Rape accusations and race rants: Cosby’s biggest problem is that he loves power (Vox)
The predatory acts Bill Cosby is accused of are shockingly incongruous with the public perception of the guy who used to be known as America's Dad. That's a fairly obvious point that's been made in just about ever story about the recent wave of rape allegations against him.
But it's hard to overstate. Cosby is accused of sexually assaulting women — 15 accusers at last count, including three who have spoken out for the first time in recent weeks saying he drugged and raped them.The stories of rape — a crime that's understood to be about power more than sex — are difficult to square with his Cosby Show character, Kids Say the Darndest Things persona, and Jello Pudding Pop commercial antics, or the goofy signature sweaters, and, later, track suits, that screamed "approachable and safe."
But even more than that, the allegations can seem impossible to reconcile with the way Cosby saw the world. If you juxtapose the things Cosby said about how people should live with the way he's accused of living, you get something that goes even deeper than hypocrisy. You get dissonance so intense it's disorienting.
But here's another, disturbing idea: Cosby's moral scold persona and the things he's accused of doing to women are compatible. It's easy to imagine that they could have their origins in the same self-important, controlling place - a place where a powerful, widely adored man steamrolls anything that stands between him and what he wants.
snip:
At the time, (Cosby's 2004 remarks on the black community) were characterized as "tough love," but this wasn't just Cosby handing out fatherly advice or offering a bootstrappy strategy for overcoming ra
cial inequality and poverty.
He was asserting himself in a new role: the self-appointed arbiter of appropriate African-American behavior. He declared, "The lower-economic and lower-middle-economic people are not holding their end in this deal."
He oozed disgust for people less privileged than he was, asking, "Who are these sick black people and where did they come from and why haven't they been parented to shut up?"
snip:
...Even if none of what has been said about him in recent weeks is true, the man is certainly no saint. While he denies the allegations of all of the 15 separate women who have accused him, he has publicly admitted to more than one extramarital affair over the years. And if the allegations are true, it's safe to say that Cosby would not get an affirmative answer if he were to ask himself, "Is Jesus smiling?"
snip:
But perhaps it goes even further than a penchant for victim blaming. Cosby's tireless efforts to shape social behavior from atop his pedestal of fame suggest that he expected anyone he set his sights on to bend to his will. And if the accusations are true, that's the exact worldview that motivated his alleged crimes against women. After all, experts say it's power, not sex, that rapists truly seek.
For Cosby, it seems, the ends — dominance — justify the means, and the means involve shutting down whoever gets in the way.
He has used his status to quash the voices of poor African-Americans who actually live the lives he wrote off as marred by cultural pathology. They didn't matter.
And in the stories that his accusers tell, he allegedly did the same to them, silencing the women, not with judgmental words, but with pills - before getting from them what he wanted.
Source:
http://www.vox.com/2014/11/21/7259069/bill-cosby-rape-allegations/in/7013082
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