15A003 Cosby by Jim Davies, 1/9/2014    

I first encountered Bill Cosby high over the North Atlantic.

It was in the early 80s, when I was helping boost the revenues of Sabena and other airlines quite a lot, and the in-flight entertainment had a comedy channel and I chanced upon a recording of some of his standup work. I thought it hilarious and probably gave my fellow passengers cause for concern, but I was a fan from then on.

True, I didn't watch The Cosby Show religiously, but if it was on when the TV was I'd pick it over many a rival and those episodes were delightful. With real genius, Bill Cosby portrayed wholesome family life with plenty of humor, completely color blind. One could shut one's eyes and enjoy it without knowing what kind of skin was being worn. More than any other performer or preacher I'm aware of, Cosby demonstrated that blacks are just like anyone else, not a race apart.

He stands in contrast, therefore, even to M L King, the burden of whose messages was that blacks are a despised and ill treated sub-class in America, whom God will one day restore to its proper place. Cosby just went ahead and proved they are just normal folk, with nary a chip visible on his shoulder.

Unless this approach deprives some black preachers and activists of the opportunity to stir up resentment, I can't see why anyone should regret or oppose it. But in the words of his co-star Phylicia Rashad, who played the wife of "Dr Huxtable", “What you’re seeing is the destruction of a legacy. And I think it’s orchestrated. I don’t know why or who’s doing it, but it’s the legacy. And it’s a legacy that is so important to the culture.”

She was referring to twenty recent accusations from various females that many years ago, Bill raped them. They made no complaints at the time, or within the period of the statute of limitations, but their claims have so damaged Cosby that nearly all his current contracts have been canceled. They don't have to prove anything under oath, they just open their mouths and a career and an honorable legacy is trashed. Since no proof is provided, I shall presume he is innocent; that what really happened is that these women were only too glad to leap into bed with such a star and only later suffered lovers' remorse. And then, if Rashad is correct, were "orchestrated" to come forward.

My primary on-line news source is The Guardian, partly because it has an international flavor and mostly because it offers a very well designed reader comment section, to which I often contribute. But its coverage of the Cosby story reveals a major flaw. The journal was heroic in 2013 in breaking the Snowden story through its reporter Glenn Greenwald, but has an obvious Leftward lean and favors both feminism and the global warming faith, as well as being PC about race. Here, two of those came into conflict; the editors could not simultaneously root for blacks and females. The females won. Even the report of Phylicia Rashad's remarks were published with obvious reluctance, as can be seen here, and this photo it frequently published of the comedian was as unflattering as can be.

Why the orthodox Left should be so vindictive about the man who has done more to foster good race relations than anyone in the last half-century remains a mystery, but so it is. Maybe strident feminism has grabbed the levers of publishing power, and is promoting its agenda regardless of any other issue. Or that is how it appears.

While government continues to exist, pressure groups organize and bid for its favors - for laws to benefit members. These two have been the big ones of the last half century - to correct alleged anti-black bigotry, and alleged repression of women. To take the latter first: there isn't any. Until a century ago women could not vote, but that was to their advantage; voting is thoroughly immoral so that meant they could not be tempted. Pay rates have never been out of whack, for if it was cheaper to hire females than males, employers would have rushed to take advantage. They didn't, because all considered, they got pretty well what they paid for. So all the pro-female bias in legislation has served to distort the labor market by giving ladies an artificial advantage; so everyone loses. All lose on campus also, where FemiNazis have established a PC tyranny over what used to be normal, fun behavior between the sexes.

The first of them - race - followed a similar pattern, though the problem here was real and not fabricated. Black slavery was an outrage, but instead of simply withdrawing its explicit support for slavery, government forced it to end by edict, and later forced unwanted "integration." The natural reaction of low-skilled whites was to resent the sudden black competition for jobs, so local laws were erected to put obstacles in their way. Those needed repeal - but that job was complete, fifty years ago. Ever since, there has been overkill; the government's racial bias has not so much been canceled, as reversed.

When it has evaporated for want of employees, all such nonsense will disappear.