Another American Icon Crashes and Burns

I hadn’t heard about the rumors before now.  I didn’t know someone had alleged  America’s most loveable father figure was not just a rapist, but a conscious predator.

Then comedian Hannibal Buress, during his recent comedy set in Philadelphia, said this:

"Yeah, but you rape women, Bill Cosby, so turn the crazy down a couple notches. I've done this bit on stage and people think I'm making it up.... when you leave here, Google 'Bill Cosby rape.' That sh** has more results than 'Hannibal Buress.'"

The bit went viral and our beloved Dr. Cliff Huxtable is tumbling from grace like a boulder.  Cue the talking heads.  Feminists are aghast when another woman dares to suggest that the allegations might not be true.  Many men feel attacked by proxy by the parade of “me,too” victims surfacing on a daily basis.  And corporate America, afraid of its own shadow when it comes to negative publicity, drops Bill Cosby like a hot stone.

The mailman asked me yesterday what I thought about all this.  I tried to reduce my response to one-word descriptions, after a cliché about smoke and fire raced through my head.  Of course, that was impossible, because my thoughts ricochet all over the place and can barely be articulated, much less characterized with one adjective.

I remember all this circusy clamor when Tiger Woods’ furious wife beat the hell out of his luxury car with a nine iron.  Huge icon.  Poster man for all that is good and right with the world.  Tiger freakin’ Woods!  Whatever could he have done to make this crazy-ass woman go postal like that?  Oh, wait.  What?  An affair? Two affairs?  Twelve affairs!?!?!?!?  Who ARE these whores?  They must be looking for hush-money.  Not OUR Tiger!

Here is my interview of myself:

L, do you believe Bill Cosby could be guilty of these allegations?

Of course I do.  Bill Cosby is NOT Cliff Huxtable.  Cliff Huxtable is a fictional character, written from someone else’s imagination in an attempt to portray a politically correct patriarch of a “typical” American family who happen to be black.  Bill Cosby is an actor.  What he portrays on stage or screen gives us absolutely zero insight into Bill Cosby, the man.  We are so easily misled into  embracing the character and disregarding the person behind the character, because none of us know that person.  So, yes, I do think he could be guilty of at least some of these allegations.

L, why have these women waited all these decades to come forward with these claims?

Obviously, I can only guess the answers to this one.  You’d have to ask each one of his accusers why they’ve been relatively silent until now.  My guess is, just like is happening today, they probably knew many would refuse to believe them.  I don’t know if you have noticed this, but all the alleged victims thus far have been white women who were extremely young and presumably ambitious.  Cosby was already one of the most powerful people in Hollywood and most assuredly one of the most powerful black people.  Would these young women appear to be racists if they spoke out?  Would they be shamed and discounted and ultimately ruined?  Probably and probably.

One of the women, Andrea Constand, who was the first to publicly accuse Cosby, was a Temple University basketball player.  Temple is Cosby’s alma mater.  She described in her testimony how Cosby groomed her, offered to mentor her and give her career advice.  She said he drugged her and raped her in her drug-induced stupor.  Cosby settled with the young Canadian out of court.  Today she is a massage therapist in Canada.

It is not difficult for me at all to understand a young woman’s reluctance to step forward with such incendiary accusations against a powerful man.  Many less-than-powerful men -- regular, everyday fathers and grandfathers and uncles and athletic directors – have gotten away with such behavior because the victims are simply not believed if and when they attempt to discuss it.  There is an all-too-common tendency to want to believe the victim has ulterior motives or is mentally disturbed, rather than investigate the possibility that the accused could be guilty.

Hero worship is a concept fraught with land mines.  Behind that NFL jersey or PGA golf hat or actor playing a role is a human being who is just as susceptible to foibles and frailties as the rest of us.  Some of them are even criminals, drug abusers and womanizers.  Some are insensitive to the cruelty of dog fighting or cock fighting.  Some resolve their arguments with their wives and girlfriends with their fists. Some are rapists and murderers.  And some are really, really, good, upstanding family men.  How can we tell the difference?  We can’t.  Because we do not know them at all, despite their presence in our everyday lives.