Picture of Dr. Linda Algazi, Ph.D

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“Dr. Cliff Huxtable” has become an iconic, American role model. His character, played by Bill Cosby, is lovable, sweet, vulnerable, funny and educated. Avuncular. I’ve always been a sucker for men like him..

“Dr. Huxtable” earns his living as an ob/gyn. I’ve also always thought there’s something to be said for men who choose to spend their entire professional lives caring for women.

The fictional “Dr.Huxtable” is married to “Clair,” an intelligent, classy woman, who is a partner in her law firm as well as in their enviable marriage. Together they have five kids with the usual variety of challenges, within the range of normal upper middle-class life.

They “live” in Brooklyn, no less. That makes me smile because I come from Brooklyn, in real life.

And because “his office” is essentially in his home, he also gets to be a very present parent. I think it would be fantastic to have a spouse who could do that, especially if I were a partner in a law firm and we had five kids.

I loved it when his character revealed he had attended the civil rights march in 1963, along with his parents. I got to re-live some of my own experience of that day in Washington, through the writer’s words… as spoken by Mr. Cosby.

If you ask me, “Dr. Huxtable” gets a “A” in Good Guy. His values match my idea of what it means to be a good man.

But, alas, “Cliff Huxtable” is only a fictional figment of some writer’s imagination.

**Please note that I continue to believe that there are lots of men like Dr. Huxtable, because I’ve known so many of them… so many of you.

But the allegations against Bill Cosby have shaken me up. I can’t stop thinking about him. I get that he’s an actor and that he is not, and never was, “Dr. Huxtable,” the character he played for so long.

I sort of get it anyway.

I wish the horrible he said/ she said/she said/ she said/she said/ etc. evidence turns out, somehow, not to be true.

In the meantime, I continue to work to separate “Dr. Huxtable” from Mr. Cosby, in my own mind’s eye.
What do you think?


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