'Pretty Deadly' is the story of these immortal and mortal characters, and the mortals' story follows Sarah's family, a black family, through the ages. I never made the choice of, 'Oh, this is gonna be the story of an African American family!'
The breakdown of the black community, in order to maintain slavery, began with the breakdown of the black family. Men and women were not legally allowed to get married because you couldn't have that kind of love. It might get in the way of the economics of slavery. Your children could be taken from you and literally sold down the river.
It was the Cosby family on the cover, but overlaid on that, it appeared to be a shattered glass. So it really wasn't just about the shattering of the Huxtables: it was really a shattering of the black family. And it was a question about that and where do we stand on that.
You know, growing up, I lived in a neighborhood in Long Island where there was basically one black family. And I remember hearing all the parents and the kids in the neighborhood say racist things about this family.
Mr. Cosby wanted to do a show not about an upper-middle-class black family, but an upper-middle-class family that happened to be black. Though it sounds like semantics, they're very different approaches.
Between 2007 and 2010, the average white family experienced an 11% reduction in wealth, but the average black family lost 31% of its wealth. The average Hispanic family lost 44.7%.
I got agitated at the idea that racism is a Southern thing. Did you hear about the cross-burning out here? A black family moved into an upper-middle-class Los Angeles suburb and found a cross burning on their lawn. Swastikas are being painted on synagogues. I'm moving to France. I don't think this 'kinder, gentler nation' bit is working too well.
I think that many black people thought this would be a wonderful and extraordinary thing, for a black family to occupy the White House. Not only black people; a lot of white people thought that, too, but particularly black people.
Even in 'Hollyoaks,' we were known as 'the black family' as opposed to just 'the new family.' But that's where we are in the world, I guess. It's getting better; everything's heading in the right direction, whether it be race, sex, gender.
A racially integrated community is a chronological term timed from the entrance of the first black family to the exit of the last white family.
