The ongoing scandal concerning Bill Cosby causes a lot of turmoil for me. I grew up listening to and loving his stand-up routines. He is a fellow Philadelphian sprung from a shared neighborhood (Germantown), an important intangible for those of us native to a wonderful but often maligned city. His role on I-Spy was ground-breaking. His rise to stardom happened at a time when America was starting to come to terms with the lasting effects of racial inequality engendered by the dehumanizing practices of slavery and its offspring, segregation. Once established as a star, he continued to work to break down barriers. His humor and public persona taught many of us that our humanity is shared and that skin color, like eye color, hair color, and place of origin, is incidental: It makes a poor criterion by which to judge a person's character or worth. These were and remain valuable contributions.
How, then, do I deal with the serious and truly terrible accusations that are now resurfacing? They certainly have the ring of truth and, as is becoming clear, rumors of acts like these have been circulating in the comics' community for years. How could someone be simultaneously capable of such good and such evil? The answer lies in the fact that he, like all of us, is human.
St. Paul reminds us of the struggle we face daily. "For I do not do the good that I want, but I do the evil I do not want. " (Rom. 7:19) In varying degrees we all fall short of the mark. Sometimes the evil we do is by acts we perform. At others it is by refraining from acting when we should. We then compound the evil by seeking reasons to justify and make excuses for ourselves.
But aren't Mr. Cosby's acts so heinous that we should make him a pariah? The truth is that heinousness is a measure of degree, not of kind. Under the right conditions and under the guise of self-delusion we are all capable of committing or justifying the commission of horrible actions as human history has shown time and again. Even more insidious is the fact that oftentimes small, seemingly insignificant acts that to all appearances barely deserve the label "evil" have devastating effects. This is why the petitions "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" taught by Jesus are so important. (The New American Bible translates them as "do not subject us to the final test, but deliver us from the evil one". Mt 6:13).
It is my hope that Mr. Cosby, whose talents and contributions I continue to revere, comes to terms with himself and seeks reconciliation so that we can all embark on the healing process.
