Remember Maxine from 'Living Single'? She is in a longtime interracial marriage but has no kids

The Cosby Show was what feels like eons ago now and so naturally the cast grew up and either followed their acting careers or found other causes. “Maxine Shaw” whose name is Erika Alexander, is on a cause to change the lives of the forgotten.

Do you remember “Maxine Shaw” from Living Single a.k.a. “Pam” from The Cosby Show, a.k.a. actress, Erika Alexander? Well, she is all grown but every bit as charming as she was those many years ago. As I Love Old-school Music reports, she has been married to screenwriter, Tony Puryear for almost 20 years now.

The couple is biracial but Tony isn’t just any white guy. He has friends in a predominantly black neighborhood and gets along with blacks like he is one of them. Also, he is actually biracial although one wouldn’t tell by looking at him. He is half black and half white but identifies as a black man, maybe due to the influence in his neighborhood and the fact that both his parents were actively involved in the civil war era.

“I’m from New York City. I’m biracial, but I grew up in a Black neighborhood (Malcolm X was our neighbor) and my family was very involved in the Civil Rights Movement, and though I’m not the darkest brother you ever saw, I have always identified as Black. I went to The Bronx High School of Science and Brown University, where I majored in art.”

The couple has been working together lately on a sci-fi comic series, Concrete Park that features an all-black lineup. Being a first in the comic world, they had to deal with rejection from studios as they got ready to bring it to the market. One studio manager blatantly told them: “Black people don’t like science fiction — they don’t see themselves in the future.” They were surprised by the response, needless to say. “We were very surprised. We were actually shocked by his blatant racism. It wasn’t just that he said that Black people wouldn’t like it. His assumption was that you’re only making it for Black people, so that’s the problem.”

Not much has changed in Hollywood, but the couple hopes that someday things will take a better turn.

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