Through a television screen, Bill Cosby was the father to many, portraying the father that many lacked. To others, Bill Cosby is a legend. But who is Bill Cosby to me, the man who was released from prison June 30, after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his sexual assault conviction? Who is Bill Cosby to the 60 women who accused him of sexual assault and rape? Bill Cosby, now largely forgotten, however, is still praised by the ignorant. 

This is a typical scenario where a celebrity is not considered human, but a god. One sentence will sum up how I feel about this situation: ignorance is the catalyst for stupidity.

Before examining the wrongdoings of Cosby, let me first start by affirming his craft of portraying the perfect dad in the 1980s on “The Cosby Show.” The same era where many Black families were either separated by jail cells or the hypocrisy of drugs.

I Will Not Affirm

What I will not affirm is the positioning of a false narrative. What I will not affirm is holding innocent bodies captive for one’s own personal desires. What I will not affirm is a guilty man walking with sins on his shoulders, both mentally and physically, being classified as innocent. What I will not affirm is the ludicrous celebrity worship when his jail cell opens and he walks as a free man. 

Bill Cosby represents the many men who hold women as an object, and not a human. According to National Sexual Assault Resource Center, one in five women in the United States experienced completed or attempted rape in their lifetime. This source continues to assert that, one in three female victims of completed or attempted rape experienced it for the first time between the ages of 11 and 17. 

This article is not negating the men who have experienced unjust circumstances through sexual assault. However, I’m speaking directly to those who feel boxed in by a society that will never give them peace due to their own body.   

Here is the truth —Why does a woman have to be first sexualized before being internalized by a man? Why does a young girl have to cover up every time her creepy uncle comes over? Why can’t a woman feel beautiful whether in nude or fully clothed? Why does a woman have to get reassurance from an inane man?  It is not the woman, it is always the man. 

Why Do We Sexualize Women?

If I could, I would list all the celebrities who are still praised for their talents even when they’re accused of sexual assault, rape, and unjust means of holding both men and women captive for their own pleasure. R. Kelly’s music is still danced to at weddings or sung in the cars of many, even as he awaits trial on child pornography and obstruction charges.

An article by the Scientific American titled, How Our Brains Turn Women Into Objects, states, “A recent study found that showing men pictures of sexualized women evokes less activity in areas of the brain responsible for mental state attribution — that is, the area of the brain that becomes active when we think we are looking at an entity capable of thought and planned action.”

Other studies have found similar results. When men see body shots of women as compared with face shots, they judge women to be “less intelligent, likeable, ambitious and competent.” The article continues to assert, “—objectification might not lead to perceptions of women as inanimate objects but as different kinds of humans—ones that are capable of feeling but not thinking.”  

Many do not understand how it feels to be an innocent soul, taken over by a being who feels as if it is his duty to take over your body as if it belongs to him. Bill Cosby’s sentence being overturned, sparked a few flames to those whose souls are now sinful to a sin that don’t even belong to them. Therefore, I will not praise the 83 year old’s escape from a cell he rightfully belongs in.

A Man’s World

James Brown was right when he sang, “This is a man’s world, this is a man’s world. But it wouldn’t be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl.” I refuse to hold the innocent women responsible when a man forces himself on their bodies. The inhumane pleasure that a man gets from violating a woman, is the worst sin of them all.