With the news of Bill Cosby’s release, I experienced a familiar anger—an anger that blinded people to reason, facts, and the law. Anger is primitive and just at the same time; as a survivor of sexual assault, his experience almost completely reflects the situation experienced by Bill Cosby’s victims, and anger stems from sympathy for his victims and victims everywhere.
I can’t imagine what they are going through now. I found myself bursting into tears unknowingly all day. When he got home, the peace sign he flashed in the circling helicopter felt like a slap in the face. He might also give us all the fingers.
Anger comes from a sense of morality that a serious injustice has occurred. This is a tried and tested rapist, technically impunity, full of loopholes. This is not to say that he was acquitted. British jurist William Blackstone famously said: “It is better for ten guilty people to escape than one innocent person to suffer.” However, not because he is innocent, but because his prosecution violates the Bill of Rights. And the guilty person who deserves to be free?
This is my conflict: Although it is difficult to understand the idea that Bill Cosby’s release represents “justice” in some sense, Technically, this is.
I’m not here to file a lawsuit over the legal details that allowed the famous rapist Bill Cosby to go unpunished. I will leave this to legal analysts, experts, and reporters to explain and debate whether Cosby’s release is an example of corruption, prosecution of misconduct, or due process. But his release is crucial to the larger dialogue that we have as a culture since the beginning of the #MeToo movement.
Getty/Gilbert Karaskilo
Soon after Cosby’s release, a group of women (and men) said in unison: “This is why women don’t come forward.” I can’t say I disagree.
In 2014, I Wrote a paragraph Regarding my own sexual assault, I expressed my fear that the man would walk freely, which is why I did not report him. He is a powerful banker. I am an 18 year old waitress. I know who the system tends to support—and not me. I had to endure too many thoughts about the endless questions that night and the attacks on my character and credibility.I doubt if I have enough strength to fight; but I know I am not strong enough to fight And lose.
Therefore, like millions of other people, I bury the shame and pain deeply, and it was not until about a year later that I received rehabilitation treatment for heroin addiction.
The suppressed trauma and pain are like a leaking radioactive waste field. Eventually, it poisoned the water and people started to get sick. #MeToo movement is a symptom of this disease.
In the early days of that label, reading stories of rape, assault, and harassment that have never been discussed before, I realized how pathological our culture really is, and how important the moment is. Cosby has become one of the many faces of the movement, and his trial and the 2018 verdict feel that we may be making progress.
In some ways, Cosby’s imprisonment is also a kind of justice for me; maybe my rapist is still at large, but times are changing, and maybe it is safe to let this wound heal completely.
Oh, I was wrong. As the movement accelerated and began to deform, I soon realized that a dangerous force had been released: baseless accusations of someone for sexual assault could easily become a social and political weapon. And weaponize it.
The use of courts of public opinion to subvert due process has become an endless news cycle, triggering sexual assault survivors time and time again. Of course, some of them should step down, but the ongoing maintenance of law and order will be a little disturbing.
There is a list of “bad guys in the media” and the notorious Babynet Aziz Ansari and many others who will lose their careers and reputations are forever tarnished by algorithms that will never forget and mobs of insatiable popular works.
When President Trump was nominated, over-expansion accelerated and reached its peak Brett Cavano To Supreme Court. The women dressed as maids blatantly cried and shouted: “Trust all women!”
really? Are all women?
People rightly want to know if #MeToo has gone too far. Others think this is not enough, taking James Franco and Louis CK and others as examples to illustrate how powerful people can be accused of misbehavior and continue to work in Hollywood (because obviously it is not enough for them to repent and lose their jobs; this This ruthless worldview requires them to stop working).
Lost between the predictable fronts drawn is the idea that allowing victims to benefit from suspicion is completely compatible with Respect due process. The accusers should not be subjected to the degrading and demoralizing process they often go through, which means they are making demands-asking them what they are wearing or how much alcohol they drank. Whether we like it or not, the defendant should be innocent until proven guilty.
This is how the system should work: the accuser and the due process of the accused should be respected. And built into an effective system is the fact that the guilty can walk freely in the technical aspects of the case long ago, which is pre-determined by the behavior of imperfect people.
Nevertheless, in some respects, the release of Bill Cosby is the worst. I am worried that this will harm survivors of due process and sexual assault. It will be used to undermine due process (I have seen people blame his release on the constitution) and it sends a message to victims of sexual assault, don’t bother to come forward, because it doesn’t matter anyway.
On behalf of his victims, on behalf of victims all over the world, how easy it is to express my anger and scream in my anger is fundamentally unfair.
It is also easy to rely on reason, using facts, logic and loopholes to rationalize my anger.
But the fact is that I am ambivalent about Bill Cosby’s release, and quelling this contradiction will raise disturbing questions: how often this prosecutor’s misconduct occurs, we have not heard of it, because it is not Bill Coss. ratio? How would you explain to a victim of Cosby that this person should be free? What is justice?
When I heard the news on Wednesday, I felt an overwhelming nihilism, like old scars being torn apart, this system was manipulated for the benefit of the rich and the powerful. All this is meaningless. of. Although Cosby’s decision felt like he had won, it felt like he had lost.
But based on my understanding of the reason for his release, Bill Cosby should be a free man. That killed me. To some extent, the overuse of the #MeToo movement makes this situation in Cosby inevitable.
It’s easy to fall into despair and despair and ask “What is all this for?” But the brave women who came forward did not waste their efforts. Their courage is important to women like me and the many women and men who will follow us. No matter what happened to Cosby, we knew the truth because of them.
Usually as survivors, we are told that we should feel a certain way. But I am very contradictory. I am also angry that a rapist is getting away with it, seeing that due process has not completely died out (at least, if you are very wealthy). I deal with chaos by writing. I just hope that people struggle with their complex feelings about justice and Cosby, and have healthy coping styles.
Bridget Phetasy is a writer, comedian, and host of the Walk-Ins Welcome podcast and The Weekly Dumpster Fire show on YouTube.
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