Will The Real Bill Cosby Please Stand Up? by Ellen Connally

The closest I ever came to Bill Cosby was in the early 1980s. While attending a judicial conference in Reno, Nevada, a group of fellow judges organized a trip to a Lake Tahoe Casino to see him perform. I had no great desire to go but ended up making the trek and grudgingly paying a lot more than I wanted to spend on a ticket.

Sitting in an audience of at least 1000, I was probably the only person of color in attendance. The rest of the audience laughed and seemed to thoroughly enjoy the sloppily dressed Cosby perform his monologue. I recall being bored. And if my memory serves me correctly, he performed his “Spanish fly” routine where he brags about drugging women to have sex, something people in the 1980’s seemed to think was funny.

My problem then and now is that I never found Cosby funny.

When he starred in I Spy and made millions of fans and dollars with the long-running The Cosby Show, I always found something else to watch. My lack of appreciation for “Fat Albert” was perhaps generational, and when he appeared in the Jell-O commercials in the 2000s I always had this creepy feeling that his interactions with the children in the ads was somewhat inappropriate and verged on pedophilia.

When he went back to college and earned a Ph.D. I had some minor admiration for him. But considering his status and money, I’m sure his path to academic success was a lot easier than the average Joe or Jane. With his degree in hand, and numerous honorary degrees to boot, by the end of the 20th century, Cosby suddenly became the self-appointed moral compass of Black America.

Rather than using the hundreds of million dollars he earned to build schools, award scholarships, provide tutors and mentoring programs or countless other programs that would be beneficial to the poor, black and white alike, he went around the nation speaking to Black audiences castigating the brothers and sisters in the lower socioeconomic strata, calling them lazy, uneducated and shiftless. His attack on black women was particularly damming. That was my final straw with “The Cos.”

And while I’m venting my distaste, I found his repeated appearances at university commencements dressed in jogging pants and tee shirts particularly disgusting, distasteful and downright arrogant. What kind of example was he setting for students going out into the business and professional world dressed like he just left the gym? What respect was he showing to the university that was gracious enough to award him an honorary degree?

Fast forward to 2014 when allegations of sexual misconduct first came to light against “America’s Dad.” Initially, they were shocking. But as more and more women came forward — a total of more than sixty — all with the same modus operandi, it was easy to become a believer. Of course, he had then and continues to have defenders who will throw race into the equation. “This only happened to Cosby because he was black.”

In my book, race has nothing to do with the charges against Cosby. The bottom line is that Cosby is a sexual predator. With his fame and stardom, it would not have been difficult to find women to voluntarily engage in consensual sex. While this is inconsistent with the image he tries to portray as the happily married husband and father, and I’m not condoning it, such relationships are not illegal if voluntary — and stars for the most part don’t have to look too far.

But Cosby cloaked himself in the aura of being a father figure and got his kicks by having sex with unconscious women — which sounds kind of freaky to me. And to make it worse, he preyed on struggling females that placed their trust and confidence in him after he assured them that he would mentor them and help them in their careers. He then proceeded to do exactly what he said he would do in his “Spanish fly” routine.

So now the jury as spoken. At the end of the trial, the ever-classless Cosby cursed at the prosecutor, calling him an asshole. If I were the prosecutor I would have been inclined to say something like “Who’s the asshole now?” As he was led from the Courthouse — a courtesy that the average convicted felon would not have had — he raised his cane in continued defiance.

Well, Cos, you can raise all the canes that you want. But your accusers have won, and you have lost. It’s time for you to accept what you are, a low-life sexual predator who will go to prison and spend the rest of your life officially labeled a sex offender.

Most of the universities have revoked their honorary degrees. Unfortunately, your victims can not revoke their memories of your unwanted sexual attacks. But at least they made it possible for the world to see the real Bill Cosby.

So the women of America can say with great delight adios, good bye, farewell, Bill Cosby. We’ll see you behind bars.

C. Ellen Connally is a retired judge of the Cleveland Municipal Court. From 2010 to 2014 she served as the President of the Cuyahoga County Council. An avid reader and student of American history, she serves on the Board of the Ohio History Connection, is currently vice president of the Cuyahoga County Soldiers and Sailors Monument Commission and treasurer of the Cleveland Civil War Round Table. She holds degrees from BGSU, CSU and is all but dissertation for a PhD from the University of Akron.

 

 

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