OPINION: My feelings about Cosby these days are similar to how I feel about Thomas Jefferson, another celebrated, influential American and rapist: We need to get — and keep — all of the parts of the stories on the record. And we need to talk about them.
Bill Cosby as Cliff Huxtable, the patriarch of “The Cosby Show,” which ran for eight seasons and was the first American TV show to depict and celebrate an upper middle class Black family.
It doesn’t occur to me to seek an autograph, but a Black professor, who will be introducing Cosby at the commencement ceremony, snaps at least a dozen photos of me standing over the star, beaming like the six-year-old I regressed to as soon as I walked into the room. I don’t need all of those photos, but the man with the camera is nearly as giddy as I am and he keeps seeking different angles.
I don’t know why it took a joke to make people take the rumors seriously. But I think it is important that Burress linked Cosby’s sanctimonious victim-blaming of poor Black people with a sharp uppercut at Cosby’s own behavior. Burress demanded: Who was Cosby, an alleged serial rapist, to tell young Black men to pull up their pants? Burress is a Black comedian, too, and this time the call was coming from inside the house.