Because my mother worked a lot (two jobs when I was a teen), and my parents were separated (so I only saw my father on the weekends), I vicariously watched shows about good families. I appreciated seeing what a good family life could be like. I liked seeing parents talking through issues with their children, and helping them work things out, whether the child wanted it or not because the parents’ actions showed how much they loved their children. We had some pretty good shows on TV while I grew up. For one, there was a show about a boy who actually waited to have sex until he was married. There were great, although sometimes complicated relationships. I recently wrote about growing up as a Gen Xer and discussed The Cosby Show as one example.
But, of course, while talking about The Cosby Show in a positive light I inevitably attracted the comment, “Yeah, Bill Cosby was such ‘a black stud’ that he had to drug women to get sex.”
Did he? I know that he admitted to getting and giving women Quaaludes but that doesn’t mean it was against their will. Plenty of people have been known to take Quaaludes for fun. Just because he had the drugs and gave them to women doesn’t mean they didn’t want or ask for it.
Maybe it was against their will. But this is a he-said-she-said situation. Should I believe him or the women? Around 2013-2015 women started to make public sexual misconduct allegations. I wonder why they took so long to say something.
From Wikipedia:
Over 60 women have accused Cosby of rape, drug-facilitated sexual assault, sexual battery, child sexual abuse and sexual harassment. Those allegations gained traction 2014 after a set which made mention of them by fellow comedian Hannibal Buress went viral. Numerous allegations followed with Cosby maintaining his innocence and repeatedly denying the allegations made against him….
In 2018, Cosby was convicted of aggravated sexual assault against Andrea Constand. He was imprisoned until the conviction was vacated in June 2021 by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania on the basis of Cosby's 5th Amendment and 14th Amendment due process rights having been violated. In 2022, Cosby was found civilly liable for having sexually assaulted Judy Huth when she was 16.
Bill Cosby has maintained his innocence. When he talked about the drugs, he said that was consensual. His conviction was vacated. If you want to learn more about the due process rights being violated you can watch this quick video.
In the civil case, although he was found guilty by the jury, which awarded Huth $500,000 in damages, there were no punitive damages awarded from the jury of eight women and four men. Cosby’s representative said afterward, “This was a huge victory for us because they was (sic) looking for millions of dollars.” Andrew Wyatt said Tuesday of the $500,000 Huth received in damages. “That amount will not cover the legal bills and we will be appealing that matter. However, Mr. Cosby will not be paying punitive damages.”1
He’s been accused by over 60 women of misconduct and only had one civil case say he’s guilty. We’ve seen how unjust our court systems can be when they view someone as a persecutor, like Donald Trump. Was the jury biased? Had they already heard the allegations through the media before the court case? How do we know it was an unbiased jury?
I find it difficult to believe that Bill Cosby actually did everything he has been accused of. I’ll admit there is a bit of identification of the Cosby family since I watched it so much while growing up and thoroughly enjoyed it. But don’t you think if he actually did this, he’d be in jail at this point?
More from the Wikipedia article:
Cosby has also been critical of conservative Republican politicians in regard to their views on socioeconomic and racial issues. In a 2013, CNN interview regarding voting rights, Cosby stated "this Republican Party is not the Republican Party of 1863, of Abraham Lincoln, abolitionists and slavery, is not good. I think it's important for us to look at the underlying part of it. What is the value of it? Is it that some people are angry because my people no longer want to work for free?" Cosby's social commentary led to the unsealing of documents in a previous civil suit by a woman who had accused Cosby of sexual assault, which in turn sparked renewed interest in older allegations. The judge ruled that releasing the sealed documents was justified by the "stark contrast between Bill Cosby, the public moralist and Bill Cosby, the subject of serious allegations concerning improper (and perhaps criminal) conduct".
Now, I don’t agree with him about Republicans. I think most Hollywood actors/actresses live in an echo chamber and hear all sorts of stories we know are fake, but they take for real. Notice that it says the social commentary led to the unsealing of documents. That means someone didn’t like what he said and wanted to discredit him so no one would listen to him. The implication would be that a Republican probably did it. Of course, can we trust Wikipedia? I don’t know. But I do know that Phylicia Rashad (who played Mrs. Huxtable) said, “It’s not about the women. It’s about something else. This is about the obliteration of legacy.”
Looking At Fruit
Bill Cosby had good fruit if we look at The Cosby Show and its effect on the viewers. That show had role models for children to look up to. There were great lessons that focused on taking personal responsibility for your life. They didn’t raise slackers or gangbangers. They raised children who would be respectable.
The women who accused him waited around to actually charge him and it looks like may have lied about him. This is one article, “Bill Cosby Lawyer Disputes Janice Dickinson’s Rape Claim,” from Variety. Janice Dickinson wrote a book that seems to contradict her claims. If you believe what you went through was real why not deal with it at that time?
Why did over 60 women wait until the statute of limitations was coming up or never even bother to report it at the time at all? That number seems to not be accurate if you take it to mean 60 women said Cosby raped them. Some only claim he brushed up against him. Supposedly half of them didn’t really have a claim at all. This clip (from this longer video) discusses the number of women and their claims.
There was a model that claimed to Free Your Mind And Think (FYM) magazine to have been propositioned with money to destroy Bill Cosby.
From that archived article:
“I wasn’t going to send this email to FYM, but, the feeding frenzy on Bill Cosby’s character made my response necessary. In 1982, I had a photographer named Choice. Choice was contacted by a casting agent, I was told to meet the client at the Ritz Carlton for lunch in New York in the summer of 82’. This client wanted to talk to me about a film project. I arrived at the Ritz Carlton at 11:30 AM. Two male clients arrived; a Caucasian male (late 30s) and an Asian male (early 50s). They indicated that I’d be perfect for a film project.
I was told the project paid $5000 cash. I thought that was strange, who pays $5000 cash for a modeling job? The job was to meet Bill Cosby and to try to seduce him; it would be apart of the script. I was confused by this job request? They told me I would be recording the session to see if I was successful and believable? My response to them… I would like to meet Mr. Cosby first and discuss the script. They said no, it wasn’t necessary to meet him. They said it was a spontaneous casting call? I have never in my life heard of a spontaneous casting call.
As a legitimate model this seemed strange and unethical. I immediately turned down the job. The Asian man continued speaking and offered me $10,000 cash upfront and $5000 upon delivery of some seductive photos and some of his sperm. Sperm?
(I was in shock when they said sperm?) I then realized that these two men had unethical intentions. I excused myself, went to the bathroom, and then I left the hotel and went home. Now, as a model in New York, I’ve been offered drugs, trips around the world, films, videos, money from rich men, casting couch and the list is endless.
As a naive model you’re offered many compromising projects, but, this blew my mind. I was offered $15,000 to seduce and destroy Bill Cosby. Why else would they need suggestive photos and sperm? I also realized that America has a history of oppressing, killing and destroying successful and poor people of color.
I wasn’t going to send this letter to FYM, but, the media lynching of one of our global icons (Bill Cosby), is simply unacceptable. Also, after watching Nightline, Associated Press, CNN, CBS, NPR, Fox, and many other news outlets blatantly misconstrue and lied about old dismissed allegations of Bill Cosby. I’m shocked by the lack of integrity of our major news media. Why would CNN, ABC, CBS, AP and the like lie about 30 year old untrue news?
Nightline simply cut, deleted and distorted the Cosby interview– making him appear guilty. What has happened to the integrity of our nation?
I was offered $15,000 cash to discredit and ruin Bill Cosby. I’m 100% convinced that all the women coming forward have been paid off to discredit Bill Cosby as well. Why? He is simply too powerful, his intentions is to empower people of color and his net worth would anger any white man.
I think most people are good people. My intentions aren’t to insult white people, but, the facts are the facts.
It’s a fact that–9/10th of the global population are people of color and only 1/10th of the global population are whites. As in Ferguson, 14,000 people of color are controlled and abused by 60 white city officials. Reminds me of a plantation. The world doesn’t want powerful people like Bill Cosby to empower people of color and teach them that we have always had the power in numbers and economically.
Lest we forget, over the last 500 years our government has hunted, oppressed, enslaved and murdered: millions of Indians, millions of black slaves, millions of people of color globally, Black Wall Street, Medgar Evers, Malcom X, Martin Luther King, the Black Panthers, Mike Brown, etc.
In America, in 2014, white police officer(s) murders black unarmed men at a rate of every 28 hours. Sadly, America has a long history of killing and oppressing powerful people of color. This is why I came forward. I hope this open letter reaches the media and our beloved Bill Cosby and his loving family.
I simply trust http://freeyourmindandthink.com because they are a open source sharing community. FYM educates people on creating a world that provides: free housing, free organic healthy food sources, free educational resources, free health care for all and heals the earth. FYM has nothing to gain by posting this ‘open letter’ and I simply don’t trust the news media.
Please don’t get angry at my photographer, the modeling agency and or FYM. I simply came forward because no one should lose their good name because of an allegation or lie. It’s like burning a witch to death because her neighbor said she was a witch. I hope we are better than ancient practices. I have to say, I’m very disappointed in how the media frames the news.”
Obviously, the writer to FYM believed that the “white men” were going after Bill Cosby. And, perhaps, that means it didn’t happen.
The group that lost out the most with Bill Cosby out of the way was the black children who grew up without The Cosby Show as a great influence because it got removed from TV and badmouthed. Look at what has happened to the black culture since his influence was soured and essentially taken away. We had the rise of DEI and Critical Race Theory Praxis in schools. Cosby was the kind of person to put the kibosh on this stuff. I don’t think CRT & DEI would have flourished the way it had if people hadn’t thrown out The Cosby Show as unwatchable all of a sudden.
If I was being a conspiracy theorist here my theory would be that Democrats wanted to push those ideas and needed him to be out of the way. But according to Wikipedia, it was the Republicans.
Hannibal Buress
1/28 I edited this article to add a video clip of the Buress joke. From an Independent Article, “Bill Cosby: The 'joke' that started the fire storm of accusations against him:”
The joke would, as it turns out, have a dramatic effect, and help draw attention to the claims levelled at Cosby by up to 60 women, many of whom had come forward with accusations against a powerful man in entertainment, only to largely be ignored.
“Pull your pants up black people, I was on TV in the ‘80s,” Buress, a black man, said during the bit, referring to Cosby’s time as the lead actor in The Cosby Show, and to Cosby’s regular habit of telling black youth in America that the reason they lacked opportunity is because they were not behaving appropriately.
“Yeah, but you rape women, Bill Cosby,” the joke continued, referring to several accusations against Cosby that had previously been aired but largely ignored publicly. “So turn the crazy down a couple notches.”
Buress then turned to the members of the audience who may not have believed him. Check it out for yourselves, he told them.
“Google ‘Bill Cosby rape,’” he said. “That … has more results than ‘Hannibal Buress.’”
You could say this Buress was viewing very good advice as “persecution” and wanted to drag Cosby down to his level. Is that all it was, black people being pissed at being given good advice?
Either way, I don’t see proof. I just hear a lot of people talking. Maybe it was not a conspiracy, but just a bunch of women wanting to get some fame. No, I don’t believe all women. Many people love to play “victim” and go on TV shows and cry to get money and fame. Should I believe random women who took their time before speaking out? Or should I believe someone who created the good fruit in the form of The Cosby Show? I could be wrong, and I’m willing to say that. Maybe he did this. But I will not go around badmouthing him as if I know for certain that he did.
The Unjust Justice System
Our unjust “justice system” doesn’t deserve respect right now. I cannot say that just because a jury convicted someone that means that person was guilty. In the past, we used to think that. But I can’t any longer. And just because a woman says a man did something, doesn’t mean he did. She needs to prove it. We have too many lying women these days to take someone seriously just because she cries on camera.
During COVID, Criminals Go Free, But Not Cosby
Did you know that the governor of Pennsylvania was releasing vulnerable and nonviolent prisoners, but excluded Bill Cosby, regardless of his health issues?
Cosby representatives were surprised to learn that the star would be excluded.
"The news was shocking to all of us because we were told by sources close to Gov. Wolf that Mr. Cosby would be a direct beneficiary of his executive order," Andrew Wyatt told USA TODAY on Saturday. "Mr. Cosby is 82 years old, and he’s blind with underlying medical conditions."
He said Cosby, who takes medication for high blood pressure, doesn't have the ability to social distance because of his "100%" vision loss. The idea that Cosby doesn't fit the criteria for a reprieve is "absurd and unAmerican," Wyatt said.
Cosby's team asked Wolf to "amend his executive order and grant Mr. Cosby Compassionate Relief based on his current medical status."
"Mr. Cosby wasn’t given a life/death sentence, but we feel that the state of Pennsylvania is trying to execute Mr. Cosby, by exposing him to this virus," Wyatt said.
I don’t believe that it was like a death sentence but some people thought that way. And it’s not crazy to think that someone might actually wish death on others, especially in that timeframe. I find it difficult to believe that the way Cosby was treated was because everyone was impartial and just and he totally deserved all of this.
People Villianize Cosby Without Thinking
I’ve seen people villainize Bill Cosby just because of what they heard on the news and sometimes it’s the same people who think the news is BS. That’s the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect, where when you know something about what’s being discussed in the media, you can see they’re lying, but then believe them when it’s something you’re ignorant about.
Most people are not going to do their own research. But if you’re not going to take the time to do your research, I would suggest keeping an open mind that maybe what you heard is wrong. I’m not writing this to say I absolutely know for certain he’s innocent of rape. But I won’t be a part of the jokes about him when there’s a chance he’s innocent of it.
I’d rather a few guilty ones go free than label innocent people guilty. If he’s innocent, it’s a shame that he’s the butt of so many rape jokes.
I should be able to talk about how great The Cosby Show was without having someone bring up the rape accusations as a way to negate the show’s benefits to the world. But that’s what has happened. People do this all of the time. Whether it was on purpose or not, his legacy has been ruined. It’s the guilt-by-association fallacy. But we don’t live in a world with logical thinkers. We live in a world with illogical emotional ones.
I knew responding to one person was a waste of time. But felt the desire to write this to get this out there, so I can link to it in the future. I will not jump on a bandwagon to hate someone (a socially-labeled “persecutor”) without proof. I hope you won’t either.
If you’re interested in this topic, check out the following videos.
Videos Discussing the Possibility That Cosby Is Innocent:
BILL COSBY: Could Cosby be Innocent of All Charges Interview with Andy Signore (3 hrs. 3 mins)
Shakaama talks in the previous video about a YouTuber speaking to multiple accusers. I believe this is the channel. The Son of Man from the New Nation of Islam (search the channel for ‘Cosby’ to view the videos).
Bill Cosby Accuser Admits She Was Paid to Falsely Accuse Cosby (13 mins)
Bill Cosby Freed From Prison... Because He Did Nothing Wrong (20 mins)
If you’re interested in another rabbit hole, you’ve never been down before, look into whether Michael Jackson was innocent or not too.
Please leave a comment with your thoughts on this. Have you ever wondered if he was innocent or did you just swallow the story the media gave? Would you reconsider it now?
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Cover Image is in the public domain - taken from Wiki Commons.
Bill Cosby Sexually Abused Judy Huth In 1970s, Civil Jury Decides – Update https://deadline.com/2022/06/bill-cosby-verdict-judy-huth-playboy-mansion-assault-trial-1235048663/
Cosby began to criticize Ebonics and the black victim-hood mentality. That's when all the BS came down.
https://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-a-2004-06-13-10-1/292722.html
*** May 22, 2004
"I can't even talk the way these people talk," he [Cosby] said. "'Why you ain't where you is, blah, blah.' Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads! You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth! It's time for you to not accept this language that these people are speaking which will take them nowhere. What the hell good is Brown vs. the Board of Education if nobody wants it?" ***
It's shortly after that that everything started.
https://time.com/3592547/bill-cosby-rape-allegations-timeline/
*** March 8, 2005
Andrea Constand, the former director of operations for the Temple University women’s basketball team, files a lawsuit against Cosby, alleging that he drugged and molested her at his home in Pennsylvania in 2004. A local prosecutor had declined to file charges related to the alleged abuse. After Constand’s accusations become public, a second woman, Tamara Green, says on the Today Show that in the 1970s, Cosby gave her pills that knocked her unconscious and then groped her. Court papers in the Constand case mention Green and 12 anonymous women who make similar allegations against the actor and comic. Cosby denies ever molesting any of the women. ***
Isn’t it strange how nobody seemed to be worried about Cosby -- until he started to question the black victim-hood narrative? Then one woman comes forward -- then another comes forward -- on the Today Show?! You know, because the Today Show is where “serious people” go to report crimes.
Cosby made the case that black people have squandered the opportunities that have been laid before them -- he wasn’t wrong.
Because of that, he must be punished. And so, in come the sexual allegations.
It’s always the same.
We’re tired of all the "sexual allegations" already.
Half of Hollywood and the music industry are on the "Diddy List," and nobody is coming forward about that -- right now when there's an investigation! Funny how that works isn't it?
"He said, she said" conflicts will always be challenging. I'm a firm believer of "innocent until proven guilty (beyond a shadow of doubt)". The number of accusers means nothing. I've seen some of this happen in the world of photography. There are a lot of "me too" women that will jump on any accusation without any information just to be part of the in crowd.
Cosby certainly was a very talented comedian and actor. And very successful too. It's extremely difficult to believe he needed to drug women against their will. That simply doesn't make sense. Would these women have made the same accusation against a man that wasn't wealthy?