Bill Cosby: Role Model or Rapist?

How could Bill Cosby, the beloved US-entertainer, keep the sexual assaults of at least 27 women under wraps for three decades (if he is ever convicted though he has never been indicted and has declined to discuss the allegations)? He and his bigger-than-life persona, in cahoots with a horde of ferocious lawyers and media handlers, successfully controlled what could be said in public and what the media reported. But viral social media finally brought the full story to light: the other Cosby, the "liar" and "rapist." Should the story be laid to rest, should we leave a patriarchal octogenarian alone and move on, or should Bill Cosby meet justice?

Bill Cosby seems to be a man with two faces: He is the popular black entertainer, a trailblazer for equal opportunity, a generous and paternal family man with family values, a man who challenged his urban black compatriots to rise above self-defeating victimhood and take charge of their fate.

And then he is (if we are to believe 23 women, so far, who have come forward, 15 of them publicly, to accuse Cosby of drugging them into submission and raping or molesting them. 

One of them, Victoria Valentino, a former Playboy Playmate, was the latest one in late November. She came out after reading Barbara Bowman's story in the Washington Post titled "Bill Cosby raped me. Why did it take 30 years for people to believe my story?" 

In this video Bowman tells her story to CNN. 



If the allegations are true, and they likely are (despite Whoopy Goldberg trying to defend Crosby and discredit the victims), how could Cosby get away with it for three decades? 

Bowman insists that she spoke up again and again, but was not heard or believed, and her story was not picked up by the media. 

Other victims kept silent. Valentino was one of them. This is understandable. "The last thing you want," she finally said in a November interview with NBC, "is to have your name be associated for the rest of your life with such a person who humiliated and degraded you. It is mortifying."

How could Mark Whitaker omit these rapes in his nearly 500-page biography, "Cosby: His Life and Times"?

How could the media collaborate in the cover-up, when Philadelphia magazine had broken the news in 2006, followed by a story in People magazine? 

I guess one reason was that Cosby could be intimidating. The New York Times columnist David Carr recounted that when he interviewed Cosby, the "interview was deeply unpleasant," with Cosby answering "almost every question in 15-minute soliloquies, many of which were not particularly useful.

"After an hour of this, I mentioned that the interview was turning out to be all A and no Q. He paused, finally. 'Young man, are you interested in hearing what I have to say or not?' he said. 'If not, we can end this interview right now.'"

It sounds like a man who does not like being questioned or challenged, especially not by mere mortals. Like a man who is always right. Like a man used to having his way with people. And with women. 

What do you say? Should Bill Cosby be left alone since the Statute of Limitations has run out on his alleged crimes? Or should he be taken to task and come clean? I look forward to reading you on my blog:http://thomaszweifel.blogspot.com/.

Dr. Thomas D. Zweifel is a strategy & performance expert and coach for leaders of Global 1000 companies. His book Communicate or Die: Getting Results Through Speaking and Listening offers how to use a free resource (your mouth and ears) to boost your productivity.