Bill Cosby Hates You 

We can conclude, with much evidence and without much doubt, that Bill Cosby hates women.

When a person has been deemed by a judge a “sexually violent predator” and said person’s prey happens to be women—dozens of women—using hate to describe the predator’s feelings towards them is such a common sense encapsulation that it might even be generous. Less kind encapsulations would perhaps use “loathes” or “abhors” or “detests”—each of which sound more venomous than “hate” (and each of which would be true). But I’m being careful not to be too hyperbolic here, so we’ll stay with hate.

Again, this is not a thing that is up for debate anymore. It’s been proven—by his victims, by lawyers, by judges, by people who’ve known his victims, by people who’ve known him.

While this information might be (relatively) new to many people—not all people, of course, because Cosby’s predatory behavior had been an open industry secret for years—what isn’t new is the fact that his animus isn’t solely channeled towards women. If you’re black and you’re male and you’re reading this, Bill Cosby hates you too. And he’s told us this.

It’s natural to revisit his infamous “Pound Cake” speech and search for clues of his habit of raping women. Does he tell on himself? He does. But not so much that he’s a rapist, but that he’s an unfathomably wealthy and popular man filled with animus for black people, for black women, for poor black people, for black boys, for black teens, for black men, for black mothers who happen to be unmarried, for the children of black mothers who happen to be unmarried, for black people with “black-sounding” or “Muslim-sounding” names, for black men and boys without belts, for black men and boys who wear baseball caps backwards, for black men and boys killed by the police, for black women and girls who are sexually active, for black Christians, for black people who use AAVE, for black people arrested by the police, and for the parents of black people arrested by the police.

It is a dangerous combination, that level of power and privilege and the access it allows accompanied with that sort of venom and rage and entitlement. And we have seen, it has been proven, what he is capable of. He was—he is—a menace to society, and he is exactly where he is supposed to be.

Anyway, if you are spending any time this week defending this man—perhaps you believe its unfair that he’s going to prison while white men accused of sexual assault remain free, or perhaps you believe he’s too old and senile to be punished, or perhaps you believe that this is a vast conspiracy—just remember that, if you are black, Bill Cosby (probably) hates you. I’m only including the “probably” qualifier here because, if you are a college educated male who has never been arrested and has no children out of wedlock and never deviates from The Queen’s English, then maybe he doesn’t hate you.

But if that doesn’t describe you, he has told you that he hates you. He has shown you that he hates you. If you happened to catch on fire while holding court on your Bill Cosby-defending hill and he happened to walk past, he wouldn’t bother to pause and piss on you.

He is not worthy of your sweat and your stretches; your patience or your pity; your tears and even your most terrible takes. Just the thing—the only thing—he has for you: contempt.