Bill Cosby is not some poor, down and out bump on the log type of cat who is incapable of handling whatever attacks he is facing… He has money and resources and if he is falsely being accused then he can fight this and those who did the accusing should be punished severely-period..
With that being said, Cosby still gets a big middle finger and his behavior is to be condemned… His ‘moral’ presentation and lifestyle he was insistent we as Black folks subscribe to did not add up to his own grave short comings.. and its on those points alone people will judge him, catch feelings and push him away as they see fit..
Bill Cosby and Dr Heathcliff Huxtable were seen as one and the same in the minds of many
Stories of casting couches, quaaludes for sex, rampant cheating on his wife etc stand in sharp contrast to the Bill Cosby who many of us have come to know. It was Cosby who pretty much created the environment that had him and his character Dr Cliff Huxtable be seen as one and the same for many. It’s what he sold us. It’s what he benefitted from.
Lisa Bonet in the movie ‘Angel Heart’
When he got honorary degrees and was deemed ‘America’s Dad‘, he was bestowed those honors because he was seeen as his TV character. Again, he purposefully allowed Bill and Dr Cliff Huxtable to be one and the same…
Anyone trying to skirt around that is either dishonest, disillusioned or has selective memory… I have not forgotten that Bill Cosby was the one who publicly put the moral smash down on his own cast members like Lisa Bonet who in her own private life did not live up to the high moral standards her character was supposed to represent…
When Lisa Bonet the actress, did the movie ‘Angel Heart’ where she had an onscreen sex scene with actor Mickey Rourke, that was all she wrote as far as Bill Cosby was concerned.. There was no separating Lisa Bonet from Denise Huxtable in his mind. It was really a wrap after she got pregnant by singer Lenny Kravitz.
Now in all fairness, it was pointed out that Cosby didn’t completely abandon Bonet. He did eventually bring back her character and put her on a spin off show, but the debate about her private morality decisions was already cemented in the minds of many. At the time when she did the movie Cosby anger and disappointment was well known and it was widely debated if he was being too hard or if Bonet was being ungrateful and making bad life choices.
Malcolm Jamal Warner aka Theo
Over the years I interviewed Theo (Malcolm Jamal Warner) on a number of occasions and each time he talked about the high expectations Cosby had for him and the cast. They were expected to toe the line and uphold the image. This is the playing field Cosby laid out. It’s the playing field he insisted all act upon. Many seem to have forgotten how Bill used to go after comedians like Eddie Murphy and others for cursing and not being a ‘good image’ for Black folks? He stayed on their cases and was often referenced sometimes humorously There are landmark stories of Bill Cosby, not Cliff Huxtable demanding comedians like Eddie Murphy tone it down, stop cursing and be more respectable. This moral landscape is the same one Bill himself was detached from in the most glaring ways.
Bill Cosby’s moral missteps both public and private would be akin to someone like Minister Farrakhan coming to the Million Man March talking about the importance of uplifting Black women, keeping the Black family together and insisting our daughters keep to the straight and narrow only to discover he left his wife to have an affair with singer Miley Cyrus or Khloe Kardashian.
Would his action be legal? Sure. Could we argue he has a right to make his own adult decisions? Sure…Ethically the shyt would be foul as hell and most of us would write dude off.
Heck many of us were mad as hell to the point of non forgiveness when it was discovered that some of our favorite rappers may have had ghost writers.
We would write off our ministers and pastors if we saw they were morally flawed in such an egregious way. Many would feel a trust was violated. This is how many feel with Cosby. Him and his character Dr Huxtable were an important counter narrative to the constant maligning and negativity being heaped on Black folks at the height of the crack era. Hence he took on a special meaning for many. He was the person along with his TV family were the ones we could point to as shining examples of non contaminated, crack free Black family The fact that he publicly insisted on that line of morality be walked by all, led many of us trusting him to be man of his word even more.
It wasn’t about what was legal or not legal or what the court of law said. For many it was about lack of integrity and violation of trust. It wads about representing and saying one thing while doing another…
Again, much of Cosby’s brand is built on the Dr Huxable. People’s upset at its core is seeing that dude did not keep it 100… It’s compounded by the fact that he made millions smashing down on Black folks who came up short in the least transgressive type of ways…
In other words, Bill Cosby got at you because you liked certain types of rap music. He got at you because you had a ‘funny (African) sounding name. He got at you because you didn’t speak out to moral short comings in the community (Poundcake speech) All the while this mofo is making a grand sham of his marriage with hordes of women and in some instances offering career advice and guidance to women in exchange for intimacy and that’s pretty much by his own admission. The fact that many of them were Hollywood white women cut even deeper when Cosby was positioned as the epitome of what it meant to be a Black Family
Now that all this drama is unfolding, there are some making the claim that all of a sudden we are supposed to separate Bill Cosby from Dr Cliff Huxtable? Get the F– Outta Here with that Bullsh–… Your word and integrity means something, especially when you’re the main one demanding excellence from us on the moral tip…
Cosby’s actions are even more compounded by the fact he may have actually raped or sexually assaulted one of those 30-50 women pointing fingers at him… If he even did this with one, that should be enough for all of us. He gets no passes, He gets no love, He gets nothing… If he wants to redeem himself, so be it, Go redeem yourself.. For many of us it won’t be enough. As a matter of fact, I’m sure most of us reading this will understand if Cosby had in any way transgressed with any of our loved ones, whether he did it once, twice, because he was drunk, high or had a momentarily lapse, you wouldn’t be trying to hear excuses about Hollywood is out to get him,there were folks who are lying on him or some of what he was accused of happened along time ago. That’s madness.. He’d be getting smashed on, no questions asked if your loved one was a victim.
Our anger would be no different then the anger when a man named Will Lynch went and beat up a Catholic Priest a few years back who he accused of molesting him when he was 7 years old… They tried to explain the incident took place back in the days and that the church was trying to improve, blah, blah, blah.. Dude literally tried to kill that priest and got off because as the judge noted.. It was wrong but he understood what would drive someone to that point of anger…
So Good luck Bill Cosby in beating back those who you say are falsely accusing you. He is blessed to have the means to fight a system known for unfairly railroading innocent people. He is blessed to be able to combat a racist system that has long framed folks.. But F— You Bill for not practicing what you preached. F— U Bill for insisting and demanding of others to the point of ridicule, moral outrage and even financial punishment a moral compass and set of behaviors you routinely trampled on and held in deep distain.. my two cents