My Last Comment on Cosby (Unless He’s In the News and I Can’t Avoid It)

It came to me after I posted a tweet and it started a long and thoughtful conversation between many men on Facebook. (My tweets automatically post to Facebook in a two-for -one social media update.) The tweet read, “Dear world at large, if 25+ people come forward accusing me of virtually the same heinous thing, feel free to judge me without a court case.” 

After reading all of the comments and deciding to back out of the spirited discussion, a three-pronged theory came to me about why so many people can deny that where there is smoke there’s fire with Bill Cosby. I mean, have you ever heard of thirty women accusing a celebrity like this before, with no basis in fact? One might. Two, maybe, if they’re really unlucky. But not thirty, on the record, independently telling the same basic story. So my theory of denial, and the “court of law conviction” defence for even just forming a negative opinion about him, is this.

1. They don’t know the whole story. Many people have just heard “women” and “Cosby Show” and “Janice Dickinson” and “Gloria Allred”.  These accusations didn’t come about because women suddenly popped out of the woodwork. It started with male stand-up comic Hannibal Burris calling Cosby a rapist in his act last year. Burris was performing on Cosby’s home turf of Philadelphia, and a clip of the bit went viral. Burris then defended it later on radio, in print and on TV.  Here’s what he said, foul words and all:  “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.”

Some journalists started looking into whether there was any basis in fact. One of Cosby’s accusers wrote an op-ed piece for the Washington Post titled, “Bill Cosby Raped Me. Why Did it Take me 30 Years to Tell My Story?” Reading that piece, other women began to feel safe coming forward and did, one by one. Cosby’s former producer at The Cosby Show went on the record saying he saw a steady stream of young starlets come to visit Cosby’s dressing room and personally saw seven cheques written as “hush money” to various women.

Journalists also began to unearth more stories. In one case dug up from more than 10 years ago, the Director of Operations for women’s basketball at Temple University where Cosby was an alumnus and an honorary doctor, filed criminal charges of sexual assault against Cosby. They were dropped due to lack of evidence, which is not uncommon in a he-said she-said situation. During the investigation, prosecutors found another woman who had a similar story. She said that in the early 1970’s Cosby gave her an “herbal pill” to “relax her” and it rendered her unconscious. She woke up with semen on her and Cosby in a bathrobe.

Even if some of them are lying for some reason, how many would lie? Let’s be ridiculous and say half. If half are lying, fifteen women aren’t lying. That’s a lot of women.

2. There is a misunderstanding about reporting rape. Rape is violence, yes, but it’s also about power and about the very essence of being a woman. Let’s take power. The alleged victims were young, many of them wanted to be in show business and probably all of them were star struck. When you look at Bill Cosby now as he closes in on 80, you see a slowed down, white haired, smiling old man. The Cosby back in the day was not like that. He was fit, rich, the biggest star on TV and had come from nothing to build himself up there. That’s the man who is accused of doing these things. Women know what they will have to go through to prosecute a man for rape. If that man is Bill Cosby, the first reaction is logical: Who will believe me? A rapist in a powerful position knows this and that’s why the assault is even possible. On the witness stand she will be asked what she was wearing, what she ate and drank, what she said, if she flirted, did she go back to his room willingly, and any and all questions about her character and background in an effort to discredit her. He can afford the best lawyers in the country. She is likely broke by comparison. She has already been violated and now trying to get justice seems like a no-win. When other women start coming forward, it finally feel safe. If they’re believed, I’ll be believed too. Otherwise, it’s just too frightening to face on your own. Better to try to forget than to risk getting violated a second time.

3.  As much as women fear being overpowered by men, men deeply fear being wrongly accused. We all know of stories where some callous, selfish, awful woman has made up a tale of abuse to prevent her ex from seeing his kids or to get him jailed in retaliation for something. It’s horrible that some women do this but it makes news because it’s unusual. It doesn’t happen a lot. Still, just like every woman silently and unconsciously assesses the threat level from every man she finds herself alone with, whether riding an elevator or in a doctor’s office or walking past him on the street, I think every man has this fear of a wrongful accusation. It’s because it’s about a power shift. Just about any man could beat up just about any woman. We all know that and women put their trust in their stronger counterparts to never use that power. Just about any woman could get just about any man hauled away by the police with a bit of acting skill and a phone call to 911. And that’s terrifying to the good men out there who make up most of the male population. My theory is that this is what’s acting as a barrier to common sense, rational judgment and opening oneself up to the possibility that Bill Cosby might have been a sexual predator back when he had opportunities to do so. We presume innocence until guilt is proven but sometimes a court of law doesn’t get to decide. There is enough evidence to convince me and until I developed my theory, I couldn’t figure out why smart people couldn’t look at all that was placed before them, and not at least suspect that it could be true. We make up our minds about people every single day on a fraction of this much evidence. Someone cuts you off in traffic and they’re an asshole who deserves to die! A man in Bill Cosby’s position, should he have the will and the desire, isn’t less likely to rape a woman. He’s more likely because of the power differential. Thirty women. Drugged and/or raped. I believe them.

*This blog post also appears at Blackburnnews.com .