‘America’s dad’ to Me Too Founding Father

The one good thing a fallen role model leaves behind

I was never a huge fan of The Cosby Show. Although I found it mildly amusing, its saccharine portrayal of AfricanAmerican life was too timid for me. And I cringed at the notion that Bill Cosby was America’s dad — in no small part because I was perfectly fine with the dad I had. Even so, I was aware of the show and of Cosby’s cultural power. For his portrayal of a highly educated black man of dignity, competence and character — who also happened to be funny and wise — seemed the perfect antidote to a pervasive American racism.

For many whites, Cosby was an essential ambassador. He offered sustained, voluntary exposure to an uplifting scene of black normalcy, educating millions to what should have been obvious: that African Americans were every bit as human as whites.

Cosby paved the way, in many respects, for widespread acceptance of such icons as Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama. In Cosby, His Life and Times, biographer Mark Whitaker writes of the “Cosby effect.” Whitaker attributed the phrase to writer Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez in describing two white Obama supporters who both grew up wanting to be members of Cosby’s fictional Huxtable family.

“When Cosby was asked about the theory several days after Obama’s victory, his first instinct was to downplay it,” reported Whitaker. “‘This isn’t something that happened just because of a TV show,’ he said. … Then he thought about it … and decided that there was one impact of The Cosby Show that he wanted to emphasize. ‘It’s what people have done with themselves by watching that show and believing in it,’ he said.”

Because many did consider the Huxables part of their extended family and the patriarch America’s dad, acceptance of the possibility that Cosby could be an awful human being preying on women was a very long time coming.

In 2006, after Cosby handed over $3.4 million to Andrea Constand in a civil settlement stemming from charges of sexual abuses, the McClatchy-Tribune news service re- ported that “13 other women came forward with similar allegations. All were prepared to serve as witnesses in Constand’s case.” But there was little interest on the part of the news media or any other institutions of influence in vigorously following the story up.

That began to change in 2014, when fellow comedian Hannibal Buress delivered a YouTube-worthy stand-up performance in Philadelphia that included the line, “Yeah, but you rape women, Bill Cosby,” in the process of calling out his elder for talking down to the younger generation. When that performance went viral, Cosby, unwittingly and unwillingly, became a founding father of the Me Too movement.

Victims then found their collective voice. They also found an increasingly receptive news media. In May 2016, The Washington Post counted 58 Cosby accusers. That was roughly five months before release of the Hollywood Access tape that had presidential candidate Donald Trump boasting of his abuse of women. Just about a year later, The New York Times and The New Yorker magazine documented Harvey Weinstein’s serial sexual abuse of and hushmoney payoffs to numerous women.

Since then, the nation has received a crash education both in the magnitude of sexual abuse and in the extent of silencing. Last week, we saw a verdict in what NBC called “the first big win of the #MeToo movement.” After only two days of deliberation, the jury found Cosby, 80, guilty of all three counts of aggravated indecent assault of Andrea Constand. A previous trial had ended with a hung jury.

Cosby will forever be remembered for his accomplishments as a role model. His successes as a model of black brilliance elevated a generation of black Americans, bolstering an important movement for human rights. Conversely, his failures as a role model — and as a human being — helped to spawn another important movement for human rights. The Me Too movement might not exist had it not been for Cosby. That presumably is not what Cosby wants to be remembered for, but it is perhaps the one good thing that his foul behavior leaves behind.

Ellis Cose, a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors, is the author of The Rage of a Privileged Class.