The Cosby Silence

Excellent questions from one of his many accusers:

While I am grateful for the new attention to Cosby’s crimes, I must ask my own questions: Why wasn’t I believed? Why didn’t I get the same reaction of shock and revulsion when I originally reported it? Why was I, a victim of sexual assault, further wronged by victim blaming when I came forward? The women victimized by Bill Cosby have been talking about his crimes for more than a decade. Why didn’t our stories go viral?

Unfortunately, our experience isn’t unique. The entertainment world is rife with famous men who use their power to victimize and then silence young women who look up to them. Even when their victims speak out, the industry and the public turn blind eyes; these men’s celebrity, careers, and public adulation continue to thrive. Even now, Cosby has a new comedy special coming out on Netflix and NBC is set to give him a new sitcom.

There is a new 544 page biography of Cosby out that apparently ignores the extensive allegations of sexual assault entirely. The first, laudatory New York Times review of the book did not consider this worthy of mention at all; Dwight Garner’s more reserved review confines his objections on this score to a sentence. The cycle of silence or near-silence goes on and on.

This also can help us to understand why Jian Gomeshi thought he could just bluff and bully his way through the allegations against him. The horrible truth is that what’s surprising is not that he got away with it for so long, but that he suffered any professional consequences at all.