Excellent analysis by Darnell Moore of power relations and their interwovenness with patriarchy and patriarchal power evidenced in the Bill Cosby affair.
-Angela
After trailblazing black model and actress Beverly Johnson publicly alleged in an emotional and stirring Vanity
Fair essay that she, too, had been sexually assaulted by Bill Cosby, she was ridiculed and discredited by many.
The backlash wasn't surprising. Devoted fans and celebrity friends of
Cosby have long stood
by the beloved symbol of (caricatured) black heterosexual manhood, even as the list of women accusing him of sexual assault has grown to include more than 40 names.
After Johnson's story ran, for example, black male commentator Cleo Manago postulated that
Cosby might actually be the victim of an ostensible white-woman coup to
take a good black man down, or of the "guilty until proven guilty"
rhetoric historically aimed at black men. Boyce Watkins, a black scholar
and social commentator, expressed similar views,
noting that while his thoughts about Cosby were "deliberately mixed,"
the growing number of allegations were akin to a "modern day lynching"
and "too consistent and orchestrated ... to believe that it's all
happening by chance." Attorney Monique Pressley similarly questioned the
"sheer volume of accusers" and stated "you'll have some people who will
come forward and join the band wagon" during a News One Now Straight Talk episode with Roland Martin.
The support of Cosby by black men and women who
might otherwise consider themselves
freedom fighters in the struggle for black liberation has been
perplexing at best and hypocritical at worst, especially when
considering that some of Cosby's alleged victims were black, too. It
reveals the dangerous limitations of a black politic of liberation that
is concerned with white racial supremacy but not cued into the
violent reality of intra-community misogyny and sexual assault. This
lack of dual focus has harmed black women throughout history.
To be fair, U.S. history provides much proof of
the extent to which white people, and the state, have gone to protect
white women from the archetypal dangerous black male. But Cosby's
case
should not be upheld as a contemporary example of white supremacy's
attempt to take down a black man, especially not now that Cosby has admitted
in court documents dating back to 2005 that he obtained prescription
Quaaludes for women he wanted to coerce into having sex with him. Cosby is no Emmett Till.
Beverly Johnson, Lachelle Covington, Michelle
Hurd, Angela Leslie and Jewel Allison are just some of the several dozen women
Cosby allegedly abused. And they, just like those Cosby supporters who
have claimed
the sexual assault allegations are a consequence of white media's
fascination with the demise
of the black man, are black. In the case of those black people who
publicly fight in support of Cosby, loyalty to race thus seems to also
be an implicit allegiance
to the cult of black patriarchy — black women's lives, well-being
and safety be damned.
Cosby is no Emmett Till.
As Mic's Jamilah King wrote in
reference to the allegations, "Sometimes it's hard to see
patriarchy. And sometimes it isn't." Patriarchy is evident when the
needs of alleged
male perpetrators, like Cosby, rather than alleged victims remain
centralized in conversations about sexual assault. Patriarchy is evident
when female victims are cast as antagonistic troublemakers in the
public eye, and
the men accused are cast as prey. Patriarchy is evident when men —
black, white or brown — push back against women's claims of rape even as
their evidence continues to mount, even as the fact remains that an estimated 1 in 5 black women experience rape in their lifetime.
"Rape is more protected in this
country than black women," Jamilah Lemieux writes at Ebony in response to the Cosby allegations. The
disavowal of black women's experiences is a problem whose roots can be
traced back to the sexual assault of black women in slave master's
bedrooms, and continues with the dismissal of black women's pain in
contemporary courts of public opinion and law.
Manago, Watkins, Pressley and others saw Cosby as a
victim, but viewed the women who publicly shared painful stories of
sexual violence as guilty of trying to take down a black man — one who,
ironically, is notorious for disparaging black people.
A black freedom fighter who claims to care for all
black lives but supports alleged rapists who harm black women is not
truly fighting for freedom. Black women deserve a black liberation ethos
that also destroys male dominance, sexual violence, rape culture,
sexism and patriarchy, especially when these show up within black
communities.
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Equating a wealthy, powerful black man with hapless young kids like Emmett Till or the Central Park defendants who didn't have his resources like a PR team, is insulting to Till's memory as well as to the plight of the other young men. It sickens me to read or hear the gymnastics Cosby's defenders engage in just to preserve his "legacy," which they value even more than they do the well-being of black women. What the black men defending him want is a black patriarchy that mirrors the white patriarchy in every way but race. That means that the well-being and issues of black women come a distant second if at all. It really is disheartening. This article is spot on and breaks it down completely about the importance of combating racism, sexism, and misogyny simultaneously.
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