There are so many angles to the Bill Cosby ‘holy crapola batman’ situation. Personally, I’ve started to think that there is more than enough to demand a public ‘grand jury’ on his moral standing. I never invested much in previous stories but one would be foolish to try to avoid the weight of numbers over the time. Not that I’m saying that I believe that he did what he is accused of doing, but I’m now inclined that way.
That being said, Bill Cosby is a great comedian even if he is not a great man. He remains an icon in ‘black’ television being one of the first to star in a mainstream TV series. He helped to pave the way for every black actor and actress in television and comedy today.
He helped to set a new standard for black family comedy moving from the slapstick of Sanford and son’s junkyard, to a well educated, well-balanced black family who spoke not only well, but intelligently. he helped break the stereotype of the time and he became one of America’s most beloved comedians of all times. Unfortunately, he also became someone loved and loathed at the same time by many black Americans, and while being worshipped by many white Americans as a truth teller about blacks.
Bill Cosby essentially remade himself when he began to speak out against the weaknesses and failures of the mass of African Americans.
“They’re standing on the corner and they can’t speak English. I can’t even talk the way these people talk: Why you ain’t, Where you is, What he drive, Where he stay, Where he work, Who you be… And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. And then I heard the father talk”.
His white audience moved from “hahaha’ for his comedy, to praise for this ‘brave critic’ of black America… at a time when white America was looking for such as him… someone to confirm the ‘we-told-you-so’ers’.
My problem with Cosby at that time was that the message was so one-sided and foolish for a man of his standing and supposed intelligence. There was more than a grain of truth in what he said definitely, but he never gave the story context. Those who stood up to point out the damage he was doing by relating ‘out of context’ opinions, were abused. How dare you contradict the”sageness” of Cosby?
Yet, as we stand here today, that youth with his low-hanging pants is looking pretty good compared to Cosby.
“We as black folks have to do a better job. Someone working at Wal-Mart with seven kids, you are hurting us. We have to start holding each other to a higher standard”.
Well, Bill, it might just be that you have hurt us more than anyone with 7 kids and working at Wal-Mart ever did. And it won’t be long before your friends in white America, simply stop worshiping you by saying, ‘well, what do you expect. He’s after all, black’. That would be a terrible legacy to leave us, Bill.
