In the late 1970s, I went to a comedy club with my housemate, a woman from Philadelphia. I thought the young comics were great, but pretty raunchy. On the way home, I joked that there weren't any funny comics who didn't rely on dirt jokes.
She said, "Well, there's Cosby, He doesn't tell dirty jokes, but he acts like a dirty man. He put his hands on my friend when she went to see him,"
The cab pulled up to our building at that time, and we were distracted by paying the cab driver and getting out the flat keys. That was the end of it.
By 1985, I had moved across the country, gotten married, and gotten involved with showing dogs. My dog did well, and it wasn't until the Southwest finals that I found out it was the same breed that Cosby owned. In fact, my dog was from a litter by the same sire and dame that Cosby owned, which made our dogs brother and sister. I was grooming my dog backstage at the show, when I heard Cosby was visiting the private staging room next to the show ring,
One of the other dog owners knew him, and asked if I wanted to meet him. My husband said he would watch my dog if I wanted to go, and I started off to the staging room. Just then, a woman stepped in front of me and said, "Don't be alone with him. Take your husband with you. It isn't safe."
I only tell you these stories because I am not a model, beauty pageant winner or a showgirl. I am a 70 year old woman who isn't the least bit involved in show biz, And, I am telling you that, to young women in the 1970s and 1980s, Cosby's perfidy was the least kept secret in the United States. If I knew, everyone knew. I was no one special.
Why didn't anyone out him? Women tried. They were humiliated.
And, let's be honest, no one wanted to believe that a decent black man would do the things those two women told me he did. No one in my liberal, white and black circle of friends wanted it to be true. And we knew he wouldn't be prosecuted if he were arrested.
We hate Hugh Hefner and we hated that sexism, but there was no way to fight it. We just worked on passing the ERA.
I'm glad Cosby got caught. I wish he were still in prison. But, more than anything, I wish he hadn't been a monster who let down all the people who believed in him,
There's nothing new in this documentary, if you have been paying attention. But most people aren't paying attention, which is how Cosby got away with it so long,
