'30 Rock' Star Says We Need A New 'Cosby Show' To Normalize Diverse Voices

Keith Powell, who played the hilarious James Toofer on NBC's "30 Rock," joined HuffPost Live Thursday and expressed disappointment with The Hollywood Reporter's latest cover, which was accompanied by a self-aware piece addressing the "awful truth" of the image -- every single Oscar contender pictured is white.

Powell said the image represented the larger structures in Hollywood and lamented the downfall of the "tainted" Cosby Show, which was once a huge push forward for black voices on TV.

"It hurts my heart to be honest with you. I feel like diverse voices need to fight to be heard and diverse voices need to be normalized," he told host Alyona Minkovski. "I feel like 'The Cosby Show' started down that road but 'The Cosby Show' now has been tainted and we need to find a new 'Cosby Show,' something to not tokenize an experience but to make it normalized."

Powell, who said he's refused a number of roles that "negatively portray" him or reduce me to a stereotype," also discussed the barriers that people of color face in the industry.

I look at that Hollywood Reporter cover and and it makes me so sad, because I see no way in there. I see no access. And I don't think that the people who were putting that cover together had any idea that they were denying access for people and I'm not talking about as a man versus a woman, I'm talking about as a minority. I don't think that they had any idea about that. So in a way it's not so much their fault. It's our fault. We need to educate them, but they need to be able to listen to it. There needs to be a dialogue and I don't think the dialogues are happening.

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