Bil Cosby, the once immensely popular comedian/actor, made famous by the groundbreaking Cosby Show, is silent in all languages. The man who accused his own Black people of failing to raise their children now seems to have so much butter on his head, that he says nothing.
There is hardly a day that goes by that he is not accused by a woman who claims that she was at the very least treated unfairly by Mr. Cosby. For a lot of people, men and women, it is hard to digest, let alone believe and accept that their hero, the man they adore for once and for all shattering the stereotype of poor Black people, was capable of doing the things that the women accuse him of.
In the meantime, no less than 13 women have come forward, almost all of whom tell more or less the same story. The absolutely perfect TV father invited the ladies who were around 20 at the time for private sessions and that's where it happened.
Now I am aware that these stories have been around for a while, only now they are becoming more persistent. I even thought I read that Mr. Cosby had reached an agreement with the victims. That should have been the end of the matter, case closed. But why did it actually only get worse?
Remarkably, the claims come at a time when the comedian is planning a comeback. It could hardly be more transparent. Someone clearly wants to put a stop to that. That is nothing new, it has been going on for years.
What makes this case interesting to me are the reactions to the whole thing. Many of my American Facebook friends now admit that this is not fun, but that they never doubted the women. That seems clear to me too.
There is no normal woman who will accuse a man of rape. Note the word “normal” and the worst part is that I have to emphasize it, because the tendency is that when a woman says she has been raped, she is looked at with the neck and is hardly believed in advance. There must be an agenda behind it. She probably wants money. Mind you. We are not talking about a Muslim country. We are talking about the developed Western world. The world we live in where women supposedly have the same rights as men. Why is it then that a woman who says she has been raped is almost immediately called a liar or a profiteer? This is sick in my opinion! It is the reason why so many women do not dare to report rape.
I was furious after reading an opinion piece in the NRC on DSK who raped a woman here in New York. A woman, mind you a woman, literally put herself in the shoes of the rapist and wondered desperately how he must have felt when it was a “not so pretty” woman. My blood boiled! If this well-traveled columnist had known her history even a little, she would have realized that Black women had already been raped a million times before they were sold into slavery. But I digress. This is about Cosby who is accused of knowingly and willingly abusing young girls.
What I have a terrible problem with is the reaction of women in particular who claim that this is about racism. We live in a society that does not grant a Black man anything and will stop at nothing to drag him through the mud and destroy him, is their reasoning. According to them, Bill Cosby is a victim.
When it comes to a black person it seems almost impossible not to bring racism into it but in my opinion this case has nothing, absolutely NOTHING to do with racism.
It's very simple, Bill Cosby is a man of flesh and blood. Just like Arnold Schwarzenegger and so many of his cronies at the time, Cosby abused his status and unfortunately more than enough women have fallen victim to it. He is not the first and will not be the last. It happens everywhere, in all countries, in every culture, what is grandly wrong is to let this type of men, precisely because of their status, go free.
The last thing Bill Cosby and men like him need is women defending their behavior. C'mon people! These are men! Men we adore.
These men not only have privileges, they also have duties and responsibilities and if they are any kind of man they will not hesitate to take responsibility for their actions.
Bill Cosby created the mess himself, no one made him do it. He certainly doesn't need a woman to clean it up for him. There is no excuse for me to rape a woman.
As a Black woman, you can count on me when it comes to racism or other social issues. Even when it comes to child custody, I am prepared to stand up for you if I believe the arrangements are unfair. However, when it comes to rape, you are on your own.