Whoopi Goldberg, a diehard Polanski defender, is skeptical of the allegations against Bill Cosby:
Readers react to the disturbing story:
I certainly understand Barbara Bowman’s anger. I think the answer to her question, of course, has more than a little to do with race. In this country, accusing a black man of raping a white woman comes with the burden of our racism and history of oppression. And when that man is a beloved entertainer and symbol of American fatherhood? You are right that his accusers had and have absolutely nothing to gain and everything to lose. I just can’t imagine what these women have gone through emotionally.
Hannibal Buress, by virtue of his gender and race, made it possible for us to have this conversation at long last. That it took a man to legitimize their stories is most unfair. We owe Buress our gratitude nonetheless.
Another wonders why Cosby didn’t get his comeuppance sooner:
Ten years ago we still had more of a top-down media structure. “Going viral” was not a thing yet. YouTube hadn’t even started. Instead, shocking things generally had to pass through gatekeepers, whose incentives were basically not to piss off the wrong people. Rape accusations at the time were considered not appropriate for polite company unless it reinforced an existing narrative. I’m sure many media outlets heard of these accusations, but dismissed them because they weren’t “truthy” enough.
How another reader on our Facebook page views the story:
He said / she said, she said, she said, she said, she said, she said, she said, she said, she said, she said, she said, she said, she said, she said, she said.
But a couple readers share Whoopi’s skepticism:
You wrote, “Believing Bill Cosby does not require you to take one person’s word over another – it requires you take one person’s word over 15 others.”
I have no idea what Cosby did back in the day. It would seem highly risky for a black man in the ’60s and ’70s to force himself on a white woman, but people have done risky things before. It was a long time ago, however, and it seems like too long a time to determine the truth of his or any other case without any real evidence.
The reason I’m writing this email however is to point out the problem with the “15 others” claim. The longer the time period, the more numerous the false claims/false memories. Did they get drunk and have sex with Cosby and regret it later and they have now over the years convinced themselves he must have slipped something into their drink 30 years ago? Did Cosby just hit on them years ago and grabbed a boob and they story grew in their mind? (Still bad, still inappropriate, but not as bad as rape). Did they have a sleazy experience with Cosby, believe that he could have raped somebody and embellish their story to help other victims?
Another:
If Bowman really wanted her story to come to light, she should not have settled and allowed the other assaulted women to testify in a trial. She accepted a settlement, and the reason to settle something like this is so the perpetrator can keep it as quiet as possible. She had a hand in keeping this quiet, and was financially rewarded for doing so. To complain about it now is disingenuous.
Update from a reader:
Cosby’s settlement was with Andrea Constand, not Barbara Bowman. She came forward to testify on behalf of Constand in a potential trial. That trial never took place because of the settlement, but Bowman has every right to speak up and is under no obligation to keep anything quiet.
Another adds:
As Bowman states in her Washington Post op-ed, “I have never received any money from Bill Cosby and have not asked for it.”
A torn reader rightfully falls on the side of the many female accusers:
I’ve been having a hard time dealing with the evidence that Bill Cosby is a rapist, but at the very minimum its helping me to understand why people sometimes defend and even excuse celebrities that are caught doing horrible things. Cosby was a fixture of my childhood. His public persona wasn’t just a source of humor for me, growing up, but also of comfort. I didn’t have an admirable father, so having someone like him as an example of what a father could be was meaningful to me. It’s not an exaggeration to say that he helped me through some hard periods.
Realizing that the real Cosby isn’t the same as the person I admired is hard. I’m feeling a profound sense of loss because that man I admired isn’t an admirable man. So what do I do with all of the positive experiences and, yes, values that I got from him? Is it still possible to admire the message while being disgusted with the messenger? Does the hypocrisy and evil negate the virtue?
Ultimately, I must side with the victims. If he hurt people (and I think he did), then he’s scum. And he’s a worse sort of scum for pretending to be a friendly, fatherly figure. I won’t make excuses and I won’t try to seek out some sort of false balance. But I also can’t do that without feeling hurt and without having to fight an urge to defend the man that I thought he was, even though that man was just an illusion.
Another update from a reader, who spreads the blame around:
I think NBC – who had a show in development with Cosby – is getting off awful lightly.
Yes, the accusations against Cosby slipped out of mainstream consciousness – but it was certainly no secret at NBC! For years, women have alleged that he used his position at the network in the 1980s to host private counseling sessions in which he drugged and raped them. These claims must’ve made at least some impression when they were aired in court just eight years ago.
Consider also that the claims against Cosby stretch into 2004(!) when Andrea Constand, a young employee at Cosby’s doting alma mater, says she was drugged and assaulted in his Philly mansion. Is it any mystery what Cosby had in store for the young female professionals that NBC was prepared to hand over to him? Do 67-year-old rapists not become 77-year-old rapists? Is this how cataract-eyed octogenarians find new verve for a career comeback?
The shameful truth is this: the only thing that stopped NBC from furnishing a serial rapist with a new crop of eager young professional women was a 90 second cell phone video of a stand-up routine. And that’s a scandal.
In the renaissance age of feminist, woman-focused journalism, how was that allowed to happen? Why did spaces like Vox, Gawker Inc. and Slate XX devote coverage to the sexism of The Amazing Spiderwoman, but let NBC announce a deal with a prolific rapist without a peep? Why was gamergate covered like the modern triangle shirtwaist fire, but the new Cosby show ignored entirely? Why dig so obsessively into nerdy, off-the-beaten-path subcultures when fucking NBC is setting Bill Cosby loose on a new group of subservient girls?
NBC, for their part, announced the cancellation of the Cosby project in the protective wake of Netflix’s announcement. They’re now attempting to quietly tip-toe away from this mess as the public descends on Cosby. They should not be allowed to.
The Dish 