April 26, 2018: 3:29 pm. As of this writing, I am watching the Montgomery County, Pennsylvania prosecutor, Kevin Steele, uncomfortably wind his way through the post-guilty verdict press conference in the case of Bill Cosby’s sexual assault of Andrea Constand. I had thought I would wait a few hours or days before putting my feelings into words, but I feel as though I was pushed to my desk. I have a myriad of feelings but none of them are the pity I thought I would have. First, I want to congratulate the bravery and fortitude of Ms. Constand. She took a stance that could be ruinous to her, but I believe she needed to help dig a hole for Mr. Cosby like the virtual one he placed her in so many years ago. I applaud the fact a jury saw past the specter of America’s Dad and saw what he really is, America’s Cad.
The blame for this long-running atrocity, that spanned 62 known victims, and was camouflaged by years of laughter and applause, is the fault of Mr. Cosby but not solely. A lot of his friends and acquaintances knew. Even comic Hannibal Buress, who is credited with exposing Cosby, has said he did not expect this reaction. Buress seemed generally surprised by the outpouring of interest from a joke he told and has since said he thought everyone had heard the rumors and that he spoke because he is, “a decent guy.” Why was Buress the lone voice in the wilderness? I am not as old as Mr. Cosby but as an older African American man, men my age were warned of the “dangers” of being caught alone with a white woman. As a result, I had lots of friends, through truth and conditioning, who were dismissing the victims initially. Cosby is rich, famous and would not be that dumb, they would say. As two turned into twenty, and twenty turned into sixty it became abundantly clear this was not the kindly Dr. Huxtable we all loved.
After some heated discussions and downright screaming matches with members of my own family who were convinced of his innocence, the then allegations, have proven not to be the racial stereotyping of black men but the revealing of a guilty predator.
For years Cosby pleased the right-wing faction of America with his stereotyping lectures of pants sagging, baby making, scofflaws, interpret that as young black men, painting men of color as only entities to guard your women against and fear. Meanwhile, Mr. Cosby, who took to touring the country and using the title Dr. Cosby pointed to the falsity of Rudy, Vanessa, Theo, Denise, and Sondra as an example of a piety that was as fake as his TV perfection. The obvious is that he is now a convicted rapist in which there is no escape. The added shame is that he pierced the balloon float I once looked up at and let the air out of one of black America’s most enduring fantasies.
When there were only two glaring examples of black life on TV, the Evans family and the Huxtable family it was a choose your side proposition. It appears the ‘Dy-no-mite’ has blown up what proved to be a great American myth.