OK, so what do you make of this whole Bill Cosby thing?
Just in case you have been out of commission the past few weeks and need a recap, allegations of rape have come up again against the entertainment icon, assaults that supposedly happened years and years ago.
Evidently, some two-bit comedian made some comments about the Cos in his act, the comments went viral, and all of a sudden, more than a dozen women came out of the woodwork, saying that the comedian had sex with them under some very mysterious circumstances.
If it was one woman, you could probably discount these allegations, especially since they supposedly took place years and years ago.
But more than a dozen women have claimed that he attacked them, had non-consensual sex, and some of them have evidently kept quiet until now.
Cosby has been an arbiter of righteousness, especially in the black community, since the mid-1960s. He has stood for everything that is good about being a celebrity. He has made millions, but given millions back to the community. He has chastised those who have abused their power as celebrities.
We have loved his work from seemingly the get-go, from "I Spy" to his own comedy shows, to his standup routines to his comedy albums.
I know I certainly did. I have been a fan of his for decades. His comedy albums sit in a very good place in my record collection. I have enjoyed his TV shows, and yes, he has made me laugh--and think--since I was a kid.
But things have changed.
Now, he is being taken down bit by bit by bit by women who alleged that he attacked them eons ago.
Due to the hub bub, he has lost current opportunities, such as with NBC and NetFlix, and his shows have been removed from the air.
This is not the first time that the Cos has been accused of doing the nasty in the wrong places. Evidently, he settled one suit that was lodged against him in a civil case, and then there was the more recent case where he was led to believe that he fathered a young girl with a previous paramour, only to later find out that he was not the actual physical father of the young lady.
So, yes, this arbiter of everything good has, in fact, been a bit bad during the past 50 years, all of which time he was married. He has had affairs, but were these latest strikes against him of the consensual nature or not?
Whatever the case, why did these women take upwards of more than 40 years to claim that Cosby assaulted them? Why are they ganging up on him now?
Yes, the statute of limitations has clearly run out on these cases. Evidently, the comic has been a good guy for the past 20 years or so.
But I bet that there is something else going on here, something that nobody could even fathom could be happening until now.
Cosby is worth many, many millions of dollars. During his heyday, he was probably one of the richest men in the country.
I will bet that he had been paying some of these ladies off for years to keep their mouths closed, and others he didn't pay a cent to at all.
He probably ceased these payments at some point in recent time, or the payments were made in a lump sum and were made years ago, and those that were getting them or got them were upset, and those that weren't probably found out that they were missing a great payday all of these years.
I believe, that is why the initial women struck back at him, and that is why the others joined the line later on.
Sure, we now can figure that the comedian has been talking out of two sides of his mouth the past 50 years, on one side preaching goodness, the other side being something of a predator.
"Do as I say, not as I do," has probably been his maxim.
But there is fault on the other side too.
Why, in heaven's name, has it taken these women so long to come forward? Sure, money can quiet the tongue, but one woman was supposedly attacked in 1969, and others in the 1980s, the ones who probably weren't paid for their silence.
Why has it taken them so long, when really nothing can be done about it now?
And, why and how did these women put themselves in a position to have this done to them?
These are just my impressions of the whole thing, but the sad thing is that Cosby is being made guilty of all of these wrongdoings--I thought in this country, you were innocent until proven guilty.
But the Internet has changed things, and the onus is on him to prove that he didn't do these dastardly deeds.
His silence only make matters worse.
He should come clean, admit that yes, all these years of goodness were spotted with incidents of not so much goodness, or at least missteps, and move on from this.
But unfortunately, he probably cannot do this, because his lawyers most assuredly have told him to shut up, it will all go away in time.
I don't think that Cosby is the American version of Jimmy Saville--the British music celebrity who upon his death, it came out that he had raped perhaps thousands of young men over the years--but I do think that Cosby has had a dark past that we haven't heard that much of until now.
The Jello is wobbly, for sure ...
Whether he did all these things or not, his reputation has been completely destroyed, and if he is innocent, that is just plain wrong.
If he is guilty, these women should have come out years and years ago and told their story.
Not now.
And that makes them as guilty as he supposedly is.
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