W. Kamau Bell

In which John Heilemann talks with comedian W. Kamau Bell, host of CNN's Emmy-winning series United Shades of America and the writer, director, and executive producer of the new Showtime documentary series We Need to Talk About Cosby. Heilemann and Bell unpack America’s fraught relationship with Cosby, the legendary entertainer and stand-up comic who was once known as “America’s Dad” and is now almost universally reviled, after being credibly accused of rape, drug-facilitated sexual assault, battery, and/or misconduct by at least 60 women and convicted and imprisoned for aggravated indecent assault (before being freed from prison on the basis of due process violations). They discuss Cosby's role in integrating primetime television, on screen and off, and more broadly as a progressive force in American race relations; his unexpected late-career pivot into a hectoring, respectability politics scold; why Bell decided to take on a project he describes as a “third-rail conversation" among many African Americans; and Bell's assessments of some of today's greatest working stand-up comics, including Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle.

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