When Truth is Sadder Than Fiction

I’m going to do something really risky right now. I probably shouldn’t do it, but I’m going to because it’s a topic that I’ve pondered approximately once a day since the story broke. I’m glad I didn’t just fire off some words onto the page while it was a hot topic because I’ve had some time to really consider how I feel about it and now it will be my truth as I see it.

You can decide on your own what you think.

America’s Dad…with the funny stories about chocolate cake and childbirth and visits to the dentist and Noah’s Ark…the stand-up comedian who sits down…the guy who has been making me laugh out loud since my dad first played Bill Cosby is a Very Funny Guy Fellow…Right!...might be a serial rapist.

This is a very unfunny turn of events.

I’m not really going to comment on the he said/she said (x55) nature of this story. I assert no legal authority nor deep wisdom about the legal system. In fact, any knowledge I have about how a wealthy black entertainer is treated by the legal establishment is informed by the O.J. Simpson trial (the actual trial, not the current mini-series starring Tre from Boyz n the Hood and Ross from Friends). The sad truth (from my shaky legal perspective) is that these cases may never see the inside of a courtroom and that is tragic – for the accusers if he did what he’s been accused of or for Mr. Cosby in the unlikely event he turns out to be the victim of a vast conspiracy. I know the reasoning behind statutes of limitation but I really think they need to be revisited for the purposes of sexual violence given what we know about the fear and shame associated with reporting such crimes. But, again, that’s not my area of expertise so I’ll move on.

What I do want to comment on is how totally crappy it makes me feel to know that someone who made me laugh…ugly, tears-streaming-down-my-face, unable-to-breathe laugh…might be capable of sexual assaulting 55 women. From the age of 7 or 8 right up until I learned of these allegations, through my parents’ divorce, through middle school, high school, college, and into parenthood, I could count on Bill Cosby to bring me out of just about any funk I was experiencing. Laughter is medicine for me…faster and easier to procure than a writer’s flow or runner’s high…and all-to-often Bill Cosby’s comedy has been the cure for whatever is ailing me. I cannot overstate his impact on my adolescent survival.

And now it all seems like a lie. I would love to be able to separate the man from his art and just listen to his words and laugh out loud. It was so effortless to feel better when I could pop him in the DVR player and know that I was no more than 5 minutes away from feeling better. I was so excited the first time that I showed my kids The Cosby Show, despite them not appreciating it as much as I had hoped. In retrospect, I wonder if maybe they saw something I didn’t.

   

But I can’t reconcile the two very different people…not in my head and not in my heart. I must face the fact that Sondra, Denise, Theo, Vanessa, and Rudy’s dad was probably a fraud in an ugly sweater and Clair’s husband was a doctor with a dark and violent secret. His TV world and stand-up comedy routine were so close to his real life – or so it seemed – that there just isn’t anyway to separate the two. It’s the reason that so many of us mourned the death of his son. We felt as though we knew Ennis Cosby because we knew Theo Huxtable and Bill Cosby himself was the reason for this. His art was based on his life.

Is this what it feels like when the family of a serial killer discovers who they have been living with?

And what of his actual family? How must this betrayal affect them? If I think about it every day, how often must it creep into their consciousness?

And his alleged victims? Possibly women who also admired him for his wit and ability to find humor in the simplest of life’s moments. Women who might have been drawn out of their sadness with his humor at some point in their lives. How painful must it be to experience such a betrayal and walk around for years knowing that your experience likely would not be believed because no one would have imagined America’s Dad capable of such atrocities?

It’s all just too much. Yet it is an inevitable outcome in a society that values perception over reality. We allow public consolidation of a person’s public persona and private reality into a single caricature of a superhuman. Then, when faced with the tragic flaws that are ever-present in human behavior, we feel forced to discredit either all of the good or all of the bad in order to reconcile our feelings about the betrayal that we allowed in the first place.

I really don’t want to do that. I really want to be able to hear his story about a trip to the dentist without thinking about what ugliness was lurking behind the humor. I really want to watch The Cosby Show and appreciate its lessons without imagining him drugging a guest star’s drink and then taking advantage of her.

But I know it is neither possible nor advisable for me to do so. I can’t reconcile the duality between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in this situation. It would feel like a betrayal to those women who…right or wrong… I believe are telling the truth. I’m not sure that any of his alleged victims should have to risk reliving one of their worst moments just by turning on the television. Mr. Cosby’s behavior reflects a tragic (alleged) flaw – tragic in the Greek sense. It unravels a message about family that was internalized by my entire generation by obliterating the credibility of the messenger. I realize this stance is diametrically opposed to the idea that one is innocent until proven guilty, but we have a combination of sensationalist media, public gullibility, and flawed statutes of limitation to thank for ensuring that none of the involved parties will have a fair chance to make their respective cases.

For this affront to truth-finding, I mourn.

But I have passed a point of no return where Bill Cosby is concerned and I did not arrive there capriciously. I asked myself the following question:

What do I value more?

Preserving an adolescent illusion that made me feel secure or certain?

or

Figuring out how to accept a new reality which honors and values human relations over public relations?

If I want to sleep at night, I think I have to choose the latter.