ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 26, 1997 TAG: 9701240038
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: the back pew
Cosby the star is still a friend who's grieving
There are so many people who influence our lives.
Mom. Dad. Grandparents. Teachers. Ministers.
Once in a while it may be someone we don't ever meet in person. An author. A composer. An actor.
For more than 30 years now, Bill Cosby has been one of those people for millions of us.
I was still a kid when he made his mark. It was the mid '60s, one of those periodic "golden ages" of stand-up comedians. Bob Newhart was making his one-sided phone calls. Jonathan Winters was astonishing us with his extemporaneous mayhem.
And Bill Cosby was breaking down racial barriers more effectively than any politician.
On the civil rights front, we needed leaders like Martin Luther King to effect the political changes and provide moral guidance. But we also needed people like Bill Cosby to show us how much alike we all are.
He told stories about his family. His mom and dad; his brother, Russell. The kids in the neighborhood. About drinking water from the bottle in the refrigerator. About a child's experience of having his tonsils removed.
When white America heard those routines in a series of best-selling recordings, it was as effective as any sermon, any speech in telling us, "This is black America, and we're just like you." Cosby's family became our neighbors, even in our segregated neighborhoods.
His first album also contained a hilarious sketch on Noah's encounter with God. It was a brilliant piece of theology that has influenced me ever since, emphasizing the humanity of the characters in the Bible.
In it, Noah is initially skeptical of God's call, endures the scorn of his neighbors as he builds the ark anyway, and is short-tempered with God even at the height of the flood, wondering "who's going to clean up that mess down there?"
Cosby had a knack for making the characters real and funny without disrespecting or diminishing their source.
He was one of the first to break the real color barrier on television, playing a lead character - not a "black" character - in the television series "I, Spy." More recently, of course, he was the star of "The Cosby Show," depicting the foibles and fun of family life. They were a black family, but that was always secondary to being a "family" family.
Over the years, we came to know something about his own family from his comedy routines and from his television show. We kept up as he and his wife raised their four daughters and a son.
And now he is on TV again, still endearing himself to millions of fans with stories about family.
So when we heard that Cosby's real-life son was murdered, we grieved as if it were the son of one of our best friends.
There is no way for those of us who have not been through such a thing to even imagine what it must be like for our friend. But we may wish that we could be as gracious to him as he has been to us.
Faced with a sea of reporters outside his apartment, Cosby was neither rude nor put out, but told us simply that his son was his hero.
The family's press release that day said, "Our hearts go out to each and every family that such an incident occurs to." While some cynics might read that as a clever way to deflect potential criticism, I tend to think it was prompted by genuine concern.
Cosby undoubtedly was aware that someone would raise the question about why the murder of his son was worth so much more attention than the murder of someone else's son the day before or the day after.
The only answer, of course, is Cosby's own celebrity. That he was aware of and responded to that so quickly is another testament, it seemed to me, to the kind of person he is and why so many Americans love him.
I can't help but wonder, though, about how Cosby is reacting to all the reporters who referred repeatedly to his losing his "ONLY son." It's a true statement, of course. Ennis Cosby was Bill Cosby's only son.
On the other hand, hearing that phrase over and over again, it began to sound as though the reporters believed that Cosby would have been less grieved by the murder of one of his MANY and therefore "less important" daughters. Or that he would have been less heartbroken if he had other sons surviving.
Certainly that is not true. And the reporters who repeated that phrase so often surely didn't mean it that way. I can't help but believe that it might sting, however.
It's hard to know just what to say in such a situation, of course. We'd like to be able to offer words of comfort and reassurance and love, although it sometimes seems easier to say the wrong things than the right ones.
Since most of us cannot speak to the Cosby family directly, perhaps the best we can do is offer up prayers on their behalf, and perhaps make a pledge to do whatever we can here in our neighborhoods to help combat the kind of violence that left them grieving.
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