Bill Cosby's Release: "It Will Affect Every Woman"

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Bill Cosby is free: his case must not be reopened.

Photo: Matt Rourke / AP

On Twitter, the reversal of the verdict against Bill Cosby was received with dismay by many of his Hollywood colleagues: "This is the reason why people do not dare to go public," wrote the actress Padma Lakshmi after the release of Bill Cosby. "As long as rich and powerful men can rape and sexually bully people with impunity." The actress Debra Messing posted that she was "full of anger," her colleague Amber Tamblyn confessed that she personally knew women who were drugged and raped by Cosby. "Shame on the court and its decision!"

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned the rape sentence on Wednesday against the 83-year-old actor, convicted in one of the first prominent #MeToo trials and incarcerated in the state since 2018.

Cosby was allowed to return home.

But there were also supporters, including Phylicia Rashad, who was once seen on the "Cosby Show" as Cosby's wife Clair Huxtable.

"Finally !!!!", she cheered on Twitter, "a terrible injustice has been corrected - a misjudgment has been corrected!"

The show about the Huxtable family, when their patriarch Bill Cosby became "America's Dad", portrayed the ideal image of an educated and wealthy black family that should not only raise the living standards of black Americans, but also the remorse of white America in the face of systemic racism covered with a lovable feel-good story.

"Devastated"

As expected, Rashad's lines sparked angry replies;

on a case-by-case basis, they are also a disaster.

But they also show how deeply divided the country is.

One has to read Rashad's remarks (as well as the sarcastic comments of other users on "white tears") in the context of the fact that in the Afro-American community the debate about the condemnation of violent or abusive black men is also conducted against the background of a brutalizing white judicial culture.

The fear of alleged black sexual buccaneers still serves as a racist cliché.

Cosby's conviction had pissed off many because it seemed to them characteristic of the American judiciary that the first prominent man to be put behind bars for sexual assault was a black.

Many African Americans commented on Twitter that the current revision of the verdict is by no means a declaration of innocence for Cosby, even if it serves justice. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that Cosby should not have been tried again in 2018 after a so-called "non" in 2005 during an investigation into allegations of sexual assault on a woman named Andrea Constand, then prosecutor (and later Trump attorney) Bruce Castor -prosecution agreement "- an assurance that there would be no future investigations into this matter against Cosby. Constand's criminal complaint against Cosby was dismissed in 2004 due to “lack of evidence”;

It wasn't until the African-American comedian Hannibal Buress described Cosby as a rapist on a 2014 show that the matter flared up again, and when the #MeToo movement made the sometimes systematic sexual assaults of powerful men, especially in Hollywood, public in 2017, they came too Allegations against Cosby are again targeted by the public - and the judiciary. In 2018, he was sentenced to three to ten years in prison and a $ 25,000 fine for sexually assaulting Andrea Constand.

Constand, who said she was drugged by Cosby and then raped by Cosby, said of his release that she was “not only disappointed, but worried that this would help those seeking legal justice for sexual assault Courage for a complaint or a court testimony. "

Other victims who testified against Cosby were "devastated," as one of his accusers, Victoria Valentino, put it in an interview with TV broadcaster ABC.

Another of Cosby's accusers, Patricia Steuer, raised concerns about the consequences the verdict could have for the #MeToo movement: "This will have an impact on every woman who has ever spoken publicly about what a man has done to her."

Cosby himself, who in 2005 confessed under oath to have given methaqualone sedative to women he wanted to have sex with, posted a photo of himself with his head bowed and fist up - a protest gesture by black activists. The following text was added: “I have never changed my attitude or my story. I've always insisted on my innocence. Thanks to all my fans, supporters and friends who stood by my side during this ordeal. "