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0:44

As a black man in America who

0:47

grew up through this, we need to talk about Bill Cosby.

0:50

That's filmmaker and comedian W.

0:53

Kamal Bell, who recently

0:55

released the documentary series We

0:58

Need to talk About Cosby or

1:01

Bell, who is drawn to challenging conversations.

1:04

This was a conversation

1:07

that had to happen, you know. Series

1:09

comes out of the fact that as a black kid who

1:11

was born in the early seventies, who grew up

1:13

in an America where

1:15

Bill Cosby was part of the wallpaper of Black America,

1:17

and I was right there every week wanting to be one of the Huxtables.

1:21

I just sort of thought in some sense that I was walking

1:23

in the path that Bill Cosby had created,

1:26

and to try to aspire to be like him, to be a comedian

1:28

who is funny but also does good in the world,

1:31

who is intelligent but also silly and

1:34

helps pull other people along who may not be pulled

1:36

along otherwise. And then

1:38

the sixty women came

1:41

forward that I was like wrestling with how

1:43

does all this make sense? Because they seem to be such disparate

1:45

truths, And so the documentary is

1:47

just me inviting people to have that conversation

1:49

about how do we make sense of all of this? And it's

1:51

not a conversation, and lots of people want to have. More

1:54

people said no than yes, But the people who showed up

1:56

really showed up, including many of the survivors.

1:59

Bill Cosby is the trojan horse for having the bigger

2:01

conversation about rape culture in America. I'm

2:05

Anita Hill. This is

2:07

Getting Even, my podcast

2:10

about equality and what it takes

2:12

to get there. On Getting

2:14

Even, I speak with people who

2:16

are improving our imperfect

2:19

world, people who took

2:21

risks and broke the rules.

2:24

In this episode, w Kamal

2:26

Bell and I discuss the importance

2:28

of having hard conversations,

2:31

the kind of conversations that move

2:33

us forward as a society,

2:36

and how Bell's documentary

2:38

we need to talk about Cosby accomplishes

2:42

exactly that tell

2:46

us about your series. It's title,

2:49

We need to talk Who's

2:51

the Wii? That's

2:53

funny? I see the wei as

2:56

people who see that title and go, oh,

2:58

yeah, we do. I think it's one of those things

3:00

that you opt into it if it resonates

3:02

with you. I've seen many people go, I don't even

3:04

talk about Cosby, and I'm like, well, good, there's lots

3:06

of other TV for you to watch, you know. But

3:09

I think for me, when we release the

3:11

trailer and the title, to see many people go

3:13

finally, we're gonna have this discussion. And

3:15

I think we were very clear about like we're going to talk about

3:18

all of its career and the crimes,

3:20

and to see a lot of people go, I've been wanting to

3:22

have this conversation but not knowing where to have it.

3:24

At the core because I'm a black man. Black

3:27

people are the core part of this conversation,

3:29

because his effect on us is very different than

3:31

the effect on the greater world. But certainly

3:34

the Cosby Show was not just the biggest show in Black

3:36

America. It was the biggest show in America. So

3:38

a lot of people who are not black also are

3:41

defined by that. We there's also a

3:43

generational divide here. I think

3:45

if you're under the age of thirty

3:47

five, maybe you're like, I don't understand

3:49

what we need to talk about. I get it's a

3:52

he's a criminal who raped a lot of people.

3:54

I don't know what we need to talk about, and I've seen some of that, but

3:56

I think there is like if you were my generation,

3:58

was the gen X or the jet or Baby boomers,

4:01

you came up sort of admiring this man.

4:03

And so I really do think that part of this is a generational

4:06

conversation. Yeah,

4:09

and generational conversations are really

4:11

really difficult to translate

4:13

sometimes. Yes, but you are

4:15

letting the public in to your

4:18

conversation, your way of making

4:20

sense out of the whole

4:22

episode in the scandal that

4:25

is whirling around Bill Cosby.

4:27

Now, who do you think should hear

4:31

this conversation? I

4:33

mean, a big part of this is about

4:36

really examining a rape

4:38

culture in America, and

4:40

not all of that is crime. A lot of that is things

4:43

that are quote unquote jokes or ways

4:45

in which we talk about sexual salt and rape, but also

4:47

ways in which we have been acculturated

4:49

to treat women at the workplace.

4:53

I sort of came of age in the nineties when

4:55

a lot of these conversations started to happen, When

4:57

we started to you know, I think about, like

4:59

specifically related to you, the Clarence

5:01

Thomas case. I was a teenager who was like trying

5:04

to understand what was going on and

5:06

not really able to have that conversation. Yet I

5:08

think about like the Mike Tyson case, and times

5:10

in my life when it's like I have been

5:12

sort of acculturated not by my

5:15

mom but by rape

5:17

culture overall to sort of ask those were

5:19

what was she doing there? Why would she say that? Why?

5:21

Why can't you make that joke? Why are people being

5:23

so sensitive? And then luckily I

5:25

grew out of that, and so for me, a part of this

5:27

is like we still haven't figured out

5:30

how pervasive rape culture is in this country

5:32

and how damaging it can be. Where

5:35

then a woman says she's been raped or actually assaulted,

5:37

that many of us immediately go what was she doing

5:39

there? Instead of going how can we help you? How can we

5:42

heal you? How can we get you some justice?

5:46

Do you think your role as a father influenced

5:48

your desire to explore

5:51

this topic? Yeah,

5:54

I mean I think that for me, I have three

5:56

daughters. When my wife got pregnant

5:59

with our first kid, I wasn't one of those men who was like, I

6:01

need a boy because we

6:03

need to play football. I didn't play football as a kid,

6:05

so I didn't know what. I was just

6:07

happy that the child was healthy. But then when

6:09

my oldest daughter was born and we

6:11

started hanging out and I saw her personality

6:14

and mostly got pregnant again, I was like, I want another

6:16

one of these, I want another girl. We'd ended up

6:18

having three girls, and I was sort of always

6:20

aware, and I would joke about this that my role

6:22

was to be a double agent, to tell them

6:24

this is what men are doing, this is what men are

6:26

saying, this is how you have to be prepared.

6:29

So I think that yes, being a father has affected

6:31

me definitely, being a father of three

6:33

girls. But when I'm doing the work

6:35

on the series, I'm not doing that thing

6:37

where it's like, as a father of three girls,

6:39

we need to talk about cosbia. I'm

6:41

very careful to not use my daughters as props

6:44

for becoming a better person. I think I want

6:46

to be a better person because I have these daughters, but I

6:48

don't want them to become public props for me

6:51

becoming a better person. Well that's interesting

6:53

because I often hear from a man

6:55

who say, well, I never really understood

6:57

this issue until I had daughters,

7:00

and I wonder why

7:02

they waited until they had daughters or It's

7:08

definitely an aolving conversations. So my daughters

7:10

are part of that evolving conversation. But you know,

7:12

my wife wouldn't have a good wouldn't have

7:14

married me if I wasn't already sort

7:17

of evolving on those ideas. So you

7:19

have to capture a lot of different perspectives,

7:22

a whole lot, and you you did it very

7:24

well. I have to say in the series,

7:27

thank you. There is so much footage

7:30

and information about Bill

7:32

Cosby. On the one hand, when you

7:34

talk about the career, there's so much information,

7:38

and then even though there are

7:40

multiple accusers, there's

7:43

you know, we know very little about them,

7:46

example, the basics of their story. How

7:48

do you put that together and

7:50

make that a balance conversation and

7:53

even a four episode series.

7:55

I mean, we were aware and I'm going to

7:58

talk about my team here. This is a delicate balance.

8:00

There weren't models in the world of how you achieved this balance.

8:03

I think the two documentaries that I associate with

8:05

this are O. J. Simpson made in America

8:08

by ezral In, which was like, how do you tell the

8:10

story of a complicated man, you tell

8:12

a story of a complicated America. And so I

8:14

feel like that was one of the tent poles at this and the other

8:16

one was Dreamhampton Surviving r Kelly about

8:19

not shying away from letting survivors talk,

8:21

like, don't just reduce them to sound bites. So in

8:24

my mind, I was sort of trying to sort of bring these

8:26

two different types of filmmaking together,

8:28

like, we don't want people to think we tricked them into watching

8:31

a documentary that's just about isn't Bill Cosby

8:33

Great? Even though some of this is going to come off as isn't

8:35

Bill Cosby Great? So you have to sort of figure

8:37

out how do you sprinkle breadcrumbs? How

8:39

do you sort of mix those tones

8:41

up in a way so that people who are there

8:43

for one know that the other one's coming, and people

8:46

who are not there for the other know that the other one's

8:48

coming. So they didn't know there's going to be a sort

8:50

of a pendulum. How do you keep it compelling?

8:53

And I think the biggest thing we figured out

8:55

was, like in the Cosby sections, the

8:57

paces, when we're talking about his career, the pace

9:00

moves pretty quickly because there's a lot to

9:02

cover, there's a lot of good archival, and

9:04

you don't you can sort of really motivate people

9:06

through it with how you a sort of edit it, but

9:08

when you get to the survivors, you slow down.

9:12

We didn't use a lot of archival to cover up there

9:14

talking. We didn't use music to let you know

9:16

how to feel, We didn't do a lot of the tricks

9:18

of TV to sort of go, this is what we're trying to get you

9:20

to. We sort of let them talk with not a

9:22

lot of adornment, and it really sort of gave

9:24

the dock the sort of like multiple

9:27

shifts and movements that a

9:29

little bit I was worried we're released it. People would be like, this

9:31

is two different docks compounded into one.

9:33

But people really understand how we're like

9:36

we're down shifting and up shifting, and I think people

9:38

generally seem to really appreciate that. Yeah.

9:40

I really was struck by how much

9:43

space you gave survivors

9:46

to talk about their experience, and

9:48

I wondered if you learn something about

9:50

the scope of the allegations

9:53

from listening to them that maybe

9:56

has been missing in the public conversation.

9:59

Yeah, I think very early on when we started doing the

10:01

research, I didn't realize that some of the allegations

10:03

went back as far as they did, that they

10:06

sort of track with this whole career, that they

10:08

go back to the sixties. I think that

10:10

even people who supports the survivors don't understand,

10:12

and people who don't support the survivors want

10:14

to sort of categorize this as sixty one night

10:17

stands that went wrong, maybe

10:19

went wrong, or sixty women who

10:21

wanted something from him, and then they're trying to be vindictive.

10:24

But when you look at the work that he put into

10:26

sort of courting these women, that

10:28

was not something I was aware of. So, like, there's women

10:30

who sort of were in He was in their lives for

10:33

years, and they would not hear from him for a long time

10:35

and think they weren't going to hear from him again, and then he would reach

10:37

out to them, and he would fly them around the country

10:39

and pay for acting lessons and all

10:41

these things, and then one day they would wake up

10:43

and realize what they've gotten into. I didn't realize how

10:45

much work he put into grooming

10:48

these women. Yeah, it's almost predatory.

10:51

Yes, I think one of the survivors says he put as

10:53

much work into his career as he did into these activities.

10:56

Yes, I thought that was a very interesting

10:59

line. And you know, you've talked about

11:01

your connection to Bill Cosby,

11:04

and you've talked a bit about America's

11:07

connection to but

11:10

couldn't you say a little bit more about that?

11:12

Yeah, Dick Gregory kicks

11:15

the door open, and she's the first black man, black

11:17

comedian his book to be on late night talk shows.

11:19

Dick Gregor was probably the biggest being in the country, but then

11:21

he turned towards activism by talking very

11:23

directly to white America about racism.

11:26

And so Bill Cosby comes

11:28

on the scene, and then Bill Cosby's

11:31

able to sort of really saunter through that door,

11:33

but he said, I'm not going to be confrontational

11:35

with you. Cosby is sort of this very

11:38

safe and palatable choice. But also

11:40

he was really funny and talking about things

11:43

that the white people could relate to, just go into

11:45

the movies and his mom and football and

11:47

Bible stories, and so he really takes

11:50

up a space that America needed

11:52

of like we're seeing all these images of black people on TV

11:55

at a time when if you turn on the news, black

11:57

people are engaged in the work of trying

11:59

to make America anti racist, getting our

12:01

butts kicked on the local news or

12:04

the TV news, doing sit ins. At

12:06

that point, Martha King Junior is considered to be a dangerous

12:08

radical by many white Americans. This

12:10

one, this handsome, charismatic guy.

12:13

He seems okay, and black people will

12:15

feel like, oh, we can finally turn the TV and see

12:17

one of us. And he's not shucking and jiving,

12:20

he's not half stepping. He seems to be a

12:22

fully embodied version of himself. And

12:25

I think that you can't talk about the history

12:27

of black people in television without talking about

12:29

Bill Cosby at that point in his career. You

12:33

know, I learned that he was

12:35

also something of an activist in

12:37

the entertainment world, so

12:40

that on the one hand, he was non

12:42

confrontational as a

12:44

comic, but as

12:46

an actor he became more

12:48

of an activist. Let's said, we're right to activist.

12:51

I'll say, can you tell

12:53

us about that? And did you know about it beforehand?

12:56

So when before this film was ever even

12:59

inklinging of an idea? After all the survivors

13:01

started coming forward, I read an article about

13:04

a filmmaker named Tony Robinson, a black woman

13:06

who was making film about the history of black stunt performers

13:08

in Hollywood, and her doc told

13:11

the story of how Bill Cosby was

13:13

the person not among the people, but was

13:15

the person who integrated black stunt

13:18

performing because on the set of I Spy in the

13:20

sixties, he refused to He's

13:22

like, if you don't find me a black stunt performer, I'm not

13:24

going to do this show and need to think about like it's

13:26

his first it's his big break. This

13:29

show is making history. It's the first time a black man a

13:31

white man have been on TV as co leads of a series.

13:33

It's Hollywood history. He's

13:36

an up and coming comedian, but he doesn't have that

13:38

much power. But he says, I refused to do the show unless

13:40

you find me a black stunt man. Because at that point, what

13:42

Hollywood did is if a black person need a stunt performer,

13:44

they would take a white stunt performer and paint him black,

13:47

literally black. And Bill Cosby saw

13:49

that happening and said I won't do it, and

13:51

they said okay, and they found him a black

13:53

stunt performer who Bill Cosby worked with for years,

13:56

and black stunt performers say that's

13:58

the moment things changed. The thing that is

14:00

amazing about that story is that Bill Cosby didn't run

14:02

to the news with it. He didn't make it didn't become

14:04

a big national story. It very easily could

14:07

have. So it's one of the many ways

14:09

which Bill Cosby throughout his career made

14:11

the world better without demanding credit

14:13

for it. Now, often Bill Cosby did demand credit for

14:15

things, but that was not one of those

14:17

things. And so when I read that Noney's documentary

14:19

was sort of in troubled at

14:22

the point. Apparently it's gonna come out now, but

14:24

at that point she didn't know what to do with the documentary because

14:26

she had to cut an interview she had with Bill Cosby. I

14:28

was like, we're gonna lose history here if we don't tell

14:31

this story. That was the thing that made me

14:33

go, somebody's gonna tell this story. If this documentary

14:35

doesn't come out again, it will come out now. I

14:37

don't think even Bill Cosby fans know that story.

14:40

And again, it just makes the story more complicated.

14:42

It doesn't make the story easy to tell, because it's easy

14:44

to say if you think he sexual assaulted

14:47

and raped these women, you could just say well, he wasn't that funny

14:49

anyway. Okay, maybe not funny

14:51

to you, but now we're talking about history that

14:53

made the world better for black people. Okay,

14:56

So maybe it's the cynical part

14:58

of me, but I'm thinking about whether

15:01

or not Bill Cosby

15:04

used some of those outward facing sides,

15:06

the humor, the activism,

15:09

the sort of non confrontational

15:11

side of him in the way he

15:14

walked into a room on television.

15:17

Do you ever think that that might have been all

15:19

of those things might have been cover for

15:23

his sinister side, the

15:25

mister Hyde side of him. Jelani

15:27

Cobb, who's a great writer and academic,

15:29

and he's in the dock and he says a lot of people have

15:31

tried to sort of say this as Doctor Jekyll and mister Hyde,

15:34

but he says, I think there's a compelling case that it's all

15:36

mister Hyde. And

15:38

I think that gets to that point that he's actively

15:41

sort of like putting forward public faces.

15:43

He knows that if he gives twenty million dollars

15:45

to a university, he gets him a lot of good coverage.

15:47

But he gave twenty million dollars to Spellman, a

15:49

university for black women. So

15:51

I think the idea being that like two things can

15:54

be true at once, even if they seem like their opposite.

15:56

So, and you know, one

15:58

of the things that has happened because of this dock is that I've

16:00

heard other stories of Bill Cosby, some of them about sexual

16:02

assault, but some of them about just like borish

16:05

behavior where people would be like I saw Bill

16:07

Cosby somewhere and I was excited

16:09

to meet him, and he was not nice to me at all, Like

16:12

not just blew me off, but not nice

16:14

or making fun of people in ways that felt crueler

16:16

that didn't feel like the Bill Cosby saw a TV. Now,

16:19

if that's just the story, if we don't have all these

16:21

sexual assault stories, that is true of many stand up

16:23

comedians, but when you know the whole story of Bill Cosby,

16:26

it does feel like that offstage

16:28

face is meaner than you would expect for a guy

16:30

who is being heralded as America's Dad. After

16:37

the break, we talk about

16:39

the forces that enable Cosby

16:41

to be like mister Hyde and

16:45

how this documentary series models

16:47

a conversation about issues that we'd

16:49

rather not face, but

16:52

must you

17:03

are listening to getting even I'm Anita

17:05

Hill, I'm speaking with W Kamal

17:08

Bell about his Doctor commentary series.

17:10

We need to talk about Cosby. We

17:14

had these clues that he was

17:16

mister Hyde, yet

17:20

we were

17:22

willing to accommodate him.

17:26

Yes, and so

17:28

I really want us to think about why we were

17:31

accommodating him. Bottom

17:33

line is that we stay silent

17:35

and we silence others to

17:38

protect something. And when we're

17:40

talking about rape culture, it's not necessarily

17:43

that we stay silent to protect

17:46

the victims, nor

17:49

is it that we stay silent to protect the

17:51

accusers. We're

17:54

protecting something else, I believe,

17:56

some emotional investment that

17:59

we have in people

18:01

like Bill Cosby, or we're

18:03

protecting an economic investment

18:06

that we have in Bill Cosby. Yes,

18:09

I think it's it's such a like toxic stew

18:11

of things we're talking about here. I

18:14

think that we have to sort of look at the fact that one

18:16

Hollywood was specifically designed

18:19

to create false images of its stars.

18:22

When Bill Cosby first comes onto the scene,

18:24

you know, we're still sort of in that studio

18:26

era where if Hollywood decides

18:28

you're going to be a star, and that back then

18:30

they were deciding you were going to be a star, what

18:33

do they do? They change your name, they dye

18:35

your hair, they give you new clothes,

18:38

They tell you who you're dating. Even if you're

18:40

gay, you're still going to date this woman. And

18:42

they get pictures taken of you being casual

18:44

when you're not being casual, and they and they

18:46

control where you go and who you talk to, and

18:50

if you're doing things they don't want you to do, they

18:52

cover that stuff up. So Hollywood led us

18:54

to believe over years that these people were perfect

18:56

people even though they weren't. And

18:59

I think that starts to cover up a lot of

19:01

bad behavior, and it starts to create an industry

19:03

that is good at covering up bad behavior, so

19:05

that by the time you hear that one of your favorite celebrities

19:08

is doing awful things, you're like, but what do you mean

19:10

he's done. He's such a good person. I've been

19:12

told he's done all these good

19:14

things. I've been told. So it's it's

19:16

a cognitive dissonance where you're like, but he's he's

19:19

never done a bad thing before, and what you

19:21

don't know is his bad things have been covered up

19:23

all this time. If it's a black celebrity,

19:26

we have lots of role models that could be promoted

19:28

to like being stars in this country,

19:31

but because of racism, they don't get access

19:33

to being stars the same way that white people do.

19:35

So we feel like we don't have enough

19:38

heroes and role models, and so it

19:40

is hard for some black people to think we're gonna lose one,

19:42

even if it's at the cost of over sixty women

19:45

who've accused that person of rape. We're

19:47

sort of trying to do the math, like, was does the

19:49

good outweigh the bad? Okay, he

19:51

did these things that these sixty women, but he

19:53

did all these good things and that outweighs the bad. And

19:55

I don't think. I don't think the math works that way. I think you

19:57

have to sort of go there is good in there is

19:59

bad, and we can look at

20:01

it. But if the bad is bad enough, you can't. There's

20:03

not enough good to outweigh it well. And

20:06

I also think that you have

20:08

this history of over policing

20:11

in the black community where they

20:14

want to keep the police at bay, especially

20:17

from somebody who we have

20:19

learned to believe that, Okay, if Bill Cosby

20:22

can make it, he can lift the rest of

20:24

us, or some more of us can come

20:26

through, and cand you just say a little

20:28

bit about the role that respectability

20:30

politics has played in a black

20:33

community perception of good

20:35

and evil. Whenever hear black people

20:37

who feel like they can't handle all of this information,

20:40

or don't want to all this information, or want

20:42

to pretend like the survivors are

20:44

lying, it's sort of tragic for me because

20:46

I feel like one thing black people have been good at in his country

20:48

is acknowledging the dual nature

20:51

of America. So we

20:53

have been able to sort of on some level, go America

20:55

is the greatest country in the world because that's what we've been sold

20:57

and we believe that, and we can sort of point opportunities

21:00

in our life this might not have happened in another country.

21:02

But at the same time we're also able to acknowledge America

21:05

is specifically hard on black people. And

21:07

so I think factability politics

21:10

acts like the structural stuff doesn't

21:12

exist, and it's just about this is

21:14

the greatest country in the world. If Bill

21:16

Cosby can make it, you can make it, when in

21:18

fact, it's like that's just not true. You

21:20

can look at him as an example of

21:22

like, yeay, he made it, and yeah he's helping other people

21:24

get through, but it is not true that we

21:26

all have the same access to making it specifically

21:29

if you're a black person, specifically at that point in

21:31

history. And Cholby's didn't

21:33

try to make Bill Cosby the biggest star in the world.

21:35

It happened because of a lot of different things

21:37

that came together. But Shelbys,

21:40

We've got a capitalize on it. Once

21:42

he's in there. Yes, he's getting access to

21:44

all the commercials, all the endorsements,

21:46

all the opportunities, and all

21:49

the protection. I lead something

21:51

called the Hollywood Commission, and we're charged

21:53

with trying to deal with

21:55

some of these problems in the

21:58

entertainment industry of rape

22:00

culture and the valuing

22:02

of women. And I think about how

22:04

often you hear when

22:07

someone is finally revealed somebody

22:09

like you know, Harvey Weinstein or Scott Ruden.

22:12

How often you hear, oh,

22:14

well, it was well known

22:16

in Hollywood, but it's

22:19

not ever acted upon. And so I

22:21

want to span out of bed because he has a

22:23

conversation about Cosby, But as you say,

22:25

it's a conversation about a bigger social

22:27

issue we had. The Hollywood

22:30

community is only one. I've dealt

22:32

with, university communities and church communities

22:35

all around these issues. And

22:37

I'm wondering if you think this

22:40

series can be a model for

22:43

how we move forward on claims

22:45

of sexual abuse in

22:48

the black community, of course, but other

22:51

communities that grapple with

22:53

the same problem, the problem of silencing

22:56

and denials and dismissiveness.

22:59

I hope. So. I think I'm aware that like, at

23:02

the end of the day, this is just a series of like

23:04

episodes of television, and that's

23:06

not legislation. It's not structural change,

23:09

it's not institutional change. I have to understand

23:11

that, Like the work is what happens after

23:13

people watch it, when they turn to each other or they

23:15

go online and they start to go what do

23:17

we do now? And I want to be engaged in the what

23:19

do we do now? Conversation. I don't think it's

23:22

my job to lead it, but I think I have sort

23:24

of This film can help be a part of that. But

23:26

to me, I mean, the film is absolutely wants to

23:28

be like and all those places

23:30

you name, the church, Hollywood,

23:34

you know, all these different communities, what

23:36

are the unifying factors? Like there's

23:38

an institutional mandate

23:40

to protect people in power no

23:43

matter what, and I think we have to

23:45

get away from that and power are the ways in

23:47

which you can anonymously tip us off

23:49

on some bad behavior. We don't have that

23:51

in society generally, not enough. That

23:54

I think is one of the key things to work on.

23:56

That it's not about adjusting the current

23:58

nature of all this. It's about going, we

24:00

need to redo the structure. Yeah,

24:03

it's ultimately about we're doing this structure.

24:06

But I have to say, if I want

24:08

to have a conversation

24:10

about rape culture in

24:13

Hollywood, I'm going to come to you

24:16

and you're gonna help me design

24:18

it. You said

24:21

nothing but a word. I

24:24

feel like there are people and I will I say this.

24:26

Who I'm just a I'm a

24:29

enlisted like enlisted

24:31

like a private in the army, And I'm

24:34

sort of feel that way about you, Like if you need me, I'm

24:36

here for you. I'm happy to I

24:38

think one thing that I do know how to do is to sort of like

24:41

have these conversations, and but I also

24:43

know how to surround myself people who are smarter than me, who can

24:45

help these conversations be productive and meaningful

24:47

and have lasting effects. Well,

24:50

thank you, listen, do

24:52

you have any questions for me? You've

24:57

had this conversation a trillion times about

24:59

the supreme Court and Clarence Thomas.

25:01

But for me personally, how I went

25:03

into that not understanding and

25:05

how I came out on the other stand understanding something

25:07

that I did not understand. And a lot of that

25:09

was conversations with my mom who was sort

25:12

of walking me through what was going on there. The

25:15

thing that I think that I've realized as I get

25:17

older, not enough of us came

25:20

through and I was not fixed at the end

25:22

of it. I was not like it took me years to

25:24

get to where I am. Now. How can we do this better?

25:26

What could we have done better? Because

25:29

I feel like that, you know, I don't think I came

25:32

through far enough on the other side, but I certainly I

25:34

understood things about harassing the workplace

25:36

that I did not understand before. Yeah,

25:39

I think the answer to that doesn't go back to

25:41

nineteen ninety one, and I think we're still

25:43

trying to find how we can do

25:45

better. But first of all, I think we have to

25:47

create forums where

25:52

survivors, victims and

25:54

accuse can

25:56

be heard as equals, where

26:00

the balances and tip toward one or

26:02

the other. We

26:05

also have to have a

26:08

forum where people

26:10

around this because you know, these situations

26:13

don't just involve two people.

26:15

They involve communities many times,

26:18

and people in the communities convent

26:20

their frustrations, anger, disappointment,

26:24

and really they're fears. Because I think a

26:26

lot of that is happening why people have such

26:28

a strong reaction. So we've

26:30

got to be able to create

26:32

that space where people can talk

26:35

about their fears and understand

26:38

how some of them are misplaced. They're

26:40

based on a lot of myths and tropes

26:42

and you know, our racist and sexists.

26:45

And ultimately, what I

26:47

think is necessary as a place where

26:49

we can actually have a conversation

26:52

about equality that's thorough,

26:56

that's real. I mean, that covers all

26:59

kinds of identities because typically

27:01

these conversations happen and you

27:04

know, like put the Thomas here, Well that's

27:06

that's focused on racial equality because

27:08

he's a black man, But they weren't thinking

27:10

about gender equality. So

27:13

those are my that's my start

27:15

that start to answer your question how

27:18

can we make it better? And I

27:20

say this not to patronize you, but

27:23

I do believe that they start with real,

27:25

honest, genuine conversations. I

27:29

mean, I be clear, I don't feel patronized by

27:31

it at all, because I didn't invent conversations

27:33

so didn't Oh my

27:35

gosh, I was sure it was you.

27:38

I won't think whoever it was, and you

27:41

and you have brought them to another level. So

27:44

even if you didn't invent them, thank

27:46

you. I appreciate that. I am here to serve

27:49

whatever however you feel like. I need to serve because

27:51

there's just so much more work to do. And I feel like I was thinking

27:53

about this is the way when you're thinking about my kids. When

27:55

my mom handed me the America

27:58

is Racist baton, it

28:00

was lighter than when she had gotten it, you know,

28:03

And I think I'm in danger of handing my kids

28:05

a heavier baton, and this is you

28:07

know, yes,

28:09

it is very scary. So and I think when

28:11

my mom handed to me, the conversation, like you said,

28:14

was just about racism. And now that conversation is a lot

28:16

more inclusive. So the tome's automatically

28:18

going to be different, but I don't want it to be

28:20

heavier, right right, Well,

28:23

that's great. That gives me something to think

28:26

about and look forward

28:29

to, because I think you're absolutely right.

28:31

The last thing any of us want to do is to

28:33

pass on a world that's in we're shape than

28:35

what we got when we were born

28:37

into it, like, oh my god,

28:40

I again. I just want to thank you for

28:43

making the film. I want

28:45

to thank you for really being so honest

28:47

sharing with us why you made

28:49

it, and also, you know, not

28:51

just making the film, but really showing us

28:54

how we can address

28:56

these issues, the issue of rape culture

28:58

and our denial of it. Thank

29:01

you. It's an honor to be here, an extreme honor.

29:03

And as I said, I am, I'm now officially

29:05

enrolled as a soldier in the I need

29:07

to Hell Army, so I'm here you need me. Thank

29:10

you, Thank you. I

29:15

grew up in an era where it was understood

29:18

that you didn't speak publicly about

29:20

bad behavior happening within your

29:22

community. Today, I

29:24

know that it was a survival tactic

29:27

in black communities as well as many

29:29

others, and sometimes

29:31

it was necessary. But as

29:33

Audrey Lord told us, your silence

29:36

will not protect you. W

29:38

Kamal Bell's film We Need to

29:41

Talk About Cosby reminds

29:43

us that silence won't protect

29:45

our communities either. Through

29:49

his documentary, Bell brought victims

29:51

out of the margins and placed them

29:53

visibly in the center of the conversation

29:56

as humans, not as

29:59

caricatures, and he gave

30:01

activists an expert space to

30:03

shed light on the presumptions that make

30:05

people unwilling to believe victims

30:08

and structures and make it impossible

30:10

for victims to be heard. Bell

30:13

allowed for resolution for the people

30:16

who participated in the conversation, even

30:18

if in the end not everyone agreed. He

30:22

forces us to think about accountability

30:25

in what it looks like we

30:27

need to talk about Cosby provides

30:30

a blueprint for other hard

30:32

conversations. Next

30:36

week, you'll hear me in conversation

30:38

with Sam Fragoso on an episode

30:41

of his podcasts Talk

30:43

Easy. We'll be back

30:45

the following week with authors Alice

30:48

and Rebecca Walker. Getting

30:50

Even is a production of Pushkin Industries

30:53

and is written and hosted by me Anita

30:55

Hill. It is produced by Mola

30:58

Board and Brittany Brown. Our

31:00

editor is Sarah Kramer, our engineer

31:03

is Amanda kay Wang, and our showrunner

31:06

is Sasha Matthias. Luis

31:09

Gara composed original music for

31:11

the show. Our executive producers

31:14

are Mia Lobel and

31:16

Letal malad Our. Director

31:19

of Development is Justine Lane.

31:22

At Pushkin. Thanks

31:24

to Heather Fane, Carly Migliori,

31:27

Jason Gambrel, Julia

31:30

Barton, John Schnarz and

31:32

Jacob Weisberg. You can find

31:34

me on Twitter at Anita

31:36

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