DETROIT — For Black youth and teens growing up in the mid-1980s, “The Cosby Show” offered something rarely seen on television up until that time — a sitcom that placed characters who looked like them in a positive light.

And Malcolm-Jamal Warner's “Theo Huxtable” was the character Generation X most related to. Fans took quickly to social media on Monday as news of Warner's accidental drowning in Costa Rica spread.

“It's like losing one of us,” said Harriet Cammock, a 58-year-old Detroit author and speaker. “This is the thing with television. When you're watching people every week on television, you think you know them and you're related to them.”

Warner was swimming Sunday afternoon at Playa Cocles in Costa Rica's Limon province when a current pulled him deeper into the Caribbean, ac

See Full Page