A Brother Knows… Theo Mattered

Rest in Power, Malcolm-Jamal Warner.

Growing up as a Black boy in West Virginia in the 80s was its own experience. Yes, there are Black people in West Virginia, and we had a strong, rooted community. But the wave of Black cultural shifts, hip-hop, breakdancing, and new sounds from the streets, didn’t always reach us the same way they did in bigger cities. I was raised on a hill in West Virginia, watching it all unfold from a distance, yet still feeling connected.

My friends and I took nothing for granted where I grew up. Every Black movie that came out? We felt like we had to see it. Every TV show with a Black lead? We watched it together. There was a kind of sacredness to it. We were not just watching for entertainment, we were watching for connection to our people and representation. We were always looking for a glimpse of ourselves. 

As a young Black boy during that time, there were not many reflections of myself on TV that felt both real and reachable. But Theo Huxtable, the character brought to life with heart and honesty by Malcolm-Jamal Warner, was one of them.

Like many young Black boys, I saw myself in Theo. He was not perfect, he got into trouble and did not always get it right. But he loved his parents. He respected their authority. He loved his sisters. He understood that there was a standard and an expectation that he had to navigate, not to impress anyone, but because of who raised him. 

Theo was cool, but not the coolest. He loved hip-hop but lived in a house full of jazz. I related to this because my father is a jazz musician. I grew up around music and the arts. As I was immersing myself in rap and hip-hop on one hand, on the other, I was always being introduced to the greats like Coltrane, Miles, Ella, Monk. Our CD player moved from Eric B. & Rakim to the greats of jazz without skipping a beat.

There was no conflict in that. It all felt like Black excellence to me. That dual exposure shaped my ears and my imagination. Just like Theo, I was learning that you could love both the new and the timeless and that being young, Black, and curious did not mean choosing one form of expression over another.

Theo did not have to perform or clown to be accepted. He was not made to feel like being a Black boy was not enough. In a media world that often celebrated the funny, outrageous kid while mocking the smart or sensitive one, Theo was different. He was allowed to sit in the middle of the spectrum and at times touch it all. He was not the rebel or the square. He was a Black boy in progress, not defined by a single label or stereotype, but shown as someone still figuring it out, like so many of us were.

As I got older, I began to understand how rare that balance really was, especially for a young Black kid watching TV in the 80s and 90s. So many of the shows we loved like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Family Matters sent subtle but powerful messages about what kind of Black boy was worthy of admiration. Will Smith got the laughs while Carlton Banks got clowned. Steve Urkel was brilliant, but always the joke, until he became "cool" as his alter-ego Stefan.

I get it. The comic exaggeration was part of the formula. I understand that Carlton's character was designed to represent certain tensions around Black identity, and how he was framed as the "sellout." I really do understand what the writers were trying to do. But the truth is, it sent a message to many young Black boys, one we wouldn’t recognize or question until much later in life. It often taught us that if you were too good, too smart, or too proper, then you were not Black enough. 

I know it is more complex than just "smart means sellout" or "cool means authentic." There were layers to the characters, the times, and what we were all working through as a community. But what I am naming here is the feeling, the tension many of us carried as Black boys trying to figure out who we were supposed to be. And in that tension, Theo stood out. 

Theo’s character gave us something rare: the ability to see ourselves beyond the box of stereotypes and the usual TV portrayals of Black life in reaction to poverty or crime. For those of us in Generation X, that mattered. We grew up alongside hip-hop. We watched it rise from something local and innovative to a global force. But as it gained mainstream attention, it also shifted.

In the early days, rap was creative, community-based, full of storytelling and rhythm. But over time, something changed. Violence, hyper-masculinity, and materialism began to dominate the narrative. What was once neighborhood expression became a corporate product. What would have never been glorified in my childhood slowly became the norm.

As a Black boy growing up during that shift, you felt it. On one hand, you were inspired by the boldness and brilliance of it all. But on the other, you had to decide who you were going to be inside of it. We had to figure out do we simply listen to the over the top lyrics of gangster rap or do we become what we are hearing? 

The Cosby Show ran from 1984 to 1992. And right in the middle of its run, everything started to shift. In 1988, N.W.A released Straight Outta Compton and cracked something open. The sound, the rage, the rawness was undeniable. At the exact same time, the most-watched Black family on television was sitting around the dinner table, talking about school, jazz, and college applications.

It was a fascinating tension. The top Black show was offering one version of Black life while the music rising from the streets was heading in a radically different direction, fueled by frustration, survival, and the need to be heard. 

I will pause here because, honestly, that shift in music and media deserves its own reflection. There is so much to unpack about how hip-hop exploded, what it gave us, and what it asked of us as young Black boys trying to find our way. That is a whole other post.

For now, I want to come back to Theo. In the middle of all that noise and transformation, his character offered something steady, something grounding.

To really understand how groundbreaking Theo was, I have to briefly mention some of the young Black boy characters I grew up watching who came before him. Only then can you fully see how much of a shift his presence truly was.

Webster was lovable. That was his role. He was small, adorable, polite, and always well-meaning. He was cast to melt hearts. But his “cuteness” was his whole identity. He was a child you cared for, not a boy you grew with.

Diff’rent Strokes was different in a lot of ways. Arnold and Willis were two Black boys from Harlem taken in by a wealthy white man, moved into a penthouse, and given the “good life.” But here’s the thing, while the show broke ground, it also reinforced something subtle. Their life got better when they left their own community. What I also remember deeply is how often race and racism were themes. Episode after episode, Arnold and Willis faced discrimination, suspicion, and hate simply for being Black. And I am not against that. I think it is essential to show the realities of racism in America. But it started to feel like that was all there was. It became a steady drumbeat that being Black meant being a victim, being hated, being under suspicion. Putting it on screen was progress in its own way, but it was also very one dimensional.

Then came Theo. And suddenly, we saw something more. Something different than what we usually saw on screen, yet deeply familiar to what many of us saw within our community.

Theo and the other Cosby kids were… kids. Not tropes, not cautionary tales, not magical exceptions. Just kids. And that, in itself, was radical. Theo was a Black boy in a loving household, figuring out life, surrounded culture, excellence, and expectation. That was Blackness, too. But at the time, you rarely saw that version of Black life without apology or explanation. And if it did appear, it was treated like a unicorn.

In one way, Theo lived in the middle of the extremes we were used to seeing on television. But in another, because of the show’s concept, he stretched across an incredible range. We watched him navigate school, friendship, love, failure, growth, and family, all without the burden of constantly having to explain, justify, or perform his Blackness. He was allowed to simply exist as a Black boy, not as a symbol, stereotype, or spectacle. That alone was rare. 

What some critics mistook as an erasure of his Blackness was, in truth, a reflection of how rarely the world had seen the full range and beauty of how incredibly versatile Black people can be. 

Let’s be clear. I am a Black man from West Virginia. Was there racism? Absolutely. But could I still go outside, laugh with my friends, ride bikes, and dream? Yes. The truth is, what I saw in real life, the joy, the normal, the nuance, rarely made it onto the screen for a black kid. Theo was a big part of changing that.

While critics focused on “a Black doctor and a Black lawyer married with five kids” and called it unrealistic or phony for black life, many of us were looking at the love, the laughter, the lessons, the arts and music shared and the dignity represented. Dignity, excellence, love…those are colorless…black people have them too. It was not rare then and it is not rare now. It is just not represented enough, it sure was not when I was a child. 

Racism was not a regular plot point, and that made some people uncomfortable. But for me, The Cosby Show allowed me to embrace something that was layered, beautiful, and deeply rooted. I did not realize it at the time, but it was giving me a cultural education, week by week, laugh by laugh.

-I care about Black art because I watched Clair Huxtable fight to buy The Funeral by Ellis Wilson at an art auction. 

-My love for music was expanded by the vocalists and soul poets through the soundtrack of their living room. Songs like "Sponji Reggae" by Black Uhuru, "Night Time Is the Right Time" by Ray Charles, and "Cosmic Slop" by Funkadelic were not just background music, they were seeds planted in my spirit. That show introduced me to Big Maybelle’s "Candy," Betty Carter’s "Look What I Got," Little Jimmy Scott’s "An Evening in Paradise," and King Pleasure’s "I’m in the Mood for Love."

-Because of The Cosby Show, I knew Spelman and Morehouse. I learned about the Penn Relays. 

-Dizzy Gillespie, B.B. King, Nancy Wilson, Joe Williams, Tito Puente, Miriam Makeba, Stevie Wonder, Lena Horne, Sammy Davis Jr., James Brown, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Slide Hampton, Max Roach, William "Count" Basie, Howard "Sandman" Sims, Savion Glover, just a few who passed through the show.

The show introduced young kids to so much beyond what they normally saw. All of it mattered. 

Theo mattered. 

His character mattered to me and to so many Black boys, now Black men.

Malcolm-Jamal Warner gave us Theo with joy, heart, and dignity. And for many of us, that gave us room to do the same. After The Cosby Show, I rooted for Malcolm-Jamal.  Every time he showed up in a new role, I paid attention. 

There will be many tributes written and recorded for Malcom-Jamal Warner. I will leave the discussions of what he did after The Cosby Show to others. There are better people to do a complete reflection of Malcolm the man and performer. But I wanted to pay tribute to him and honor the impact some of his work had on my life. 

Rest in power, Brother. 

Your work inspired a generation of young black boys and we carry it with us.

A special note I cannot ignore:

Like many people, I wrestle with the legacy of The Cosby Show because of what we have come to know about Bill Cosby. It is painful. I do not pretend it is not complicated. But the truth is this show happened at an important time in my life. It shaped how I saw Black family, Black love, Black art, and Black possibility.

What you have just read is not a defense. It is a witness. A witness to the fact that, despite the disappointment and the contradictions of its creator, the impact of The Cosby Show and especially the character of Theo cannot be erased from the story of so many adults who were kids during its time.

All of the above existed. I watched the show faithfully growing up. And I have not watched it at all since Cosby’s fall. There is a void there now. To this day, I am still not sure how or when I will revisit something so special to me. 

Malcolm-Jamal Warner’s passing brought all of this back to the surface. I am glad I took the time to use my writing to help me continue to process it. I hope it helps you as well, if needed.