America needs good men willing to stand up, speak out

If it is true that mathematics is a universal language that can be used to explain everything, then the Bill Cosby case is a terrible indictment of our culture, because it only required one male comedian’s tasteless joke to get people to pay attention — not the word of 59 women who had been complaining about Cosby for 40 years.

The prosecution of “America’s Dad” began in earnest only after comedian Hannibal Buress made a tasteless wisecrack about Cosby being a serial rapist, and it went viral.

Buress made the joke in response to Cosby’s berating black entertainers who use blue language.

It was seismic because it was the taking down of an icon.

Cosby was among the few black persons in America who had found a way to transcend the invisible fence of race.

He was the one pointed to when we thought of black achievement.

His embrace of education as a passport to equality and success, and his willingness to use his wealth to support it, made him a hero.

Seminal moment

“The Cosby Show” was a seminal moment in our culture because it not only embraced the gospel of hard work, family and education, but it also introduced America to a subset of black life most people didn’t think existed.

It brilliantly highlighted black history, arts and music in a way that had never been done.

Because he was the embodiment of black empowerment and uplift, when Cosby lectured and harangued black athletes for not doing well in school, or when he lambasted negligent black parents, all you had to do is walk into a black barbershop or church to find more than a few folks nodding in agreement.

So for this reason and more, the accusations fell on fallow ground.

They also brought with them the ancient ghosts of black men falsely being accused of sexual assault, and the deep fear that no matter how successful you might be, your blackness could still be used against you at any moment.

It was the perfect camouflage for a monster.

A broken brain

No one wanted to believe the same Bill Cosby who made us laugh and made us proud, the same man who raised four daughters, could be capable of such heinous behavior as drugging and raping even one woman, let alone dozens, as is alleged.

This is where men come in. Apparently, there were stories about Cosby’s perverse and broken-brain behavior floating about Hollywood for decades, but when victims spoke out, they were ignored or attacked into silence.

Were it not for Buress — a man — calling Cosby on his hypocrisy, his conviction probably never would have happened.

Closer to home, Brock Turner, a former Stanford University swimmer from Oakwood, Ohio, was convicted in 2016 of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman in 2015.

During Turner’s trial, some news reports took pains to describe Oakwood as an upper middle-class enclave, almost as though such a community couldn’t possibly produce such a person.

The only reason Turner was convicted of anything was because he was caught in the act and stopped by two other men.

The first conviction

Cosby is the first conviction of the “Me Too” era, which has laid bare a subculture of harassment, sexism and misogyny so widespread and deep, women finally are being heard and believed.

Though it was courageous women who made “Me Too” happen, it still takes good men willing to speak out against the kind of violence that occurred recently in Toronto, when a follower of the radical, woman-hating “incel” (involuntary celibacy) movement, killed nine pedestrians, most of them women.

We need good men to fight on behalf of women and girls who are being trafficked here in Ohio and around the world; who are being oppressed through religion; who have been rendered powerless through poverty; who are being abused and victimized on the premise that no one will believe them.

No matter how accomplished women become, we will always need good men.