I thought I had said or written all that I had to say or write about Bill Cosby and his foolishness, but just when I thought I was out of the conversation, they pull me back in.

A portion of Bill Cosby’s deposition in a 2005 civil suit brought by a woman who claimed the comedian gave her Quaaludes in order to sexually assault her suddenly surfaced a week or so ago, reopening and reigniting arguments as to his guilt or innocence. I didn’t even bother to read it or any of the heated commentary surrounding it because I had already made up my mind about Cosby during the first round of this argument.

Many considered this Cosby deposition to be the proverbial smoking gun, the most damning piece of evidence to be presented thus far and conclusive proof of his guilt. However, expectedly, #randomhotepnegroes, conspiracy theorists, and Bill Cosby defenders, not entirely mutually exclusive groups, took an exact opposite stance.  And enough of them guilted me into going back and reading the document myself using that whole, “If you are really interested in the truth…” thing.

These #randomhotepnegroes, conspiracy theorists, and Bill Cosby defenders apprised me of the fact that in this deposition Cosby did not admit to drugging women and then having sex with them against their will; rather, he only copped to procuring Quaaludes for the purpose of seducing them. Evidently, Quaaludes were a big part of his seduction game.

And much to my chagrin, after reading through the portion of the deposition released online, I could but only admit that they were indeed correct. This deposition alone can in no way be read as an admission of guilt.

Actor Bill Cosby speaks at the National Action Network’s 20th annual Keepers of the Dream Awards gala in New York April 6, 2011. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson (UNITED STATES – Tags: POLITICS HEADSHOT) – RTR2KWH7

In fact, as it was pointed out to me, if we were to use this confession by Cosby as a measure of his guilt, we would then have to go back and arrest most of the male population because who has not shown up at some woman’s house with a fifth of cognac and a dream?

To be completely honest, most decisions men make between the ages of about fourteen to twenty-six, depending on an individual’s rate of maturity, are predicated almost entirely on the possibility of the decision resulting in sex. So if this is the smoking gun people claim it to be, practically all men are guilty to some degree.

But that in no way changes my opinion of Cosby.

A good friend who is a lawyer brought to my attention the fact that in most criminal cases in which the defendant is found guilty that go to trial, no such smoking gun even exists. In fact, most of these cases are decided simply on the basis of the evidence presented. And based on the evidence presented thus far, the accusations of a now almost innumerable number of women—they just seem to keep coming out of the woodwork—Cosby, in my reasoned but humble opinion, is dead guilty. Admittedly, some of these women may have ulterior motives; however, every one of them cannot be telling the same lie.

Not only that, and most importantly, just how high is our threshold of the acceptable burden of proof? What would these #randomhotepnegroes, conspiracy theorists, and Bill Cosby defenders actually accept as the proverbial smoking gun because as evinced by history, no amount of evidence, whatever the quality or form, is ever enough.

Remember the case of one R & B artist, R. Kelly? Remember that even amid repeated allegations and reports of him preying on young, black girls, a videotape surfaced of him peeing on somebody’s child. In other words, there was video evidence of his malfeasance, his pedophilia. His foolishness was caught on tape and in living color; nevertheless, for many even this videotape, this visual evidence, still was not enough of a smoking gun.

#randomhotepnegroes, conspiracy theorists, and Bill Cosby defenders insisted that we had no way of knowing if that was actually R. Kelly on that video or not, and furthermore that video and the allegations and investigations dogging R. Kelly were just more attempts to bring a good brother down, and now that renegade negro R. Kelly is still running around wearing a mask, dressed like somebody’s uncle who just touched down after going to jail during the 1980’s, talking about he is the pied piper of R & B.

And I have no way of proving it, so it is more or less completely conjecture on my part, but more than likely, part 2 of his pedophilic rampage jumped off as soon as he was acquitted of the charges and progresses even at this very moment. If you are so sure of R. Kelly’s innocence, why not send your underage daughters or nieces to spend a week or so with him at his estate?

And who could forget the O.J. Simpson case, The Trial of the Century? Remember that one? Even in the face of overwhelming evidence of his guilt, some folks still claim that he did not stab up those white folk, curiously despite the fact that at the time he stabbed up those white folk, he had all but cut his ties to and disavowed the black community many years previous to that incident. Yet, many black folk defended him, and continue to do so, nonetheless.

It is amazing what a bit of police incompetence, a stack of money, and the power that stack of money accords can do. It can get you off even in the face of the most overwhelming evidence, and in some cases, it may even frighten and intimidate the victims of crimes, no matter how heinous, from even coming forward.

Meanwhile, between there and here, many of the pre-hotep #randomhotepnegroes stepped to some random white women’s house with a fifth of cognac and a dream, and when the liquor ran out but their dream was deferred and they left without having accomplished anything, in their embarrassment they read almost the whole first chapter and/or the back cover blurb of a hand full of books, at least enough to consider themselves experts, and immediately went on Twitter and got to hotep-ing.

Please forgive those last few lines. They were non-sequitur and completely inappropriate. But sometimes I say or write stuff just to amuse myself. I will endeavor to delete them from the final draft. Again, forgive me.

Nevertheless, we must get past this whole false black good-white bad dichotomy. Evil is not exclusively the trait of any one race or group but is sprinkled indiscriminately throughout the whole of humanity. If you array yourself in the armor of truth and claim the complete eradication of even the slightest hint of unequal treatment as your cause, if you claim truth to be the means and justice to be the end, you must necessarily be truthful and insist on justice no matter who it is for or against, lest you become merely a chocolate version of the vanilla you find so distasteful.

Truth and justice cannot be the purview of just us, for as Martin Luther the King so eloquently reminded us in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” the very existence of injustice anywhere threatens the presence of justice everywhere; justice must necessarily be for all or for none.

Hotep.

The post Bill Cosby: Just-Us and the Burden of Proof appeared first on Madness & Reality.

We lost Cliff Huxtable. We lost Bill Cosby. We lost a man who brought forth the positive image of black family life to American mainstream TV. And it looks like the person responsible is none other than Bill Cosby himself.

You might wanna get comfortable, because this may be a long and depressing article.

I used to love Bill Cosby. I remember watching his comedy special “Bill Cosby: Himself” when I was young. I even recorded it, and no matter how many times I watched it, I laughed my ass off.

I watched episodes of “The Cosby Show”. It was just as gut-busting when it came to humor, but it was positive, clean humor that only Cosby could give. Not only that, I saw something very few people saw on TV back in the day, a well-to-do black family with two career-driven, positive and professional parents and children who did not fit the negative stereotypes of black youth. It was amazing!

Bill Cosby was like a father-figure to most of his audiences. He even displayed that persona during his infamous Pound Cake Speech at the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education decision which drew mixed reviews. Some, like famed professor Michael Eric Dyson criticized his chastising of poor blacks for not holding up their end of “the deal”. Others thought he was being honest. He seemed to care about the direction poor black communities were heading. Whatever your opinion of him and his stance on the black working class, you still kinda admire him for all the contributions he gave to the media promoting positive black images from Fat Albert to Cliff Huxtable.

But all of that is crashing down as you read this. We could’ve been deceived by a man who’s not at all like Cliff Hustable in real life. Then again, some would say that he has done a lot for positive, black media imagery and black colleges. So, he certainly can’t be what over 20 women says he is. A rapist.

Cosby has been accused over the years of raping so many women. Alas, the media only reported this less than a few times since he became a household name. So, it was shocking to find out that he has been accused of sexual assault and rape before. After all, this is a man scolding poor black people to do better. Yet, he was accused of heinous crimes! Talk about hypocrisy. And it was another comedian, Hannibal Burress, who pointed that shit out in a comedy routine:

“Bill Cosby has the f***ing smuggest old black man public persona that I hate. Pull your pants up, black people. I was on TV in the ’80s. I can talk down to you because I had a successful sitcom. Yeah, but you raped women, Bill Cosby. So, brings you down a couple notches. I don’t curse on stage. Well, yeah, you’re a rapist,” Buress joked.

The video that recorded that piece went viral. And it was all downhill from there for Cosby. From that point on, one by one and counting, women have come out speaking that Cosby raped them, all sharing one theme. Cosby drugged them somehow. took advantage of them while they were out and they felt sexually violated in some way. The once famed and beloved comedian morphed into America’s infamous serial rapists in the news, tabloid and social media outlets in a firestorm of accusation after accusation.

Immediately, Cosby was tried and convicted by a court of public opinion. His future plans for a comeback have been virtually demolished. “The Cosby Show” is no longer on the air. And his comedy tour has been scrapped. It’s safe to say that the Cosby legacy is in ruins and possibly unsalvageable.

As expected, this has crossed issues from sexism into racism as people are strongly divided over this scandal. Many people side with the accusers, stating that the culture of rape and sexual assault must be stopped. It is definitely a case in Tinsel Town where it holds many ugly secrets. While others question how could a black man of any status get away with so many rapes during a time when racial overtness was still in style. After all, almost all of the accusers are white women. The ghost of Willie Norton haunts us again like he did with Herman Cain.

But then, you have the ones who suspect that the women are after Cosby’s money as they plan to sue him as oppose to try to put his behind in prison. They question why it took them so long for them to do anything. They wonder why nothing was done to stop this man. In the end, they suspect something’s rotten in Denmark. Conspiracy theories were born from there. One, of which, included a plot to bring down a highly powerful black man as that’s an American no-no.

Those who support Cosby, from what I’ve seen, are mostly black folks. Does that mean something’s wrong with them? Hell no! It just means that they’re no different from the mostly white people who still support Woody Allen, Roman Polanski and the latest embattled white celebrity Stephen Collins who confessed to molesting three girls during his earlier days. So, the message is simply this: if you can support your heroes who obviously have faults, why can’t we, assuming Cosby is guilty? Is it right? No, but who are white people to say they’re experts in ethics and morality in the first place, especially when they’ve violently demanded that we embrace their “civility”? In other words, we learned that shit from them.

It’s one thing to discuss the issue of rape in the Cosby case. It’s another when certain men are singled out for the discussion to be brought. It seems like certain societal problems are never mentioned unless a black person is in the spotlight. Domestic violence was an issue when Chris Brown and Ray Rice were in the news, not Charlie Sheen or Mel Gibson. This is why the issue of sexual assault will be discussed due to Bill Cosby’s alleged actions and not those of Jerry Sandusky or even Jimmy Savile (Google him and be shocked). People should not piggyback off certain celebs while ignoring others when discussing these important topics that involve all who’s guilty.

Some have even said that this scandal helped to influence public opinion on black men during a time when black men are under attack by the police and have been screwed by grand juries. The face of domestic violence has been a black male’s face. The face of thuggery is a black male’s face. And now, thanks to Cosby, the face of rape has – as it has been since slavery – a black male’s face. Race is likely not out of the question in this whole mess.

As we see this scandal unravel with possibly more women coming forward, all we can do is watch Cosby’s pristine image die slowly, but surely. We must not demonize the women, however, as it will be counterproductive. All in all, the lesson is that those we worship are humans with faults and flaws. And it looks like Bill has a lot of them. We are witnessing a slow and painful death that could be the result of a years-long career self-destruction that we’ve ignored far too long.

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