Editor’s Note: Say It Ain’t So! Confronting My Denial about Bill Cosby and Sexual Coercion

I just left my godmother’s house and she, my godsister, and I had a brief conversation about some famous Black men who have made some poor decisions over the past year. We talked about a few Black professional athletes who have solicited prostitutes and were detained; Black men who engaged in developmentally inappropriate disciplinary strategies with their children; those who have been involved in circumstances of domestic violence; and men who have compromised the value of consent and sexually coercing partners. As Editor in Chief of the Journal of Black Sexuality and Relationships, I have found the Editorial Note to be a viable forum to not only introduce the work of our scholars but also a means to offer my opinion on emergent national issues. It seems as if the journal serves as a good place to suggest and advocate for sensitive dialogue in our community as well as within our families. For this editorial, I feel compelled to share my sentiments about some of the allegations against Bill Cosby.

In a previous editorial, I discussed how I was a “child of the 70s” and the “tv generation” (Wadley, 2015). I talked about several television shows that I watched and some of the values that I learned while I was growing up. As a Black boy in the midwest, like some children, I was impressionable and soaked up everything I experienced. I grew up watching Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids on television and refused to miss any episode.¹ What’s interesting is that if someone were to ask me about how the opening theme song to the show goes, I could easily start signing “Nah, nah, nah, gonna have a good time! Hey! Hey! Hey!” I believe that the best lesson I learned from watching the show as a child is that true friendship subscribes to the notion of reciprocity (Eisenberg, Fabes, and Spinrad, 2006; Guo, Pathak, and Cheng, 2015); is resilient and enduring (Graber, Turner, and Madill, 2015) and takes patience with oneself and those whom I am connected to. Moreover, the show offered me a sense of identity and affirmation seeing animated Black children who looked like some of the kids in my neighborhood in Toledo, Ohio (well, maybe not Dumb Donald).

During the late ‘80s and early ‘90s when I was in college, my friends and I would not allow anything to take precedence over watching the Cosby Show or A Different World on Thursday nights. The campus at Hampton University and probably other hbcus across the country were silent during that hour of television as both shows depicted a Black middle to upper-middle class lifestyle. Because of this portrayal, the characters seemed accessible and familiar. As a young adult, some of my friends and I aspired to be like the characters on the show, have similar romantic relationships, and even use the storylines as barometers for our own individual success. The depiction of Heathcliff, Claire, and their children served as a positive and highly influential familial model for my friends and our country to embrace.

Issues about remaining in college, dating, racism, alcoholism/drug usage, family systems and other topics took center stage on the show and kept Black students and others around our nation glued to the television to see reflections of themselves on primetime television.

As a graduate student at upenn during the late 1990s, I felt fortunate to meet Dr. Bill Cosby at the annual Penn Relays (track and field event). My workstudy job was at the Center for Community Partnerships and my position enabled me to have a field pass at the national track meet. When I approached Dr. Cosby and asked for a picture with him, he agreed without hesitation. Almost 20 years later, I still have that picture today on the mantle in my office.

Like many others, I am fighting through my denial about the allegations against Bill Cosby because at one time, he was “America’s Dad.” On one hand, there are so few representations of positive Black men in the media...