Thank god we can finally believe the thirty-nine (and possibly counting) women who have accused Bill Cosby of rape and sexual misconduct. And why should we finally accept all their practically identical stories? Because Bill Cosby admitted that he gave women drugs in a 2005 lawsuit:
Bill Cosby testified in 2005 that he got Quaaludes with the intent of giving them to young women he wanted to have sex with, and he admitted giving the sedative to at least one woman and “other people,” according to documents obtained Monday by The Associated Press. The AP had gone to court to compel the release of the documents.
The lawsuit was settled out of court in 2006 for an undisclosed sum. What does it say about our society that we need the culprit to admit he’s done something wrong when tons of victims lined up with the same story?
Team Blackness also discussed the strange case of parachute children, a Supreme Court case that could ban affirmative action, and conservative Texas’s attempt to literally whitewash history.
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CONGRATULATIONS!
Fucking ridiculous question. You know why Cosby was allowed to skate on this as long as he did.
Patricia Kayden
Yes we can. He’s an admitted rapist. Why else would he give women drugs so that he could have sex with them when they were unconscious? Wish he could go to jail with his self-righteousness — all that preaching to the Black community while raping women on the side.
Tommy
re: your headline. I thought most of us already did.
John Revolta
I first read the headline as “Bill Cosby is a Racist”. I had a confooze. Maybe I need to get off the fleebin’ flabbin’ internet for awhile.
bystander
Last night the news (local, I guess) reported that Cosby admitted he had wanted to give a woman a ‘lude so he “could sleep with her.” Um, I believe only one party was doing the sleeping.
Pogonip
I wonder what finally prompted him to confess?
trollhattan
Who doesn’t love that Cosby’s attorney protested to the judge that releasing the ’05 transcripts would embarrass him? And ZOMG, does the judge ever lay the wood to him re. his prior moralizing.
Germy Shoemangler
@Pogonip: He was testifying under oath ten years ago.
Court documents were finally unsealed ten years later.
Ten years ago he settled out of court.
MCA1
@Tommy: Yeah, what a ludicrous straw man. Who out there has been defending Cosby recently? Are there really Cosby Denialists?
I mean, I know it was difficult for people to initially accept that he was a bad guy, simply because it’s hard to separate public persona from private person, and his public persona was so overwhelmingly “wholesome” and his characters reflected values that society wants upheld. But that all went away in about a week. Just because the general consensus statement of “he’s a dirty rotten sleazeball” was preceded by “I can hardly believe it and it makes me really sad, but” doesn’t mean people aren’t seeing clearly.
trollhattan
@MCA1:
Per Amanda Marcotte, yes there are/were.
Tommy
What I don’t get is how Cosby still hasn’t been charged with anything yet. I get the statute of limitations has expired for rape itself, but it is my experience with our laws if you want to charge somebody with something you can find a way. Look if it was once, not that that would be right, I could maybe understand not going after him. But it happened dozens if not hundreds of times. Dude needs to be in jail or on the run.
the Conster
@MCA1:
Whoopi Goldberg, today, for one.
SatanicPanic
@MCA1: yeah man. They exist. Charlamagne (the radio and MTV guy), Jill Scott, Whoopi Goldberg (surprised?), etc. I think that gal who played Rudy Huxtable was defending her.
Germy Shoemangler
I remember seeing a documentary many years ago; written by Andy Rooney, narrated by Bill Cosby
Black History – Lost, Stolen or Strayed
Powerful stuff for 1968. I’m not sure we’d see something like this on CBS news today. I hope I’m wrong.
trollhattan
@Tommy:
I suppose it’s a matter of which jurisdiction and which case(s)? What’s contemptible is how the women who came forward back in the day were not taken seriously or simply bought off. “Not ‘America’s dad’ no way.” Yes way.
Tommy
@the Conster: Say it ain’t so. I tend to kind of really like Whoopi, from many of her movies to her views on The View, but she needs to stop this right now.
the Conster
@Tommy:
Crazy, right? On twitter she said to stop sending her tweets and comments, she doesn’t care. Denial is not just a river in Egypt, etc.
goblue72
@MCA1: There have been up until this latest bombshell a LOT of Cosby defenders out there. I encountered them online and offline in person. People completely incredulous that Cosby could “do such a thing.” Similar to how you are being completely incredulous that significant numbers of people could have still been in Cosby denial.
The lack of credulity in our society is part of the problem – we just completely refuse to admit that vast numbers of our fellow citizens are completely shitty human beings – including many people in the public eye that a lot of our fellow citizens “look up to.”
Its horrible to admit, but a lot of our neighbors, co-workers, and family members are just awful people. Which is why they need to be lied to, obfuscated with and otherwise tricked into supporting our policies and our politics. They won’t get their on their own. They need propaganda before they’ll change their minds. Lenin was right.
Tommy
@the Conster: I am willing to give people the benefit of doubt maybe more than most. When the first woman came forward I wasn’t sure what happened. But then a dozen plus it was kind of clear what happened. Now we have court docs. What more does Whoopi need?
elmo
@Tommy:
That may very well be true, but is it an experience we want to emulate and spread? Statutes of limitation are there for a reason. Sure, an unethical prosecutor can find a way around the law – they do it all the time – but I’d very much rather they didn’t, and I will not root for a prosecutor to find tricks and loopholes just because I find the victims sympathetic and the criminal a scumbag.
——————————————————————————————————————————
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!
–A Man for All Seasons
MazeDancer
@Germy Shoemangler:
Apparently, the documents weren’t officially sealed because the case was settled, so the original judge didn’t finish any lock away of the deposition.. The AP went after the documents because PA law allows revealing documents after a few years, unless harm can be proven.
The AP reporter who was on the story was on Rachel Maddow Show last night. IIRC, Cosby’s lawyers argued that he would be terribly embarrassed if the deposition was revealed. The judge did not see the harm in that. Judge actually mentioned that Cosby raising moral issues out on his performance circuit was a reason to reveal the deposition.
gvg
@Tommy: Uhh, I take it you missed hearing about Whoopi defending Roman Polanski and saying “it wasn’t rape-rape”? I think it was around 2012? and I haven’t expected anything good from her since. sex with a 14 year old isn’t rape…
Germy Shoemangler
@goblue72: They’ve already received a lifetime of propaganda.
I recently re-watched this documentary and it’s pretty brutal. They don’t show brief clips of old Hollywood, they show long segments of horribly racist stuff that was broadcast to audiences for decades and decades, from “Birth of a Nation” to innocent-seeming Shirley Temple movies.
I remember seeing it on tv when it first aired. It forever altered the way I view old movies and all present-day media (we’re more subtle nowadays).
Tommy
@elmo: No I don’t really like it because normally it is used against people that are not rich, powerless, and not really committed a crime against another person.
Cosby IMHO might have raped hundreds of women. One is too many of course, but what he did is many factors worse. He should not be walking our streets.
Tommy
@gvg: Totally missed that.
Amir Khalid
Some happier news from the world of entertainment.
Bobby Thomson
@MCA1: there are denialists commenting at LGM.
Germy Shoemangler
@Amir Khalid: I was hoping he would. I never understood the producers wanting the cast to stop all outside projects.
Tommy
@Germy Shoemangler: That is good news.
elmo
@Tommy: We can’t pick and choose what laws we obey based on distaste for the criminal. That way lies madness.
Timurid
I just wonder when they’re going to start finding bodies…
Tommy
@Amir Khalid: In other good news I am so happy we are opening an embassy in Cuba. One of my best clients and the client I like working with the most is a Cuban American. His parents came here on a boat and swam to shore.
They became successful in south Flordia. He is successful. When the news came out months ago that we would be doing this I picked up the phone and called him in an instant. He said he was giddy, but his parents not so much. But he said this is a generational thing. Everybody he knew, almost to a person, that is under say 40 or 50 felt the way he and I did.
I need a vacation late this year or early next year, and Cuba is at the top of my list. Maybe a few days in Key West and then I hop a ferry to Cuba. Not possible now, but I hope very soon.
ruemara
We can’t even talk about this in the office. Our manager is a hardcore denialist. She’s convinced that 40 is a sign of the conspiracy and these women were entrapping him.
the Conster
@ruemara:
It’s OJ all over again.
Elizabelle
@ruemara: My late mom LOVED Tiger Woods. She feels those women were throwing themselves at him. Every last one.
Le sigh.
Tommy
@Elizabelle: I am sure many did. He was a rich, fit, famous, good looking guy. But I don’t think Tiger was ever accused of rape. Not even close.
Tenar Darell
Cosby was offering a drink, and put another substance in the drink, without the knowledge or permission of the person he was giving the drink to? Well that means he roofied someone, in order to rape them. Not sorta kinda had consensual sex if we squint, but rape, real honest to goodness rape by drugging all those women. Going to his hotel room for a chat or even a drink is not consent for sex, ever. I do not get it. Why is this so hard for so many people to understand?
That’s a rhetorical question, I don’t expect anyone to answer. But the endless resistance (even in other comments on different posts on this blog) to calling this what it is, roofies followed by rapes, is why I now believe that rape culture is an accurate term. It’s not just Bill Cosby. It’s the “rape rape” or “real rape” comments elsewhere, it’s the assumption of consent by socializing or simply having too much to drink, or wearing a sleeveless dress, or leggings, or a mini-skirt. It’s the training that girls need to be careful, but boys must be pushy and demanding. What have we done to boys to make them think that sex without affirmative consent (rape) is normal behavior, and how can we tolerate this for all the girls we try to tell “you can do anything but don’t do that because you could be raped.” And we should not forget to mention the boys and men who are raped using exactly these methods. Are those not rapes either? It’s all rape culture, part and parcel of the patriarchy that stifles us all.
ruemara
@the Conster: It’s stranger at least to me because she’s white. At least we’re post racial and this is generational.
wasabi gasp
Wonder who put the joint in the geography book?
Tommy
@Tenar Darell: This is it and why it is rape. He drugged ladies with the goal of having sex with them. There might be some gray area, or maybe there was years ago, if they were both really drunk. That is not what happened here.
Cosby had an actual direct tactic to have sex with these women. Get them to his hotel room. Offer them a drink. Drug them. When they could not resist have sex with them against their will.
It didn’t happen once or twice. It happened dozens and dozens of times if not hundreds.
the Conster
@Tenar Darell:
I had a conversation with a 50 something guy recently who had to use the women’s room at the gym while the men’s room was being repaired, and he noticed that there were flyers and cards up on the bulletin board for safe houses, domestic violence hotlines, rape counseling. He had never considered that women’s spaces were all like that pretty much, and that women live a different kind of reality than men do. I looked at him, pointed my finger and said “that is the very definition of white male privilege, that you had NO IDEA”. He agreed, and said it really made him understand something he only kinda sorta got theoretically.
Brachiator
@Tommy:
Well, no. And you may be confusing civil suits with criminal prosecutions.
And as another poster noted, you really don’t want prosecutors to be able to “find a way” to charge someone with a crime, even if they really, really, really think that the person is a “bad guy.”
Also, as far as I can tell right now, Cosby claims that the drugs involved here involved consensual acts. But the attorneys for Cosby’s accusers are trying, perhaps reasonably, to show that this indicates a pattern of behavior.
WereBear
@the Conster: Reminds me of that old saying:
Men’s greatest fear of women is that they will laugh at them. Women’s greatest fear of men is that they will be killed by one.
Tommy
@the Conster: I will tell you a story I don’t often tell. I was at my grandfather’s funeral. My mom’s dad. I am outside having a smoke. This guy I didn’t know asked who I was. I told them. He then starts a conversation where it is noted my mom was married before my father. My parents had been married for 47 years at the time and I had no clue mom had been married before.
I first went to my younger brother. He didn’t know. We went to my father, still at the funeral, and asked him WTF.
Dad said mom had been married before. He raped and beat her. She was strong, or lucky enough to get away. Why mom volunteers at that rape crisis center. She knows what it is like to be a victim. Now we will never ever talk about this again. Ever!
kc
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
‘Cause no one reported him to the cops throughout his lengthy career of raping?
Gindy51
@Pogonip: Fear of what is happening to him right now. The confession was to thwart a lawsuit that would have ripped his career to shreds back in 2005.
Helen
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
I remember watching Morning Joe when the count was up to 18 women. Joe kept calling them gold diggers. I screamed at the TV – “So what’s the ratio? We already know that 18 – 1 is not good enough. What’s the ratio of women to men that you would need to believe the women?’
That’s why I don’t watch Morning Joe and let Raven do it for me.
Brachiator
@ruemara:
Sadly, people will often defend or excuse the actions of people they consider to be heroes, or who were important to them when they were younger.
Also, there are people who want to cut Cosby a break because of the tragedies he had to deal with, notably the death of his son.
And, maybe worst of all, there are people who do not consider women to be all that important or deserving of respect. So they don’t see what happened to these women as being a big deal.
ms_canadada
@Tommy: Go to Cuba!!! Yes, many people are poor, it doesn’t have all the mod cons…but the people are absolutely wonderfully kind. Oh, and music! We traversed the island and in every village, a party broke out, with generosity and kindness, food, music, dancing…can hardly wait to return. (BTW, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m a Canadian and yes, I’ve been there twice).
Also too, there are many opportunities to help out, on farms, teaching, etc. If you arrive with an open heart, you will have a wonderful time. If you arrive thinking you’re staying in a 5 star resort (even if it’s supposed to be 5 star), you will be disappointed.
geg6
@kc:
Oh my. And if someone had (and are you sure no one did?), I’m sure the cops would have perpwalked in cuffs for all to see and everyone would have been clamoring for him to get hard time.
In another universe, maybe. But not in this one. And not today. And certainly not 20 or 30 years ago.
the Conster
@WereBear:
Margaret Atwood.
Patrick
@Helen:
I haven’t watched that clown since the 2008 election. He and the cast is a fricking joke. It really says something that he has a show on TV.
Tommy
@ms_canadada: Well two or three things. First off when I vacation it is normally camping. I sleep on the ground. I have to go and pay another place to take a shower. I don’t need a 5 star place. Not even close.
Finally I want to go for the culture, music, and food. Oh the food. I find some of the best food I’ve had was in a hole in the wall. Out of a hut. Cart. Truck.
We still have not allowed permits to be used for ferries or even direct flights to Cuba from the US. I hope that changes in the next month or two, but if not, well I can go to your nation and fly out :). I’ve looked into it and it is pretty straightforward.
Xboxershorts
Quaaludes were the #1 party drug in the 70’s. No one ever bought em with the intent of not sharing em. This really doesn’t prove a thing.
And…
I don’t need the Quaalude testimony to believe the women about the serial rapist named Cosby
trollhattan
@Helen: If twenty-six Sandy Hook victims were insufficient to convince us to tighten gun laws, I’m guessing it would take…infinity plus one victims to come forward to convince a loser like Squint that America’s beloved celebrity guy might actually have done it.
“Gold diggers.” Really.
opiejeanne
@Tommy: why does this stuff pop up at funerals? We have a different startling family story that popped up at my husband’s grandfather’s funeral.
I wonder what compels people approach complete strangers and unload like this at a funeral.
And good for your mom that she escaped.
Brachiator
@the Conster:
Not really. This is where crap like “white male privilege” and “rape culture” become stupid buzz words without distinction or context.
Yes, you are right that the stuff in the women’s room indicates that women lead different lives. But the opposite of this is not privilege and it is not something special to white men.
Most of the time, I’m just a guy. I can and do walk through the world and people just leave me alone. I’m just a guy. This is the case for most guys. I don’t have to smile or acknowledge anyone, or look over my shoulder (except in certain neighborhoods). I look like I can take care of myself, so unless somebody is a fool, or has buddies or a gun, I am not too worried about being assaulted. I don’t look dangerous or criminal. So most of the time, I am not walking through the world with privilege. I am just ignored. Again, this is the case for most adult males in everyday situations.
And yeah, it is shitty as hell that women often don’t have the right to be ordinary, to be just another anonymous person.
Gindy51
@elmo: Good old Tommy found plenty of ways to charge people with crimes back in the day. He also burnt them at the stake.
Tommy
@opiejeanne: I have no idea. He was about my age. 40s. My grandfather was 93 when he passed. I don’t even know how they could have known each other. Why he was there.
My mom is about my best friend. I love dad with all my heart, but mom fucking rocks! I’ve wanted to ask her about this so many times but have not because my father asked that I don’t. I still listen to my parents.
I know there has to be much more of a back story and I want to know it, but ………….
kc
@trollhattan:
It’s one thing for the judge to say Cosby is a public figure, but to rule against him and cite the content of Cosby’s speech as justification . . . that is troubling.
kc
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
I give up, why?
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator: The ability to be “just a guy” is a privilege. I’m not thrilled with the terminology either, but just being able to walk through the world anonymously and unburdened by the preconceptions of others is what is known as “privilege.”
Tommy
@efgoldman: No it doesn’t. Best thing I ever did was get rid of cable. I used to have MSNBC on for 8+ hours a day in my home office. Used it like radio, just listened.
What I do read online has not changed but my thinking of the news has. Strange. I don’t know about shark attacks or this or that.
From the few news programs I get via Hulu I am thinking about Greece and race.
the Conster
@Brachiator:
You’ve just described white male privilege. Everyone else not a white male has to make innumerable calculations every day to get through the day without being hassled.
Cervantes
@Brachiator:
There may be a non sequitur or two afoot.
Or you’re a master of irony.
The latter, I’m pretty sure.
skerry
@Brachiator: Your ability to be “just a guy” is privilege. I don’t get that ability, nor do my daughters. Your lack of understanding about this is also privilege.
Ask any woman you know about the lack of ability to walk where ever, when ever.
J R in WV
Well, I went over to the LGM, which I visit often anyways, and sure enough, there were some trolls over there trying to defend Cosby. Let me admit right off that I was a huge Cos fan back when I was a kid, I’m 64 now. Had several of his albums, laughed my ass off. Loved “I Spy” too! So I was pretty disappointed to find that he had feet of decomposing rats and feces.
But I wasn’t going to jump onto denial, because I know what kinds of abuse women face when they accuse any guy of rape, let alone an iconic show-biz star worth probably billions of dollars. So these women were angry and mad enough to risk all in an attempt to seek justice. They were victims of a terrible crime.
The folks at LGM defending Cosby were nyms I had never seen before, but from the remarks of other regulars they had been there before. They were incapable of mastering English grammar, multiple [sic]s in every sentence if you quoted them much.
They were also loose with logic, as in not. So the fact that they were “defending” Cosby wasn’t meaningful to me. Better to be defended by a lawyer in court than by maroons in public.
What a cats’asstrophe !
Patrick
@the Conster:
Yup. Driving while black comes to mind, something that white folks never have to deal with.
Germy Shoemangler
@Patrick: Attending church while black, walking home from buying skittles while black… the list goes on.
Tommy
@Cervantes: I am a somewhat wealthy white male. I notice being this each day. Every day. I’ve been not wealthy always and could notice being what I am is easier than not.
the Conster
@Patrick:
Walking with boobs- something guys never have to deal with…
Betty Cracker
@skerry: Amen and amen. Still, maybe we should work on coming up with an alternate name for “privilege,” since people tend to bristle when it is suggested that they possess it. Maybe “default human” or something? I dunno. But the terminology seems to flummox many people who might otherwise agree with the premise.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
It is not a white male privilege, which is what the original poster called it. And even the word privilege here is not accurate or complete, I don’t think.
Privilege usually implies a special right or advantage, a benefit out of the reach of most, a power that can be wielded to benefit one person that another person does not have. And I can accept that a lot of women want to look at this in this way, and insist on looking at it in this way.
That said, I want to be clear here that this does not diminish the crap that women have to go through as they just go about their everyday lives.
the Conster
@Brachiator:
You’re being exceptionally obtuse.
EthylEster
@Tommy: have you forgotten her take on the Roman Polanski sexual abuse case? she defended HIM as well. Hollywood tribalism.
I see now that gvg got there before me.
mai naem mobile
I can understand denialists when there’s just one or two people because there are people who will try and money out of a wealthy person. But,hell not with Cosby now. I don’t even understand why he did this. I have to think he had a bunch of women throwing themselves at him either because of his fame,money or to get ahead in show biz.
As far as Hollywood and Polanski, don’t forget Woody Allen. Every time I see something fawning on Woody Allen, my reaction is just an ‘ewwwww.’ I don’t care if she was his adopted kid or stepkid or whatever, it’s just disgusting.
Tommy
@mai naem mobile:
Yes. Agreed 110%. Clearly we are passed that now by a long shot.
Because rape isn’t about sex it is about control of another.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Your story about your ability to walk down the street unharassed meets every one of your own criteria. The fact that you did not ask for or demand that privilege doesn’t magically make it not a privilege. Privileges you receive as an accident of birth are still privileges.
Brachiator
@skerry:
Where do you get that I don’t understand that I don’t understand that you and your daughters aren’t necessarily able to move through the world unimpeded?
I do not see that you could have got that at all from what I wrote.
And I clearly objected to the original writer’s assertion that this was not just a privilege, but only or primarily “a white male privilege,” which of course might be something that the original poster actually meant, a hierarchy in which white males only exist as real, average, ordinary people.
And certainly, there is sometimes just plain old white privilege, which leaves a whole lot of other people out.
MCA1
@goblue72: I have not run into any such overly credulous people on this. Admittedly, I was unaware of Whoopi Goldberg or other famous people not wanting to see the obvious, so I guess I’ll take back my questioning of the question. But in my circle of the real world, while it’s certainly true that people don’t want to let go of ingrained impressions, I’ve heard no one defending him or giving him way more benefit of the doubt than normal/justified.
Tommy
@MCA1: A lot of the people I know are Republicans. I can’t find a single one of them defending him. It has been pointed out a few celebs are, but I know of no one else.
Cervantes
@Tommy:
That fourth sentence of yours is what we used to call a doozy — but if I’m reading it right, I’m with you.
The rest was pretty transparent and I’m with you there as well.
Brachiator
@the Conster:
But the thing is, I’m not a white male.
And everything I wrote exactly describes an average day.
Perhaps it does say something about white male privilege that you naturally assume that a nonwhite guy can never belong to the regular guy club in any way, shape or form.
@Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Does it? Conster wants to insist that only white males have full “privilege.”
It’s the zero sum implications here that I think are insufficient, and this insistence that if you don’t agree, you must not understand. In most places in Southern California, I am or can be anonymous. And yet, what does it say that some want to insist that there must always be a racial hierarchy here as well as one based on gender?
Tenar Darell
@Brachiator: So, this term went from the academy to the general public because it is really a currently accepted way many have found to explain something fundamental about another thing, intersectionality.
We can call the barriers women, blacks, or black women all have to surmount “invisible backpacks” or we can call the default standard of humanness in the U.S., the WASP guy, priviledged. But it is clear that people go through the world with different treatment because of who they seem by gender, sexuality and race, not who they are. If it’s so upsetting that class, and poverty are not included in this metric of privilege, then add it to the matrix in the literature. But as you admit yourself, you walk through the world at the top or near it of a pyramid of being that I think all of us here agree is not what we would want to leave as is. And if we can’t name a thing, we cannot explain any thing. So far, privilege is one of the terms we’ve got.
Brachiator
@Cervantes:
Please point it out to me. If you can.
wasabi gasp
@Brachiator: Slapping you with Privilege is their privilege. Kumbaya.
Tom F
@Brachiator:
No. You, a white male, can go about your day as you described.
A white woman can’t.
A white girl can’t.
No male or female of another race can.
White. Male. Privilege.
What the hell distinction are you trying to draw?
Brachiator
@mai naem mobile:
With Polanski, and perhaps with Allen, as well, there is also a desire to excuse someone because he or she is an artist.
But one of the saddest, and despicable, things about Cosby (and yes, legally these are still accusations) is how often he appeared to pretend to want to help the women he sought out in their careers, and how he seemed to need to manipulate and humiliate them.
That this stuff also appears to go back early in his career is also disturbing.
Brachiator
@Tom F:
Since I am not a white male, I leave it to you to ponder what distinctions I may be trying to draw here.
One of which may be to challenge your assumption that someone who is not a white male could not possibly partake of what you perceive to be a privilege that only a white male could ever enjoy to the fullest.
Also, it is clear to me, but not to everyone else, that it is unnecessary to worry about degrees of male privilege in order to acknowledge the crap that women have to deal with. But apparently, this cannot be done by some people without trying to force it into a gendered hierarchy which is determined by the primacy of white males.
@wasabi gasp
Reminds me of a scene from the recent movie, “Dope.” Makes a lot of sense, even though it makes no sense.
@Tenar Darell
Probably one of the reasons that I fled the academy at the earliest possible opportunity.
JCT
Meanwhile NYT has a blurb up about how “repercussions echoed a day after court records revealed that Cosby admitted in 2005 to giving sedatives to women amid sexual encounters”
They Grey Old Lady is going to put her back out playing Twister to avoid calling Cosby a rapist.
Ridiculous.
Tenar Darell
@Brachiator: Yeah. It can be annoying. But even businesses create inside jargon that eventually crosses into public usage. Though I’m still winded enough from my workout that I forget which ones bug me the most right now.
Emma
@Brachiator: If you are not a white male, and have managed to sail through life without encountering any of the situations mentioned to you, you are indeed immensely privileged, through luck or God or whatever. Congratulations.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Brachiator:
So as a non-white man, you are totally anonymous walking down a street in Beverly Hills or Brentwood or Malibu? No one has ever hassled you or called the cops on you while you were minding your own business in one of those areas?
Sorry, I call bullshit. Either you’re the luckiest non-white guy in Los Angeles or you’ve never tried your luck.
chris9059
@gvg:
Whoopi in both cases is defending her class. Like the vast majority of very wealthy people she believes there should be one law for the rich and another for the rest of us.
chris9059
@kc:
Because in America there is one law for the rich and powerful and another law for the rest of us.
chris9059
@Patrick:
It’s not suprising Scarborough would defend Cosby. After all his regular panelists are; Steve Ratner who paid $16 million in fines to the SEC for a kickback scheme and whose own firm described his behaviour as “unethical”, and Mike Barnicle who had to resign from the Boston Globe following charges of fabrication and plagiarism.
For Scarborough once you are in the “club” you can do no wrong.
chris9059
@Brachiator:
Ypu clearly don’t understand the meaning of the word “priviledge”.
chris9059
@EthylEster:
Rich people tribalism too.
Peter
@Betty Cracker:
There’s maybe some tinkering around the edges that could be done, but I’ve come to the conclusion that the issue isn’t the words but rather the ideas. Accepting the reality of what the terminology represents requires unsettling some comforting assumptions about one’s own life, so a lot of people retreat into obtuseness.
Plantsmantx
@kc:
The Poundcake Speech.
Paul in KY
@ms_canadada: I would like to get down there in next 3 years or so.
Paul in KY
@Brachiator: Good post. Men certainly have it easier when just walking around in public.