Discussion: 'Cosby Show' Star Phylicia Rashad On Accusers: 'Forget These Women'

TPM Article Topics
1

Discussion for article #231717

2

Why, why, why does she need to say this. What was Beverly Johnson’s motive?

Just because Cosby treated her, a costar, with respect doesn’t mean he treated everyone else that way.

18 Likes
3

Well, now Bill’s fake wife from TV, and his real wife have defended him. But I find it hard to believe this is a conspiracy.

4 Likes
4

It’s orchestrated?

That’s some orchestration, then. Accusations spanning decades are the result of some orchestration?

Cry me a river.

13 Likes
5

I get her belief in his innocence. She worked with the man for years and years, knows him well, and believes he’s innocent. I’m sure it’s really tough to accept that someone you’ve known and loved for decades could commit such evil acts. That said, the number of women coming forward should at least raise an eyebrow. Also, unless you were there or know for fact that these assaults didn’t happen, it’s best to shut up about it.

24 Likes
6

Interesting that she’s not so much defending Cosby because she believes he didn’t do these things, she’s defending him because she sees him as important to “the culture.” I can understand her concern, but the idea that the criticism of Cosby is orchestrated is pretty TH (tinfoil hat).

8 Likes
7

If it comes down to Ms. Rashad or the accusers, I’ll go with Ms. Rashad. Charges made today of events allegedly occurring decades ago are immediately suspect. That’s why we have statutes of limitation.

I’m old enough to remember when the owners of a day care center were tried, convicted and imprisoned for child molestation, based on the then fashionable “recovered memory” of adults who were 4 and 5 years old when the “molestation” took place. Years after the convictions and prison terms, the now-adults totally reversed course and essentially admitted to adult-inspired lying on the stand.

A lesson - especially for liberal civil libertarians - to take to heart. Charges are charges. Nothing more.

2 Likes
8

This was all done ( literally ) in front of her ? Don’t think so .

9

Agree - very hard to believe that a ‘conspiracy’ with so many moving parts could be executed without falling apart - and that women who, in a number of ways, had ‘moved on’ and could easily have preferred to be left out of this - would ‘opt in’ - unless they felt they were telling the truth as they experienced it.

Does everybody love Bill? - obviously not Has Bill really, really irritated some people? absolutely
But ‘conspiracy’ ? Hard to buy that one.

3 Likes
10

Exactly. And if this destruction of a legacy is “orchestrated,” where’s the vociferous defense of Cosby from a variety of people because I haven’t seen much of it. ESPECIALLY from other Black performers. What I’ve heard is mostly - crickets. Sure, some of the immediate women in Cosby’s life have come out to defend him which is what I would’ve expected. But, other Black performers seem to not want to touch the hot stove.

I wonder why.

1 Like
11

It’s worth noting that there’s been some cultural drift (in a good way) on the issue of behavior like Cosby’s. Back in the day, he might have been considered a guy to avoid, the “funny uncle” of female seduction. It’s only in years since, that behavior like his has come to be widely considered clearly predatory. “Hey, it was the 70s and we did a lot of stuff back then that we don’t even want to think about today.” In that narrow sense, Cosby’s the victim of changing times.

But by any measure, drugging women and having sex with them while they’re out? Even in the pre-AIDS era, that was low.

3 Likes
12

Not so fast - it would seem premature to form definitive conclusions - in either direction.

Remember ‘statutes of limitations’ apply to some crimes and not to others - Just because ‘decades have passed’ and the particular crime is not now prosecutable - it does not automatically invalidate the evidence from the standpoint of truthfulness -

4 Likes
13

The day care center thing was full with crazy allegations and the concerns of young children witnesses. Here, we are not talking about such fantastical acts and about adult women. It’s not the same thing. Also, it isn’t about trying to arrest Cosby really – it is determining if he actually did these things. So, the limitations thing is missing the point some. Finally, more than one of the women raised flags a long time ago.

8 Likes
14

Gawker commenter Muscato: “All this proves is that Cos still mails paper checks, and they take a while to clear.”

I mean, come on. She makes the suggestion (read the full statement) that this is a conspiracy to murder the image of the Great American Family, which apparently remains represented by the Huxtables. That’s…not well.

2 Likes
15

Well, nobody really talks about that now, do they? Whether these women are at all credible or their stories make sense or seem too convenient or whether they have believable explanations for not seeking his prosecution or any of that? They’ve been treated as unassailable and with kid gloves and the ONLY focus their credibility has received is the logical fallacy that they form their own pigpile corroboration feedback loop solely by virtue of the fact that they are several people making accusations on the same subject matter…even though all of the accusations are of separate, independent incidences with their own independent factual allegations that would have to be independently investigated and proven, etc. There’s a million other types of accusations you could levy at a person where that logical fallacy would not be tolerated. 20 people all claiming that Cosby liked to commit petty theft at convenience stores or that he used to shit in cereal bowls and drink his own pee would not be given the time of day just because of the number of accusers.

Moreover, you can play the same sort of false-credibility game in the other direction: is Cosby simply the luckiest motherfucker in the universe, in that he’s a compulsive, serial sexual predator who has somehow managed to have a whole train of accusers following him around, and yet not one of them, not a single one of them, not even in accordance with the statistical likelihood of sexual abuse being reported, ever decided to report it and have him prosecuted within the time for that to take place? He got sued and there is a secret settlement of some sort involved in that one case, but that’s it. With so many accusers and such a history of repeat offenses, don’t you think he’d have gotten unlucky just once? Or is it that he just plain wrote the book on how to magically always get away with it?

I don’t fall on either side of the issue, because you really can’t if you’re being objective. However, I do find it all fascinating from both sides of the fence: both in terms of its implications about Cosby’s allegedly disgusting behavior and tarnished legacy and the forever questions it will raise about whether he really did commit the horrible acts he’s accused of, but also as a sort of weird societal experiment in just how guilty you can be treated based on untested allegations, particularly when the allegations are of this nature.

That being said, it’s getting tiring. He’s clearly been convicted in the court of public opinion, fair or not, and anyone who tries to talk about it in a manner that doesn’t fully conform risks getting attacked for it. If it’s already so decided, I’m sortof curious why it’s still even considered to be news.

4 Likes
16

Rashad’s choice of words - “forget these women” - is really inexcusable. Would she feel the same if her sister or daughter was making a claim of sexual misconduct by a famous man?

13 Likes
17

‘Cultural drift’? ‘Victim of changing times’?  Come on, man. I attended high school and
college in the ‘70s, and I would have been horrified if anyone I knew even
contemplated doing what Cosby is accused of. Drugging women to knock them out
and then fucking them while they are helpless, against their will, was then
what it is now: assault and rape.

5 Likes
18

Now I understand why Ahmad Rashad abandoned this awful woman.

2 Likes
19

She feels no sympathy for the Cosby rape survivors. This is sad and disgusting.

2 Likes
20

She gets money from TV syndication of re-runs of the Cosby show so of course she is defending him. Simple motive.

6 Likes