I Always Thought Bill Cosby Saved South Africa
I don’t think sanctions did a damned thing… except destroy the country.
In 1975, television finally went live in South Africa. It had been banned for before that ‘because it was the instrument of the devil.’ Naturally, South Africa, being in a state of ‘apartheid,’ had to have programs for Africans, Indians, Malays, the English, the Afrikaners, and so forth. One of the programs presented for Africans (in English) was the Cosby show. This was four years before sanctions (divestment) came to South Africa in 1979.
Until that time, very few white people had seen an educated black person. Nor had they seen a black person in the same light that they saw a white person — living in a furnished home and doing a professional job.
Certainly, when my late mother traveled with my father for six months, through Europe, this is what she had to say in 1961, in a letter to the press.
“A few years ago, I visited England and the continent. I was amazed at the lack of race consciousness that existed. People did not worry terribly much where they had a cup of tea in the same eating place as a non-white. But I, with my colour prejudice, several times, left my food and walked out because some non-white joined the table next to mine. I was amazed at the things they…
