
Speaker 1: why they waited until they had daughters or It's definitely
Speaker 1: an aolving conversations. So my daughters are part of that
Speaker 1: evolving conversation. But you know, my wife wouldn't have a
Speaker 1: good wouldn't have married me if I wasn't already sort
Speaker 1: of evolving on those ideas. So you have to capture
Speaker 1: a lot of different perspectives, a whole lot, and you
Speaker 1: you did it very well. I have to say in
Speaker 1: the series, thank you. There is so much footage and
Speaker 1: information about Bill Cosby. On the one hand, when you
Speaker 1: talk about the career, there's so much information, and then
Speaker 1: even though there are multiple accusers, there's you know, we
Speaker 1: know very little about them, example, the basics of their story.
Speaker 1: How do you put that together and make that a
Speaker 1: balance conversation and even a four episode series. I mean,
Speaker 1: we were aware and I'm going to talk about my
Speaker 1: team here. This is a delicate balance. There weren't models
Speaker 1: in the world of how you achieved this balance. I
Speaker 1: think the two documentaries that I associate with this are O. J.
Speaker 1: Simpson made in America by ezral In, which was like,
Speaker 1: how do you tell the story of a complicated man,
Speaker 1: you tell a story of a complicated America. And so
Speaker 1: I feel like that was one of the tent poles
Speaker 1: at this and the other one was Dreamhampton Surviving r
Speaker 1: Kelly about not shying away from letting survivors talk, like,
Speaker 1: don't just reduce them to sound bites. So in my mind,
Speaker 1: I was sort of trying to sort of bring these
Speaker 1: two different types of filmmaking together, like, we don't want
Speaker 1: people to think we tricked them into watching a documentary
Speaker 1: that's just about isn't Bill Cosby Great? Even though some
Speaker 1: of this is going to come off as isn't Bill
Speaker 1: Cosby Great? So you have to sort of figure out
Speaker 1: how do you sprinkle breadcrumbs? How do you sort of
Speaker 1: mix those tones up in a way so that people
Speaker 1: who are there for one know that the other one's coming,
Speaker 1: and people who are not there for the other know
Speaker 1: that the other one's coming. So they didn't know there's
Speaker 1: going to be a sort of a pendulum. How do
Speaker 1: you keep it compelling? And I think the biggest thing
Speaker 1: we figured out was, like in the Cosby sections, the paces,
Speaker 1: when we're talking about his career, the pace moves pretty
Speaker 1: quickly because there's a lot to cover, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of good archival, and you don't you can sort of
Speaker 1: really motivate people through it with how you a sort
Speaker 1: of edit it, but when you get to the survivors,
Speaker 1: you slow down. We didn't use a lot of archival
Speaker 1: to cover up there talking. We didn't use music to
Speaker 1: let you know how to feel, We didn't do a
Speaker 1: lot of the tricks of TV to sort of go,
Speaker 1: this is what we're trying to get you to. We
Speaker 1: sort of let them talk with not a lot of adornment,
Speaker 1: and it really sort of gave the dock the sort
Speaker 1: of like multiple shifts and movements that a little bit
Speaker 1: I was worried we're released it. People would be like,
Speaker 1: this is two different docks compounded into one. But people
Speaker 1: really understand how we're like we're down shifting and up shifting,
Speaker 1: and I think people generally seem to really appreciate that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I really was struck by how much space you gave
Speaker 1: survivors to talk about their experience, and I wondered if
Speaker 1: you learn something about the scope of the allegations from
Speaker 1: listening to them that maybe has been missing in the
Speaker 1: public conversation. Yeah, I think very early on when we
Speaker 1: started doing the research, I didn't realize that some of
Speaker 1: the allegations went back as far as they did, that
Speaker 1: they sort of track with this whole career, that they
Speaker 1: go back to the sixties. I think that even people
Speaker 1: who supports the survivors don't understand, and people who don't
Speaker 1: support the survivors want to sort of categorize this as
Speaker 1: sixty one night stands that went wrong, maybe went wrong,
Speaker 1: or sixty women who wanted something from him, and then
Speaker 1: they're trying to be vindictive. But when you look at
Speaker 1: the work that he put into sort of courting these women,
Speaker 1: that was not something I was aware of. So, like,
Speaker 1: there's women who sort of were in He was in
Speaker 1: their lives for years, and they would not hear from
Speaker 1: him for a long time and think they weren't going
Speaker 1: to hear from him again, and then he would reach
Speaker 1: out to them, and he would fly them around the
Speaker 1: country and pay for acting lessons and all these things,
Speaker 1: and then one day they would wake up and realize
Speaker 1: what they've gotten into. I didn't realize how much work
Speaker 1: he put into grooming these women. Yeah, it's almost predatory. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think one of the survivors says he put as
Speaker 1: much work into his career as he did into these activities. Yes,
Speaker 1: I thought that was a very interesting line. And you know,
Speaker 1: you've talked about your connection to Bill Cosby, and you've
Speaker 1: talked a bit about America's connection to but couldn't you
Speaker 1: say a little bit more about that? Yeah, Dick Gregory
Speaker 1: kicks the door open, and she's the first black man,
Speaker 1: black comedian his book to be on late night talk shows.
Speaker 1: Dick Gregor was probably the biggest being in the country,
Speaker 1: but then he turned towards activism by talking very directly
Speaker 1: to white America about racism. And so Bill Cosby comes
Speaker 1: on the scene, and then Bill Cosby's able to sort
Speaker 1: of really saunter through that door, but he said, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to be confrontational with you. Cosby is sort
Speaker 1: of this very safe and palatable choice. But also he
Speaker 1: was really funny and talking about things that the white
Speaker 1: people could relate to, just go into the movies and
Speaker 1: his mom and football and Bible stories, and so he
Speaker 1: really takes up a space that America needed of like
Speaker 1: we're seeing all these images of black people on TV
Speaker 1: at a time when if you turn on the news,
Speaker 1: black people are engaged in the work of trying to
Speaker 1: make America anti racist, getting our butts kicked on the
Speaker 1: local news or the TV news, doing sit ins. At
Speaker 1: that point, Martha King Junior is considered to be a
Speaker 1: dangerous radical by many white Americans. This one, this handsome,
Speaker 1: charismatic guy. He seems okay, and black people will feel like, oh,
Speaker 1: we can finally turn the TV and see one of us.
Speaker 1: And he's not shucking and jiving, he's not half stepping.
Speaker 1: He seems to be a fully embodied version of himself.
Speaker 1: And I think that you can't talk about the history
Speaker 1: of black people in television without talking about Bill Cosby
Speaker 1: at that point in his career. You know, I learned
Speaker 1: that he was also something of an activist in the
Speaker 1: entertainment world, so that on the one hand, he was
Speaker 1: non confrontational as a comic, but as an actor he
Speaker 1: became more of an activist. Let's said, we're right to activist.
Speaker 1: I'll say, can you tell us about that? And did
Speaker 1: you know about it beforehand? So when before this film
Speaker 1: was ever even inklinging of an idea? After all the
Speaker 1: survivors started coming forward, I read an article about a
Speaker 1: filmmaker named Tony Robinson, a black woman who was making
Speaker 1: film about the history of black stunt performers in Hollywood,
Speaker 1: and her doc told the story of how Bill Cosby
Speaker 1: was the person not among the people, but was the
Speaker 1: person who integrated black stunt performing because on the set
Speaker 1: of I Spy in the sixties, he refused to He's like,
Speaker 1: if you don't find me a black stunt performer, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to do this show and need to think
Speaker 1: about like it's his first it's his big break. This
Speaker 1: show is making history. It's the first time a black
Speaker 1: man a white man have been on TV as co
Speaker 1: leads of a series. It's Hollywood history. He's an up
Speaker 1: and coming comedian, but he doesn't have that much power.
Speaker 1: But he says, I refused to do the show unless
Speaker 1: you find me a black stunt man. Because at that point,
Speaker 1: what Hollywood did is if a black person need a
Speaker 1: stunt performer, they would take a white stunt performer and
Speaker 1: paint him black, literally black. And Bill Cosby saw that
Speaker 1: happening and said I won't do it, and they said okay,
Speaker 1: and they found him a black stunt performer who Bill
Speaker 1: Cosby worked with for years, and black stunt performers say
Speaker 1: that's the moment things changed. The thing that is amazing
Speaker 1: about that story is that Bill Cosby didn't run to
Speaker 1: the news with it. He didn't make it didn't become
Speaker 1: a big national story. It very easily could have. So
Speaker 1: it's one of the many ways which Bill Cosby throughout
Speaker 1: his career made the world better without demanding credit for it. Now,
Speaker 1: often Bill Cosby did demand credit for things, but that
Speaker 1: was not one of those things. And so when I
Speaker 1: read that Noney's documentary was sort of in troubled at
Speaker 1: the point. Apparently it's gonna come out now, but at
Speaker 1: that point she didn't know what to do with the
Speaker 1: documentary because she had to cut an interview she had
Speaker 1: with Bill Cosby. I was like, we're gonna lose history
Speaker 1: here if we don't tell this story. That was the
Speaker 1: thing that made me go, somebody's gonna tell this story.
Speaker 1: If this documentary doesn't come out again, it will come
Speaker 1: out now. I don't think even Bill Cosby fans know
Speaker 1: that story. And again, it just makes the story more complicated.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make the story easy to tell, because it's
Speaker 1: easy to say if you think he sexual assaulted and
Speaker 1: raped these women, you could just say well, he wasn't
Speaker 1: that funny anyway. Okay, maybe not funny to you, but
Speaker 1: now we're talking about history that made the world better
Speaker 1: for black people. Okay, So maybe it's the cynical part
Speaker 1: of me, but I'm thinking about whether or not Bill
Speaker 1: Cosby used some of those outward facing sides, the humor,
Speaker 1: the activism, the sort of non confrontational side of him
Speaker 1: in the way he walked into a room on television.
Speaker 1: Do you ever think that that might have been all
Speaker 1: of those things might have been cover for his sinister side,
Speaker 1: the mister Hyde side of him. Jelani Cobb, who's a
Speaker 1: great writer and academic, and he's in the dock and
Speaker 1: he says a lot of people have tried to sort
Speaker 1: of say this as Doctor Jekyll and mister Hyde, but
Speaker 1: he says, I think there's a compelling case that it's
Speaker 1: all mister Hyde. And I think that gets to that
Speaker 1: point that he's actively sort of like putting forward public faces.
Speaker 1: He knows that if he gives twenty million dollars to
Speaker 1: a university, he gets him a lot of good coverage.
Speaker 1: But he gave twenty million dollars to Spellman, a university
Speaker 1: for black women. So I think the idea being that
Speaker 1: like two things can be true at once, even if
Speaker 1: they seem like their opposite. So, and you know, one
Speaker 1: of the things that has happened because of this dock
Speaker 1: is that I've heard other stories of Bill Cosby, some
Speaker 1: of them about sexual assault, but some of them about
Speaker 1: just like borish behavior where people would be like I
Speaker 1: saw Bill Cosby somewhere and I was excited to meet him,
Speaker 1: and he was not nice to me at all, Like
Speaker 1: not just blew me off, but not nice or making
Speaker 1: fun of people in ways that felt crueler that didn't
Speaker 1: feel like the Bill Cosby saw a TV. Now, if
Speaker 1: that's just the story, if we don't have all these
Speaker 1: sexual assault stories, that is true of many stand up comedians,
Speaker 1: but when you know the whole story of Bill Cosby,
Speaker 1: it does feel like that offstage face is meaner than
Speaker 1: you would expect for a guy who is being heralded
Speaker 1: as America's Dad. After the break, we talk about the
Speaker 1: forces that enable Cosby to be like mister Hyde and
Speaker 1: how this documentary series models a conversation about issues that
Speaker 1: we'd rather not face, but must you are listening to
Speaker 1: getting even I'm Anita Hill, I'm speaking with W Kamal
Speaker 1: Bell about his Doctor commentary series. We need to talk
Speaker 1: about Cosby. We had these clues that he was mister Hyde,
Speaker 1: yet we were willing to accommodate him. Yes, and so
Speaker 1: I really want us to think about why we were
Speaker 1: accommodating him. Bottom line is that we stay silent and
Speaker 1: we silence others to protect something. And when we're talking
Speaker 1: about rape culture, it's not necessarily that we stay silent
Speaker 1: to protect the victims, nor is it that we stay
Speaker 1: silent to protect the accusers. We're protecting something else, I believe,
Speaker 1: some emotional investment that we have in people like Bill Cosby,
Speaker 1: or we're protecting an economic investment that we have in
Speaker 1: Bill Cosby. Yes, I think it's it's such a like
Speaker 1: toxic stew of things we're talking about here. I think
Speaker 1: that we have to sort of look at the fact
Speaker 1: that one Hollywood was specifically designed to create false images
Speaker 1: of its stars. When Bill Cosby first comes onto the scene,
Speaker 1: you know, we're still sort of in that studio era
Speaker 1: where if Hollywood decides you're going to be a star,
Speaker 1: and that back then they were deciding you were going
Speaker 1: to be a star, what do they do? They change
Speaker 1: your name, they dye your hair, they give you new clothes,
Speaker 1: They tell you who you're dating. Even if you're gay,
Speaker 1: you're still going to date this woman. And they get
Speaker 1: pictures taken of you being casual when you're not being casual,
Speaker 1: and they and they control where you go and who
Speaker 1: you talk to, and if you're doing things they don't
Speaker 1: want you to do, they cover that stuff up. So
Speaker 1: Hollywood led us to believe over years that these people
Speaker 1: were perfect people even though they weren't. And I think
Speaker 1: that starts to cover up a lot of bad behavior,
Speaker 1: and it starts to create an industry that is good
Speaker 1: at covering up bad behavior, so that by the time
Speaker 1: you hear that one of your favorite celebrities is doing
Speaker 1: awful things, you're like, but what do you mean he's done.
Speaker 1: He's such a good person. I've been told he's done
Speaker 1: all these good things. I've been told. So it's it's
Speaker 1: a cognitive dissonance where you're like, but he's he's never
Speaker 1: done a bad thing before, and what you don't know
Speaker 1: is his bad things have been covered up all this time.
Speaker 1: If it's a black celebrity, we have lots of role
Speaker 1: models that could be promoted to like being stars in
Speaker 1: this country, but because of racism, they don't get access
Speaker 1: to being stars the same way that white people do.
Speaker 1: So we feel like we don't have enough heroes and
Speaker 1: role models, and so it is hard for some black
Speaker 1: people to think we're gonna lose one, even if it's
Speaker 1: at the cost of over sixty women who've accused that
Speaker 1: person of rape. We're sort of trying to do the math, like,
Speaker 1: was does the good outweigh the bad? Okay, he did
Speaker 1: these things that these sixty women, but he did all
Speaker 1: these good things and that outweighs the bad. And I
Speaker 1: don't think. I don't think the math works that way.
Speaker 1: I think you have to sort of go there is
Speaker 1: good in there is bad, and we can look at it.
Speaker 1: But if the bad is bad enough, you can't. There's
Speaker 1: not enough good to outweigh it well. And I also
Speaker 1: think that you have this history of over policing in
Speaker 1: the black community where they want to keep the police
Speaker 1: at bay, especially from somebody who we have learned to
Speaker 1: believe that, Okay, if Bill Cosby can make it, he
Speaker 1: can lift the rest of us, or some more of
Speaker 1: us can come through, and cand you just say a
Speaker 1: little bit about the role that respectability politics has played
Speaker 1: in a black community perception of good and evil. Whenever
Speaker 1: hear black people who feel like they can't handle all
Speaker 1: of this information, or don't want to all this information,
Speaker 1: or want to pretend like the survivors are lying, it's
Speaker 1: sort of tragic for me because I feel like one
Speaker 1: thing black people have been good at in his country
Speaker 1: is acknowledging the dual nature of America. So we have
Speaker 1: been able to sort of on some level, go America
Speaker 1: is the greatest country in the world because that's what
Speaker 1: we've been sold and we believe that, and we can
Speaker 1: sort of point opportunities in our life this might not
Speaker 1: have happened in another country. But at the same time
Speaker 1: we're also able to acknowledge America is specifically hard on
Speaker 1: black people. And so I think factability politics acts like
Speaker 1: the structural stuff doesn't exist, and it's just about this
Speaker 1: is the greatest country in the world. If Bill Cosby
Speaker 1: can make it, you can make it, when in fact,
Speaker 1: it's like that's just not true. You can look at
Speaker 1: him as an example of like, yeay, he made it,
Speaker 1: and yeah he's helping other people get through, but it
Speaker 1: is not true that we all have the same access
Speaker 1: to making it specifically if you're a black person, specifically
Speaker 1: at that point in history. And Cholby's didn't try to
Speaker 1: make Bill Cosby the biggest star in the world. It
Speaker 1: happened because of a lot of different things that came together.
Speaker 1: But Shelbys, We've got a capitalize on it. Once he's
Speaker 1: in there. Yes, he's getting access to all the commercials,
Speaker 1: all the endorsements, all the opportunities, and all the protection.
Speaker 1: I lead something called the Hollywood Commission, and we're charged
Speaker 1: with trying to deal with some of these problems in
Speaker 1: the entertainment industry of rape culture and the valuing of women.
Speaker 1: And I think about how often you hear when someone
Speaker 1: is finally revealed somebody like you know, Harvey Weinstein or
Speaker 1: Scott Ruden. How often you hear, oh, well, it was
Speaker 1: well known in Hollywood, but it's not ever acted upon.
Speaker 1: And so I want to span out of bed because
Speaker 1: he has a conversation about Cosby, But as you say,
Speaker 1: it's a conversation about a bigger social issue we had.
Speaker 1: The Hollywood community is only one. I've dealt with, university
Speaker 1: communities and church communities all around these issues. And I'm
Speaker 1: wondering if you think this series can be a model
Speaker 1: for how we move forward on claims of sexual abuse
Speaker 1: in the black community, of course, but other communities that
Speaker 1: grapple with the same problem, the problem of silencing and
Speaker 1: denials and dismissiveness. I hope. So. I think I'm aware
Speaker 1: that like, at the end of the day, this is
Speaker 1: just a series of like episodes of television, and that's
Speaker 1: not legislation. It's not structural change, it's not institutional change.
Speaker 1: I have to understand that, Like the work is what
Speaker 1: happens after people watch it, when they turn to each
Speaker 1: other or they go online and they start to go
Speaker 1: what do we do now? And I want to be
Speaker 1: engaged in the what do we do now? Conversation. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's my job to lead it, but I
Speaker 1: think I have sort of This film can help be
Speaker 1: a part of that. But to me, I mean, the
Speaker 1: film is absolutely wants to be like and all those
Speaker 1: places you name, the church, Hollywood, you know, all these
Speaker 1: different communities, what are the unifying factors? Like there's an
Speaker 1: institutional mandate to protect people in power no matter what,
Speaker 1: and I think we have to get away from that
Speaker 1: and power are the ways in which you can anonymously
Speaker 1: tip us off on some bad behavior. We don't have
Speaker 1: that in society generally, not enough. That I think is
Speaker 1: one of the key things to work on. That it's
Speaker 1: not about adjusting the current nature of all this. It's
Speaker 1: about going, we need to redo the structure. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: ultimately about we're doing this structure. But I have to say,
Speaker 1: if I want to have a conversation about rape culture
Speaker 1: in Hollywood, I'm going to come to you and you're
Speaker 1: gonna help me design it. You said nothing but a word.
Speaker 1: I feel like there are people and I will I
Speaker 1: say this. Who I'm just a I'm a enlisted like
Speaker 1: enlisted like a private in the army, And I'm sort
Speaker 1: of feel that way about you, Like if you need me,
Speaker 1: I'm here for you. I'm happy to I think one
Speaker 1: thing that I do know how to do is to
Speaker 1: sort of like have these conversations, and but I also
Speaker 1: know how to surround myself people who are smarter than me,
Speaker 1: who can help these conversations be productive and meaningful and
Speaker 1: have lasting effects. Well, thank you, listen, do you have
Speaker 1: any questions for me? You've had this conversation a trillion
Speaker 1: times about the supreme Court and Clarence Thomas. But for
Speaker 1: me personally, how I went into that not understanding and
Speaker 1: how I came out on the other stand understanding something
Speaker 1: that I did not understand. And a lot of that
Speaker 1: was conversations with my mom who was sort of walking
Speaker 1: me through what was going on there. The thing that
Speaker 1: I think that I've realized as I get older, not
Speaker 1: enough of us came through and I was not fixed
Speaker 1: at the end of it. I was not like it
Speaker 1: took me years to get to where I am. Now.
Speaker 1: How can we do this better? What could we have
Speaker 1: done better? Because I feel like that, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't think I came through far enough on the other side,
Speaker 1: but I certainly I understood things about harassing the workplace
Speaker 1: that I did not understand before. Yeah, I think the
Speaker 1: answer to that doesn't go back to nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 1: and I think we're still trying to find how we
Speaker 1: can do better. But first of all, I think we
Speaker 1: have to create forums where survivors, victims and accuse can
Speaker 1: be heard as equals, where the balances and tip toward
Speaker 1: one or the other. We also have to have a
Speaker 1: forum where people around this because you know, these situations
Speaker 1: don't just involve two people. They involve communities many times,
Speaker 1: and people in the communities convent their frustrations, anger, disappointment,
Speaker 1: and really they're fears. Because I think a lot of
Speaker 1: that is happening why people have such a strong reaction.
Speaker 1: So we've got to be able to create that space
Speaker 1: where people can talk about their fears and understand how
Speaker 1: some of them are misplaced. They're based on a lot
Speaker 1: of myths and tropes and you know, our racist and sexists.
Speaker 1: And ultimately, what I think is necessary as a place
Speaker 1: where we can actually have a conversation about equality that's thorough,
Speaker 1: that's real. I mean, that covers all kinds of identities
Speaker 1: because typically these conversations happen and you know, like put
Speaker 1: the Thomas here, Well that's that's focused on racial equality
Speaker 1: because he's a black man, But they weren't thinking about
Speaker 1: gender equality. So those are my that's my start that
Speaker 1: start to answer your question how can we make it better?
Speaker 1: And I say this not to patronize you, but I
Speaker 1: do believe that they start with real, honest, genuine conversations.
Speaker 1: I mean, I be clear, I don't feel patronized by
Speaker 1: it at all, because I didn't invent conversations so didn't
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I was sure it was you. I
Speaker 1: won't think whoever it was, and you and you have
Speaker 1: brought them to another level. So even if you didn't
Speaker 1: invent them, thank you. I appreciate that. I am here
Speaker 1: to serve whatever however you feel like. I need to
Speaker 1: serve because there's just so much more work to do.
Speaker 1: And I feel like I was thinking about this is
Speaker 1: the way when you're thinking about my kids. When my
Speaker 1: mom handed me the America is Racist baton, it was
Speaker 1: lighter than when she had gotten it, you know, And
Speaker 1: I think I'm in danger of handing my kids a
Speaker 1: heavier baton, and this is you know, yes, it is
Speaker 1: very scary. So and I think when my mom handed
Speaker 1: to me, the conversation, like you said, was just about racism.
Speaker 1: And now that conversation is a lot more inclusive. So
Speaker 1: the tome's automatically going to be different, but I don't
Speaker 1: want it to be heavier, right right, Well, that's great.
Speaker 1: That gives me something to think about and look forward to,
Speaker 1: because I think you're absolutely right. The last thing any
Speaker 1: of us want to do is to pass on a
Speaker 1: world that's in we're shape than what we got when
Speaker 1: we were born into it, like, oh my god, I again.
Speaker 1: I just want to thank you for making the film.
Speaker 1: I want to thank you for really being so honest
Speaker 1: sharing with us why you made it, and also, you know,
Speaker 1: not just making the film, but really showing us how
Speaker 1: we can address these issues, the issue of rape culture
Speaker 1: and our denial of it. Thank you. It's an honor
Speaker 1: to be here, an extreme honor. And as I said,
Speaker 1: I am, I'm now officially enrolled as a soldier in
Speaker 1: the I need to Hell Army, so I'm here you
Speaker 1: need me. Thank you, Thank you. I grew up in
Speaker 1: an era where it was understood that you didn't speak
Speaker 1: publicly about bad behavior happening within your community. Today, I
Speaker 1: know that it was a survival tactic in black communities
Speaker 1: as well as many others, and sometimes it was necessary.
Speaker 1: But as Audrey Lord told us, your silence will not
Speaker 1: protect you. W Kamal Bell's film We Need to Talk
Speaker 1: About Cosby reminds us that silence won't protect our communities either.
Speaker 1: Through his documentary, Bell brought victims out of the margins
Speaker 1: and placed them visibly in the center of the conversation
Speaker 1: as humans, not as caricatures, and he gave activists an
Speaker 1: expert space to shed light on the presumptions that make
Speaker 1: people unwilling to believe victims and structures and make it
Speaker 1: impossible for victims to be heard. Bell allowed for resolution
Speaker 1: for the people who participated in the conversation, even if
Speaker 1: in the end not everyone agreed. He forces us to
Speaker 1: think about accountability in what it looks like we need
Speaker 1: to talk about Cosby provides a blueprint for other hard conversations.
Speaker 1: Next week, you'll hear me in conversation with Sam Fragoso
Speaker 1: on an episode of his podcasts Talk Easy. We'll be
Speaker 1: back the following week with authors Alice and Rebecca Walker.
Speaker 1: Getting Even is a production of Pushkin Industries and is
Speaker 1: written and hosted by me Anita Hill. It is produced
Speaker 1: by Mola Board and Brittany Brown. Our editor is Sarah Kramer,
Speaker 1: our engineer is Amanda kay Wang, and our showrunner is
Speaker 1: Sasha Matthias. Luis Gara composed original music for the show.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Mia Lobel and Letal malad Our.
Speaker 1: Director of Development is Justine Lane. At Pushkin. Thanks to
Speaker 1: Heather Fane, Carly Migliori, Jason Gambrel, Julia Barton, John Schnarz
Speaker 1: and Jacob Weisberg. You can find me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Anita Hill and on Facebook at Anita Hill. You can
Speaker 1: find Pushkin on all social platforms at pushkin Pods, and
Speaker 1: you can sign up for our newsletter at pushkin dot fm.
Speaker 1: If you love this show and others from Pushkin Industries,
Speaker 1: consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Subscribe to Pushkin Plus and
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