Legacy Continues Even When the Great Fall
Houston - I think it is safe to believe that most humans desire to leave a lasting legacy, lasting being the keyword, for the next generation. I don't know anyone who invests in building an empire with the hopes that someone will eventually come and completely destroy it. I'm even more confident that no one builds up a legacy with the intention of self-destructing their years of exhausting labor.
Much has been said and will continue to be said and written, about Dr. William Cosby. Some things truthful and honest, some good, some bad, and some downright malicious. Most Americans and even people around the world find ourselves in a place of mixed feelings concerning the drama that has unfolded over the past few years with the public allegations of sexual misconduct and abusive behavior now attached to the name Cosby.
Most conflicting is how do we connect or separate the sins and crimes of man from the lessons of morality that he taught us? It isn't so much that we confused the man Dr. William Cosby with the character Dr. Heathcliff "Cliff" Huxtable, as much as we believed that the man lived up to the standard of the message he preached to the community and the world through his characters and in his traveling conversations with America, more specifically the Black community.
In both The Cosby Show and Cosby, Cosby preached a message of fidelity, the sacredness of marriage, abstinence for young people, and warned of the dangers of drugs (date drugs also). He had a standard of moral living that he expected the actors on his show to adhere to. He refused to allow one of his character daughters to remain on A Different World after the actress became pregnant in real life. When one of the directors suggested writing into the script that the character, a college student, had become pregnant he refused because it did not align with his message for the standard he was setting for the black community.
So when we look at Cosby today we are forced to try and understand this very complex man. Another complexity to an already complex problem is that the angle from which non-blacks look at Cosby is more than likely a very different place than most in the Black community. What Dr. Cosby represented to the community was not that of just being a successful entertainer. He showed us how to "do" being successful - how to go about living a productive and influential life after you have achieved success. Living graciously successful.
Thanks to the message, higher education was not only attractive again to a community who had been encouraged to forgo college for the quick money of skilled labor jobs, but now it appeared even more attainable for us. He introduced to "Black Television" the positive subliminal message of education by wearing college and university shirts, creating a trend that would become the norm with black shows. He set the standard for young black youth of the 80's and 90's that higher education was for us! Historical Black Colleges and Universities were given the respect of being great institutions and even become sought out by non-black Americans. He was our education success mentor.
Cosby wasn't just a great comedian or actor, he was a bridge across a nasty divided that had become the norm on American television. Prior to the Cosby Show, many black tv shows (or shows with black actors) displayed stereotypes of the community or made bigotry a light matter. The Cosby show displayed the historical black family in a modern way. We saw two parents who were educated at a prestigious, though fictitious, HBCU, with respectable careers in both the legal and medical field, and passing on the tradition to their children, while teaching their children (and the whole of America) how to enjoy living in a culturally diverse America. Rudy's friends were as ethnically diverse as her parent's - white, Hispanic, and Asian. Cosby, the educator, taught minority communities how to build and maintain a strong family even in moments of dysfunction and not become dysfunctional.
The lessons of cultural relations were taught to every American who sat and watched the show every week. We learned as a country that we could love and appreciate each other, not in spite of, but because of our unique ethnic and cultural differences. He showed us how to become invincible to the barriers and biases set by the ignorant to divide us as fellow countrymen and women. We could sit down and eat together and enjoy our differences that exposed the beauty of the human race; diversity in its many shades. Cosby taught us as Americans how to stand up and fight together for our brothers and sister, domestic and globally when injustice was being ignored by the powerful politician.
Topics of history and literature were methodically shared with us as Cosby and the team of writers skillfully weaved them into episodes. We became lovers of visual art and classic jazz, even if these things were not exposed to us by our family. We learned the value of a creative mind, the importance of exposure, and the lasting legacy of family growing together as they experience the fullness of life beyond the set norms.
So when we are forced to accept that the man who taught and gave us so much was a very flawed individual, we find it hard to separate his gift to us from the pain he caused other - whether it was his family or the women who have accused him of sexual abuse. However, we should not be so quick to throw away the jewels and riches he gave to us as a nation, or even the healing and barriers he helped to break around the world. No the legacy Dr. William H. Cosby gave is lasting, and no one can take that away. Yet we must admit that the man, the human, was a damaged and broken soul. Maybe it was this brokenness that allowed him to teach us what he struggled to live by. Could it be that he was so disturbed by his own dark side that he dreamed and fantasized of being the teacher that we all came to love - the man who wrote parenting books that helped to heal other broken parents, who gave us the best family instructional videos ever to be produced in the form of a television show?
No, I don't think we should ignore his sins and crimes (only him and God know the whole matter) that have been displayed before the world, as one would expect of a public figure who has been exposed. I do believe that while many will focus on the sins against God and humanity, we can still proudly hold on to the legacy that he gave to a nation and a community. Just because a father's reputation has become tarnished, does not mean the legacy is as well. No the legacy Cosby gave us is ours to keep. And we must guard and build upon it!
Much has been said and will continue to be said and written, about Dr. William Cosby. Some things truthful and honest, some good, some bad, and some downright malicious. Most Americans and even people around the world find ourselves in a place of mixed feelings concerning the drama that has unfolded over the past few years with the public allegations of sexual misconduct and abusive behavior now attached to the name Cosby.
Most conflicting is how do we connect or separate the sins and crimes of man from the lessons of morality that he taught us? It isn't so much that we confused the man Dr. William Cosby with the character Dr. Heathcliff "Cliff" Huxtable, as much as we believed that the man lived up to the standard of the message he preached to the community and the world through his characters and in his traveling conversations with America, more specifically the Black community.
In both The Cosby Show and Cosby, Cosby preached a message of fidelity, the sacredness of marriage, abstinence for young people, and warned of the dangers of drugs (date drugs also). He had a standard of moral living that he expected the actors on his show to adhere to. He refused to allow one of his character daughters to remain on A Different World after the actress became pregnant in real life. When one of the directors suggested writing into the script that the character, a college student, had become pregnant he refused because it did not align with his message for the standard he was setting for the black community.
So when we look at Cosby today we are forced to try and understand this very complex man. Another complexity to an already complex problem is that the angle from which non-blacks look at Cosby is more than likely a very different place than most in the Black community. What Dr. Cosby represented to the community was not that of just being a successful entertainer. He showed us how to "do" being successful - how to go about living a productive and influential life after you have achieved success. Living graciously successful.
Thanks to the message, higher education was not only attractive again to a community who had been encouraged to forgo college for the quick money of skilled labor jobs, but now it appeared even more attainable for us. He introduced to "Black Television" the positive subliminal message of education by wearing college and university shirts, creating a trend that would become the norm with black shows. He set the standard for young black youth of the 80's and 90's that higher education was for us! Historical Black Colleges and Universities were given the respect of being great institutions and even become sought out by non-black Americans. He was our education success mentor.
Cosby wasn't just a great comedian or actor, he was a bridge across a nasty divided that had become the norm on American television. Prior to the Cosby Show, many black tv shows (or shows with black actors) displayed stereotypes of the community or made bigotry a light matter. The Cosby show displayed the historical black family in a modern way. We saw two parents who were educated at a prestigious, though fictitious, HBCU, with respectable careers in both the legal and medical field, and passing on the tradition to their children, while teaching their children (and the whole of America) how to enjoy living in a culturally diverse America. Rudy's friends were as ethnically diverse as her parent's - white, Hispanic, and Asian. Cosby, the educator, taught minority communities how to build and maintain a strong family even in moments of dysfunction and not become dysfunctional.
The lessons of cultural relations were taught to every American who sat and watched the show every week. We learned as a country that we could love and appreciate each other, not in spite of, but because of our unique ethnic and cultural differences. He showed us how to become invincible to the barriers and biases set by the ignorant to divide us as fellow countrymen and women. We could sit down and eat together and enjoy our differences that exposed the beauty of the human race; diversity in its many shades. Cosby taught us as Americans how to stand up and fight together for our brothers and sister, domestic and globally when injustice was being ignored by the powerful politician.
Topics of history and literature were methodically shared with us as Cosby and the team of writers skillfully weaved them into episodes. We became lovers of visual art and classic jazz, even if these things were not exposed to us by our family. We learned the value of a creative mind, the importance of exposure, and the lasting legacy of family growing together as they experience the fullness of life beyond the set norms.
So when we are forced to accept that the man who taught and gave us so much was a very flawed individual, we find it hard to separate his gift to us from the pain he caused other - whether it was his family or the women who have accused him of sexual abuse. However, we should not be so quick to throw away the jewels and riches he gave to us as a nation, or even the healing and barriers he helped to break around the world. No the legacy Dr. William H. Cosby gave is lasting, and no one can take that away. Yet we must admit that the man, the human, was a damaged and broken soul. Maybe it was this brokenness that allowed him to teach us what he struggled to live by. Could it be that he was so disturbed by his own dark side that he dreamed and fantasized of being the teacher that we all came to love - the man who wrote parenting books that helped to heal other broken parents, who gave us the best family instructional videos ever to be produced in the form of a television show?
No, I don't think we should ignore his sins and crimes (only him and God know the whole matter) that have been displayed before the world, as one would expect of a public figure who has been exposed. I do believe that while many will focus on the sins against God and humanity, we can still proudly hold on to the legacy that he gave to a nation and a community. Just because a father's reputation has become tarnished, does not mean the legacy is as well. No the legacy Cosby gave us is ours to keep. And we must guard and build upon it!
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