What’s Up with Dr. Huxtable?

A black man is always in the news for something. If it isn’t a rapper, it’s a football player. If it isn’t a football player, it’s an actor. But this latest black male celebrity scandal blew me away! Lovable T.V. dad Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable is apparently a rapist. Twenty women have come forward and accused him of drugging and/or sexually assaulting them.

Bill Cosby being accused of rape is huge, but to black men, (and to me for that matter) there is another issue. Some people may remember in 2004 at the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision Bill Cosby made a very upsetting speech about black men and black people in general.

In his speech, he stated that black people are not parenting their children properly. He referred to black men as ‘it’ saying “It’s standing on the corner. It can’t speak English. It doesn’t want to speak English.” He asked “where are we today?…The white man, he’s laughing, got to be laughing. 50 percent drop out, rest of them in prison.” In fact, the entire speech, which came as big surprise to most people, was a long tirade against black people.

Bill Cosby was once a beloved comedian and actor, then he became some kind of black moral authority, and now we know him as a sexual deviant. What a transformation! But Cosby’s hypocrisy is almost too much to bare. First, he has the audacity to say such bad things about blacks, and then his closet bursts open and some of the most hideous skeletons fly out.

One of my Facebook friends had this to say:

“I’m still stuck on how he can say oh black men should take care of [their] children and all this other stuff about us like he’s talkin down to his own [people,] but the only thing he’s done for us is give us a fake tv family [and] not do anything for the everyday man in ‘da hood’ and then lo and behold they pull some s*** on him”

Regardless of how great a dad he played on T.V. or how funny he is, Bill Cosby had no right to say the things he said or do the things he did to those women. I know people want to look at him in a positive light because of his T.V. persona, but we need to separate the character from the man at this point. Do I fully believe all the allegations? No. And, don’t get me started on popular ideas about black men raping white women, but he can’t have it both ways. He can’t be both the good guy and the bad guy. He can’t tell us what to do and then do what he wants to do. It will not work that way.