On Thursday, Bill Cosby was convicted on three counts of sexual assault in a Pennsylvania court for drugging and molesting a woman in 2004.
The legendary comedian and TV show and film actor was found guilty of three counts of aggravated indecent assault against Andrea Constand, who at the time was an employee at Temple University, in his Pennsylvania home in 2004.
Cosby now faces up to 30 years in prison for the assault.
What makes the morally reprehensible behavior of Cosby even more difficult to process is that it didn’t get the national attention it deserved until October 2014 when comedian Hannibal Burress shed light on it during a show.
During his bit, Burress riffed on why he hated Cosby, saying, “Bill Cosby has the fucking smuggest old black man public persona that I hate. Pull your pants up, black people. I was on TV in the ’80s. I can talk down to you because I had a successful sitcom.’ Yeah, but you raped women, Bill Cosby. So, brings you down a couple notches. ‘I don’t curse onstage.’ But yeah, you’re a rapist.”
The clip of Burress criticizing Cosby — exposing him as a rapist — went viral and became the primary topic of discussion for weeks. Dozens of women came forward alleging that Cosby had either sexually assaulted or raped them while they were drugged. So far, as many as 60 women have accused the 80-year-old comedian of sexual misconduct.
Without Burress’s comedy bit about Cosby, Constand wouldn’t have gotten justice. What’s honestly a shame, however, is that it took another man to speak out against Cosby for society and the criminal justice system to take the accusations — which up until that point were rumors — made by dozens of women seriously.
Obviously, fast forward three-and-a-half years since Burress, we’ve reached a point where we don’t dismiss accusers out of hand, even if we of course flesh out those stories and actually investigate their legitimacy. With the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, women and men finally have a greater voice in speaking out and telling their stories of abuse.
While Burress is certainly deserving of praise for his role in the Cosby case, we should also let it be a reminder to never regress on this issue to the point where we have to rely on a viral clip of a comedian’s bit to bring these individuals to justice.
