NAJEE’S NOTES: Bill Cosby’s fall from grace

[/media-credit] Najee Ali, For news tips, email Brothernajeeali@gmail.com or follow me on Twitter@Najeeali.

By Najee Ali, Wave Newspapers

Bill Cosby was found guilty April 26 in a Pennsylvania court on all three counts in his sexual assault retrial. He now faces up to 30 years in state prison.

This is without question one of the saddest times in my life. Cosby was viewed as America’s dad. Cosby was the first celebrity I loved and idolized.

Growing up as child, I rarely saw black people on television. Cosby was the first black man I saw on TV on a regular basis, as he appeared in a starring role in the 1960s television show, “I Spy,” followed by his own sitcom, “The Bill Cosby Show,” which ran for two seasons from 1969 to 1971.

Using the Fat Albert character he developed during his stand-up routines, Cosby created, produced and hosted the animated comedy television series “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids,” a show that ran from 1972 to 1985. So it’s an understatement to say I grew up watching Cosby from childhood to adulthood.

Cosby has been convicted of drugging and molesting a woman in the first big celebrity trial of the MeToo movement. A jury outside Philadelphia convicted the “Cosby Show” star of three counts of aggravated indecent assault. The guilty verdict came less than a year after another jury deadlocked on the charges.

Cosby was charged with violating Temple University employee Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. His lawyer called Constand a “con artist” who leveled false accusations against Cosby, so she could sue him.

But dozens of women have come forward in recent years to say he drugged and assaulted them, too. Five of the other accusers testified against him at the retrial. Prosecutors used Cosby’s past admissions about drugs and sex as well as the testimony of five other women to help bolster Constand’s allegations. In total, Cosby has had 62 women publicly accuse him of some sort of sexual misconduct over the years.

Cosby is an icon who deliberately placed himself in a position of high, moral standards. Cosby told black people who they should be, while at the same time he was lying to his wife, family, fans and the entire black race.

Cosby is a liar and admitted adulterer. He betrayed black America.

In public, he said all the right things but behind closed doors he was drugging and raping women. No matter how much I love Cosby, I don’t and will never love anyone who is a serial rapist.

I’m not wasting any time or energy defending Cosby. He did this to himself. He admitted in a prior court deposition that he procured drugs to use to have sex with young women, so please stop with this whole NBC conspiracy theory nonsense.

I grew up watching and loving the Cosby show. But Cosby in is a liar, serial rapist and now a convicted sex offender. I’m not about to show any support or concern for him.

My concern is for more pressing issues, such as the continuation of black people being shot and killed by police nationwide, with the latest victims including Anthony Weber of South L.A. and Stephon Clark of Sacramento.

There also is the fight to save our health care as the Trump administration seems intent on undoing every policy that the first African-American president established to benefit all Americans.

So, Cosby and what happens to him is last on my agenda. To see his fall from grace is painful. I’m watching national news as Cosby is now the face of the #MeToo movement. The millions of dollars that Cosby gave to black colleges and charities seem not to matter at all.

In 50 years from now, when people talk about Cosby, it won’t be said that he was America’s dad. They will say he was America’s rapist. 

For news tips, email Brothernajeeali@gmail.com or follow me on Twitter@Najeeali.

This article first appeared in Wave Newspapers.