Anyone who, at this late date, is still defending Bill Cosby needs to take a long hard look at the portraits of 35 of Cosby’s 46 accusers in the latest issue of New York magazine.
Look these women in the face, and tell me they’re lying. Read their accounts, and tell me they’re lying. Watch the videos in which six of these women tell their stories to the cameras, and tell me they’re lying. Each and every one of them.
This is Lili Bernard. Is she lying?
Go watch her video and tell me that.
This is Victoria Valentino. Is she lying?
Go watch her video and tell me that.
This is Louisa Moritz. Is she lying?
Go watch her video and tell me that.
I believe all of these women. Their stories are all too believable, and all chillingly similar. Not identical, as if they’re reading off a script, but similar, in that they all describe a practiced predator with a standard MO.
But, Cosby defenders, you don’t have to believe all of them. If only one of them is telling the truth, Cosby is a lying, sleazy, predatory rapist.
Can you honestly tell me you think each and every one of these women are lying?
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Please read the newly revised COMMENTS POLICY before commenting. Rape apologists will be banned. If you feel compelled to tell me you think all these women are lying, send me an email.
sn0rkmaiden-Thanks for the info. I suspected that was because of the satute of limitations. But like you said, he wouldn’t have cleaned up his act in the last few years. Like Rolf Harris, he would have plenty of recent victims, recent enough for a criminal trial. I think there would be even more victims coming forward soon
@AnAndrejaPejicBlog,
I know you didn’t mean to copy over the whole thing, but thanks for doing so. Those women’s stories read one after the other are harrowing. This guy’s been doing whatever he wanted all these decades and nobody tried to stop him. The hell no one in his circle knew what he was up to.
I’ve always liked Whoopie Goldberg as a comedian and actress, but she’s way to quick to defend Hollywood celebrities like Mel Gibson and Roman Polanski. The fact that she has changed her mind on Cosby is pretty remarkable.
We don’t have a statue of limitations in England.
For some minor offences like traffic violations the authorities have to issue a Notice of Intended Prosecution within 6 months, but for everything else there’s no limit. We’ve prosecuted people for offences committed during WW2.
@lkeke35
First, let me be clear–I personally believe Cosby is guilty as fuck. I believe all these women. I believe the ones who have come forward but chose not to reveal their names, and the ones who haven’t come forward yet. And I know there are going to be women who’ve managed to convince themselves for their own mental well-being that it wasn’t rape, and if they choose to reclassify their personal experiences then I’ll believe them too.
Second, I don’t agree with the way you’re dismissing “false narratives of Black men raping White women, etc, etc”, and disparagingly talking about how black women believe “that kind of stuff”.
If a black woman chooses not to believe the accusations against Cosby, then she’s coming at her opinion from a position within the intersections of racism and feminism/womanism that frankly I’m not willing (or qualified) to judge her for. Not when black men were actually lynched within living memory for false rape allegations. Not when a white supremacist terrorist just killed 9 people because “you’re raping our women.” Not when misogynoir is a daily experience for black women.
One black man’s guilt (conclusive in my view, as-yet-unproved in a court of law) of rape doesn’t mean all black women everywhere are required to ignore the extensive racist history of this type of accusation and immediately denounce him.
Zeb Berryman- thanks for the link. I am still hopeful that this is only going to be temporary, though. Due to what a prolific rapist (the thought of it makes me want to vomit) he is, plenty more victims will come forward, who’s victimization would be well within the statute of limitations. Like snork maiden said it would only take one.
I understand that some of the women are considering bringing defamation cases against Cosby. The grounds are that by denying the allegations he is in effect calling them liars.
We probably shouldn’t get our hopes up though. It’s a principle of defamation law non-one can be sued for denying an allegation, even in robust terms, that is itself defamatory*.
[* A statement can be ‘defamatory’ even if it is true; it’s just one that would “lower the esteem of a person in the minds of right thinking people”.]
The number? The way things fit? The timing? I believe everyone of these women until I have a reason not to. If others disagree based on the intersection of racism and feminism? Well I’m certainly not equipped to tell them they are wrong but I’m going to come to my own conclusion. And the sad part? 1. That he escaped even exposure for as long as he did. 2. That unless a more recent case comes forward, that Cosby will escape justice (if those saying the statute of limitations is up for all of them…there was a movement a few years ago to get it removed for rape, unfortunately I guess they failed).
@Ikeke35,
I’m still running across a few white men who think that it’s a conspiracy agaisnt Cosby, and they don’t have the history of having men of their race being falsely accused of raping white women in order to justify violence. Instead, these men are buying into the idea that there’s some sort of profit in claiming to be a rape victim and that accusing Bill Cosby is somehow a great ticket to fame and relevance (never mind all of the facts of the matter as we’ve seen them). I’ve also seen a number of black celebrities and public figures, some of whom are women, speak out against Cosby and in favor of his victims. Even Whoopie Goldberg has come around, and she’s also had a history of defending white men accused of rape, like Roman Polanski. We also can’t forget that it was a black comedian, Hannibal Burress, whose routine brought these accusations back into the public’s mind. Basically, while I understand your frustration, I don’t think that it’s fair to pin all of this on black women, especially with an understanding of their history.
I don’t understand how anyone can still be defending him. Cosby’s entire argument seems to be that, yes he drugged women, but it was all consensual. If this was the case, why aren’t there any women coming forward saying that they had consensual affairs with Cosby and agreed to using drugs? There aren’t any. So far, every woman Cosby has been with says he raped/sexually assaulted her (besides his wife).
One of the fallback excuses for disbelieving these women seems to be “Their stories are too similar!” eg. suggesting it must be copycats trying to jump on the bandwagon.
Isn’t it weird how in serial killer cases we call that a modus operandi and it helps cops identify victims of a particular perpetrator, but when it comes to sexual assault all of a sudden it’s cause for skepticism? Gosh, I wonder what the difference could be? Something to do with the people who are telling the stories, perhaps?
misseb47- What I’m hoping for- and I know this won’t happen, but it would be awesome if it did- is that this case will lead to the statute of limitations for rape being eliminated.
I think that these women are just the tip of the iceberg. I also believe that Bill Cosby probably also hired prostitutes, lots and lots of prostitutes.
So here’s what I want to know:
How many women did he beat up during the struggle to rape them? How many had significant physical injuries? How many had lasting physical injuries?
How many women did he give an STD?
How many women did he impregnate?
How many women chose to abort?
How many women gave birth?
How many raised the child?
How many relinquished the child?
And finally, how many women did he kill? (When a prostitute is murdered, does anyone besides the people who know and love her–her parents, her siblings, her friends, her significant other, her children–care? And what if there is no one to know and love her?)
Greydawnbreaking:
My apologies.
I wasn’t trying to be glib but trying to quickly outline the things I was told, by this woman, on my IPhone. I didn’t mean to imply that the narrative is unimportant or that I don’t believe it.I meant the idea of “Black men being rapists of White women” is itself a false narrative created by White supremacists. I should’ve been clearer.
As a Black Woman I’m well aware of the History you’re talking about and I struggled with initial disbelief of these women on that basis.
I spoke to one of the women I mentioned earlier, again, after our first discussion and she outlined in clearer detail why she believed what she did and I accept she believes that, but I just can’t/ won’t believe it. I’m not into conspiracy theories, so when she first brought it up, that’s where my first thoughts went to. (Initially, I couldn’t understand what the Hell she was saying, but I do now.)
Afterwards ,she and I had a long discussion of where Black womens opinions fit into this entire narrative, as we are well aware of the “false narratives” about Black men being a danger to White women. That this is a dilemma for Black women (not just me, but Whoopi, Jill Scott, my co-worker) that White women can sort of avoid, if they want to do that. And here’s where we get two different points of view. She and I believed all the same things but I believe the man is a rapist and though she knows the history and we agree on that, she believes he isn’t.
Zeb Berryman-me too. The whole statute of limitations thing is extremely dodgy. Especially in regards to cases involving child sexual abuse. It can take decades for the victims to be able to come forward and the children that do come forward are often not believed.* It’s a terrible flaw in the American justice system that abusers take advantage of.
*I am sure that there are plenty of articles about this. I will post a few when I get home from work.
@Zeb Berryman
you picked proably the one other example I have heard people blame the victim for. It’s pretty much the exact same conversation too. You were in the wrong area, you made yourself to vulnerable, etc ect. So yes people do blame the victims of robbery quite alot.
I think it’s more fair to say people blame victims out of a disbelief that others can be so horrible, rather then to try to compare it to other crimes, since most crimes have people blaming the victims in large numbers, some just aren’t as visible because they can’t be mentioned in public. That doesn’t mean they don’t happen, they are just less social acceptable.
@robjec,
Yes, but they still try to find the thieves and punish them because they don’t want anyone else being robbed. Also, no one tried to tell victims of robbery that they’re lying and that they really just gave their stuff away.
And the stature of limitations on any violent crime is a bad idea. Nearly everyone agrees, but it is hard to get extentions passed ( I’m the us it varies by state, I belive some have no limitations but I’m not sure, I know for sure it varies between 3 and 20 years depending on where you are)
Getting it removed would be good, but a lot of politicians won’t due to the fact that it would mean increased cost and so higher taxes ect. Especially immediately after when all the cold cases have to be moved into digital storagw. And this applies to all violent crimes.
There is also the fact that evidence degrades over time, which is the reason stuff like murder has a limitation. And that alibis become almost impossible to disprove 30 years later.
Considering how incredibly unreasonable you must be to defend him, i doubt they’ll have any problem calling all these women liars.
Robjec: I think that its fair to say that robbery does have some victim blaming from time to time and that may make it a bad example, But I also think that more trouble is taken to punish men who commit robbery, and that the amount of blame turned towards rape victims is greater.
@lkeke35
Please don’t apologize. You weren’t being glib, and I misunderstood your comments about the nature of the “false narrative”.
Like you said, White women can sort of avoid this–it’s part of our (my) privilege. I don’t want to avoid it, though, even though I’m not always sure of the right thing to say or how to say it. I really appreciate you responding to expand on your remarks and I apologize for jumping to conclusions.
This is frighteningly true. I did NOT hear of those accusations until Hannibal Buress called Cosby out in his monologue and this story finally, ten years after the initial accusations, went viral. Which tells me something about the power of Cosby’s influence and money, and their roles in a conspiracy to keep these women silenced (and not believed).
I suspect many — maybe even most? — people hadn’t heard about it until then, either.
Aaaaand there goes the fond, foolish belief of the hardcore Cosby apologists that these women have somehow conspired, themselves, against Cosby in order to extract money from him (and/or profit somehow from his fame). The fact that they had no prior contact with each other, yet so many of them describe a remarkably consistent modus operandi, makes me believe them even more than I already do as a matter of course when a woman says she has been raped. (And I believe EVERY woman who says she was, until she is proven beyond all doubt to be a liar.)
The top two reasons I’ve heard is:
1. “He’s famous, so the victims have been getting a lot of media attention, thus they’re just looking for fifteen minutes of fame at the expense of Cosby.”
Which is a very dubious reason at best, because there’s far better ways to get far more positive attention. No one comes out about a rape, because victims (of any gender) are always treated like garbage by a lot of people. They’re always questioned, they’re always scrutinized, and they’re always somehow to blame.
2. “He’s rich, and these women want all his money, because they’re gold digging whores!”
I fail to see how people are to make money from being raped. I fail to see how money will somehow make a rape victim/survivor feel better about what happened. I fail to see how money will help rebuild their lives.
It will feel like some measure of justice has been served, but these women will never get over what happened to them. They’ll just learn to live with it, if they can bring themselves to. (Speaking from personal experience here.)
The other reasons I’ve heard are:
1. “They just want more drugs!”
2. “They had consensual sex with him, and are now regretting it!”
3. And the usual drops of victim blaming that are evident in every rape case.
*No one comes out about a rape for attention
Whoopsie.
My mother always told me that evil things thrive in the dark. That a younger generation of women speak up is a very good sign. The Cosby’s of the world need to be shown that they don’t own the rest of us, and that they should fear us and not the other way around.
Excuse me for sounding a bit corny, but we shouldn’t have to live in fear. Not anyone of any classification ever invented. Mom grew up in a dictatorship and saw people disappeared for speaking up; she knew first hand what it was like to be made to feel powerless.