Cos for Alarm Los Angeles (AP)
Bill Cosby, who likes to be known for his tennis as much as his comedy, was showing off his tennis form yesterday at the Los Angeles Tennis Club, but his best shots were still in the humor department.
He was asked a variety of questions on several aspects of tennis-among them the attempt of transsexual Renee Richards, the former Dr. Richard Raskind, to play in the U.S. Open.
“I don’t want to touch that particular subject,” observed Cos, adding, “And I don’t want that particular subject touching me.” August 1976.
The above quote by accused serial rapist Bill Cosby, from 40 years ago, on the difficulties of athlete and ophthalmologist Dr. Renee Richards M.D. to compete professionally in tennis is shocking in several regards. It shocks as the Associated Press reporter termed this dastardly slur as “humor.”
It shocks also as the AP prominently placed Cos’ quote in the middle of a 450-word article that otherwise made a compassionate case for the pioneering effort by Dr. Richards to bring attention to the early important social movement of transgender rights.
Finally, in the immediate aftermath of Stonewall when articles on gay rights were beginning to reflect the movement as a serious civil and employment rights movement worthy of professional and unbiased news reporting, this 1976 article clearly shows transgender people were still comedy figures deemed unworthy of respect and totally worthy of marginalization and outright ridicule.
Given a steady and increasingly shocking stream of revelations of women alleging raped by Cosby, his quote on Dr. Richards is further compelling evidence of the comedian’s disrespect for women. “And I don’t want that particular subject touching me,” are nine words of hate Bill Cosby cannot escape.
Cosby, now 79, has been accused by over 60 women of rape, drug facilitated sexual assault, sexual battery, child sexual abuse, and sexual misconduct, with the earliest alleged incidents taking place in the mid-1960s. He has denied the allegations. While most of the sex assaults alleged by his accusers fall outside the statute of limitations for legal proceedings, Cosby’s words in the nation’s bicentennial year are chilling.
I know firsthand the pain hateful words convey. As a youth in Alabama during the bloody struggle for civil rights in the 1960s I heard and saw words of hate directed against African Americans. As a diplomat in Washington, D.C. I was the target of sexual hate speech by Sen. Jesse Helms who called me a “pervert” in the pages of The Congressional Record. Cosby’s hateful words about Dr. Renee Richards are preserved forever by the AP. Jesse’s words of hate against me are preserved for eternity in The Congressional Record and on C-SPAN video archives.
Implicit in the nine horrible words Bill Cosby said about Dr. Richards is the lie that transgender people are sick, diseased, unclean and should be shunned by others and perhaps segregated by society. In lieu of the current legal filing by officials in North Carolina to justify HB 2, which would require people to use bathrooms based on their sex at birth rather than their gender identity, these words by Bill Cosby indicate the type of hideous ideas people have been led to think by bigoted entertainment figures, politicians and others in the popular media for the past 40 years. Bill Cosby has always identified politically as a Democrat yet these views and his alleged treatment of women are hypocritical for one respected for civil rights and family oriented TV programs.
If Cosby feels this way about an adult transgender woman what might this famed TV father figure to millions of viewers have thought and still think about transgender kids. Bill Cosby as an educator and socially conscious personality must be reassessed in light of this 1976 vicious and hateful statement and the multiple rape accusations.
Bill Cosby never physically raped Dr. Renee Richards but by saying “And I don’t want that particular subject touching me,” he still denied her dignity as a woman. Cosby denied her value as a human being. On a broader scale, Cosby’s words have done the same to the transgender community by spreading ugly stereotypes disguised as comedy.
Dr. Renee Richards’ life matters. The pain and suffering she experienced in the 1970s due to her decision to transition is valuable to the history of our country. The additional pain and suffering Dr. Richards experienced thanks to Cosby’s “humor” and the tremendous success the comedian earned since 1976 must also cause suffering to Dr. Richards, currently 81. Entertainers like Cosby can become rich by mocking, bullying and abusing women.
Dr. Richards needs an apology from Bill Cosby. Richards and the women, known and unknown, Cosby is alleged to have raped may never get the justice they deserve for the pain and suffering he caused. I hope this column helps enablers and supporters realize the beast Bill Cosby was to Dr. Richards and may have been to other women.
In 1976 Dr. Renee Richards was a safe female target for Bill Cosby to abuse in print for the world to read and repeat. She had no way to fight back. She was helpless to Bill Cosby. Bill Cosby controlled Dr. Renee Richards as though he could also sexually violate her as well as abuse her in print.
If Bill Cosby was so bold and so confident that he could do as he wished with Dr. Richards that long ago day in Los Angeles, the rape and sexual abuse allegations by more than 60 women against Cosby may sound more believable today. History will not forget the pain, suffering and economic hardship the transgender community has endured and continues to endure. They deserve social and economic justice today! Cosby and his accusers deserve justice as well.
Author note: In May Pennsylvania Judge Elizabeth McHugh ruled Cosby would face trial for allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004. Since then Cosby’s attorney announced the comedian is nearly blind and friendless. Constand, 43, charged Cosby plans to bully her at her deposition by requesting McHugh allow his attorney be present and leaking lurid details to the press. McHugh has not ruled on Cosby’s request. The coming weeks promise more explosive charges on Cosby’s sex life.
Jim Patterson, whose late father served with the Alabama National Guard during the 1960s civil rights struggle in Alabama, writes on employment and political issues from California and Washington, D.C. He is a contributor to The Hill, LGBT Weekly and others. JEPCapitolHill@gmail.com
LGBT rights are important. Continue fighting for them, but avoid unnecessary McCarthyistic insults just to be a part of the journalistic lynching of Bill Cosby. Cosby just did not want to discuss the subject. Cosby has done great things for many people. Yet some “journalists” are searching for any comment to make him out to be someone he is not.
He is nothing less than a MONSTER !
Jeffrey Dahmer had the same SICK M.O. Except Dahmer Admitted his crimes and Cosby won’t.
I DON’T KNOW WHAT “COSBY” IS… AND I’VE BEEN TRYING TO GAIN A SOLID POINT OF VIEW THROUGH FIVE POUNDS OF PAPER ON COSBY AND OTHER STARS WITH SEX CRIMES AGAINST THEM INCLUDING CRIMES INVOLVING CHILDREN RECENTLY AND IN THE PAST. I WAS JUST ABOUT TO SETTLE-OUT MY OPINION AND I’M STILL STICKING TO IT BUT THERE IS ONE OTHER CONSIDERATION I HAD NOT MADE UNTIL I READ ONE OF ALLRED’S PROFESSIONALLY PROSCRIBED DESCRIPTIONS OF WHAT HAPPENED TO ONE WOMAN, ACCORDING TO HER MEMORY.
I READ THAT ONE OF HIS ACCUSERS SAID SHE FLEW IN FOR A “MODELING” AUDITION AND HE KEPT HER IN THE SAME ROOM OR UNIT WITH HIM; THAT SHE HAD HER OWN ROOM BUT LATER SHE ENDED UP IN HIS ROOM, IN HIS BED.
HE BOUGHT HER A GOWN AS EVENING ATTIRE FOR DINING AND THEY WENT TO DINNER WITH SOME PEOPLE AT THEIR TABLE AND SHE BEGAN TO FEEL…IN SOME WAY AND THEN SHE WOKE UP AND OTHER PEOPLE WERE IN THE ROOM NAKED LIKE SHE WAS. (SHE IS SAYING HE DID NOT OFFER HER DRUGS…SHE’S SAYING SHE WAS DRUGGED WHILE SHE WAS SITTING AT A TABLE WITH OTHER PEOPLE.)
NOW THAT CHANGES THE GAME, DOESN’T IT? WHO WERE THOSE PEOPLE?
I HAVE NEVER CONSIDERED THE “SEX ACTS” TO BE THE REAL AND PRIMARY CRIME. SO. OTHER PEOPLE WERE AT THE TABLE WITH HER AND COSBY AND THEN THERE WERE NAKED PEOPLE IN THE HOTEL ROOM WHERE SHE WAS NAKED TOO. WELL.
I AM SICK AND TIRED OF THE NASTY-GUTTERIZED, BEAT-DOWN COMMENTS ON COSBY AND EVEN ON TRUMP. (I AM NOT IN THEIR CORNER) BUT AT SOME POINT THE SLEEZE IN THE MEDIA LOSES ITS TONE AS INTELLIGENT ADULT COMMENTS. THIS ARTICLE WAS OVERBLOWN WITH SOME LANGUAGE I DEPLORE AND LIES. –MO
Still defending your ‘hero’, we see, Juggles. Nothing “McCarthy-istic” about the commentary, and “lynching” would be too good for Pill Cosby. So funny how you know what the creep was even thinking 40 years ago……………is that you, Pill???????????
Pill Cosby …. i love it !!! What a sick pervert he is !!!!!
Proof that Cosby is an equal-opportunity offender.
To “Juggling for a Cure” – Open your eyes! The first half of Cosby’s statement about Dr. Richards expressed his desire not to discuss that topic, the 2nd half was a snide comment expressing his disgust with the idea of a transgender woman, but disguised as a “clever” play on words. He may have done great things for many people but he has irreparably harmed many more and his own comments, given under oath, show us who he really is. The “someone he is not” is a decent human being.
Great things like all the women he drudged and raped.
He couldn’t be a man and rape an actual conscious woman.
Besides being a pervert he is a coward.
I hope this piece of shit goes to jail and someone rapes him, while he is conscious.
Liz
You took a line from a article written 40 years ago. Many of Cosby’s accusers claims have not proven credible. Those women chose to remain quiet for as many as 50 years. The little evidence remaining has proven Mr. Cosby’s accounts. These innuendos are against a 79 years old, blind man, whose legacy is destroyed, and no hope of redemption. If found guilty of sexual assault he will die in prison a defenseless old man. Who at this stage in life couldn’t hurt a fly.
Lets not forget the close to fifteen cases that were settled out of court.
Some of those women have come forward.
The man is a disgusting piece of garbage and deserves to be abused like his victims. This is one time where an Eye for an Eye, and a Tooth for a tooth would be justice.
There is a special place in Hell set aside for this animal.
Liz
Well he was still hurting flys in 2007 , not that long ago
Dr. William Henry Cosby, Jr., like all people, is a man. A flawed man. Yes, he made a few mistakes, but he is facing the results of those actions. Don’t throw stones if you live in a glass house. To bring down Dr. Cosby is to say YOU are without sin.
No problem, I have never raped anybody, never had sex with someone who said NO. What about you?
Liz
How do you know he raped anyone? Why is there not one single piece of physical evidence? 60 women, 40 years. Not one rape kit and little to no police reports, all long after the alleged attack. 400 million net worth, women who never really made it big. 2+2=4. All you Cosby haters resort to insults because you have nothing to back up your insertions. Also Liz, putting your name at the bottom of your posts reeks of arrogance and self righteousness. Wake up sheep.
Well Sir it has been in the news he settled out of court several times.
If he didn’t rape those women, why settle out of court?
Liz
Please stop addressing this rapist as a doctor , he taints a honorable profession .
I went from reading to skimming when you expressed “shock” over something Cosby said 40 years ago. Grow up, for God’s sake. You say Cosby’s accusers deserve justice. Well, so do we all. Please stop pretending you know what constitutes justice where Cosby’s concerned. You do not know that Cosby ever raped anyone, and neither do I, and neither does Access Hollywood, and neither does CNN, and neither does New York Magazine, and neither do Tina Fey and her feminist-icon pal who won America’s hearts by urging us to laugh at one-legged girls who just don’t get that they aren’t sexy. Assuming Cosby IS a rapist, what’s even more sick-making is the media’s pretending there’s anything in the campaign against him that works toward Rape Prevention. With all respect to Hillary, rape victims don’t have any “right” to be believed. Those words may win votes, but they are bull, and damaging.
In reality, it works like this: Say I’m walking down the street, and some maniac throws a brick at my head. I have been victimized. What I need to do now, for myself and for the protection of others, is to take responsibility for what has happened to me. If I fail to report that I’ve been assaulted, the guy who hit me with the brick will go unpunished. If thirty, forty years later, I want to go public with my story (possibly in response to a highly publicized demand that my assailant put up $1,000,000 for his “victims”), all I will have is a story. Without evidence that story is worthless. Only people lacking character will jump from suspecting my story to be true to believing it, and only a warped, corrupted media fuels that kind of ignorance.
Next time you do a piece on Cosby, please show the courage to address what’s being swept under the carpet: How is it that being a celebrity gave Cosby more power than Dracula over not only his victims, but literally everyone in his midst, for five decades – and never made him vulnerable? Please point to one instance, in any story by any accuser, of his taking a single precaution against being caught: never a worry that a returnee victim might put a tape recorder in her purse to catch the snoring and the humping, never a worry that a victim he set up in a penthouse for repeated abuse might invest a whole $500 in a video camera, just to find out what he was doing to her unconscious body, or if he was alone in doing it. Cosby-the-Alleged-Serial-Rapist may have thought his name would save him, but the real world doesn’t work that way, and never has. Since the word on Cosby’s raping tactics was “common knowledge in Hollywood”, and “a barely-kept secret in the comedy world”, how is it that he never met with a girl expecting pills? Are fashion models deaf to gossip? And how am I to reconcile the picture I was handed during November 2015 of Cosby as a man who wanted sex with inert, unconscious bodies, with the picture of a man who wants sex with girls on Quaaludes, very responsive, possibly loud?
The stories don’t hold up to mere fact-checking, something the media can’t be bothered with. If writers like you, Jim, had been fighting for gay rights when Cosby made the statement you find so noteworthy, the movement would have been handicapped by your trash-mongering. I know nothing of your late father, but those brave people who worked with him would be appalled by you.
The views Cosby held 40 years ago regarding transsexuals were the views held by the vast majority of Americans. So why isn’t this article bemoaning that? It’s just another attack on Cosby by a media playing to lunkheads.
Also, the word “too” has no place in the article’s headline. Against whom else has Cosby been an offender? The women he raped? You’ll need to prove that, LGBT. It’s past time we had some proof.
Who would have thought, 40 years ago, that one day the world would see through the idiocy, the lies, the unreasoning hate informing our views of the transgendered? 40 years from now, this article and its author will be dust. But should someone dig it up, it will be recognized as an offense against Bill Cosby, guilty or not, and against anyone who cares about fair play. You need actual standards, LGBT, and as a gay man, I demand them from you.
So Cosby is a serial rapist/drugger, a self-hating racist, now a transphobe. Oh joy!
1. Bill Cosby would never touch you, so no worries there. Is you were drugged by him it’s because it was 50 years ago, and you picked up another person’s drink that wasn’t intended for you.
2. You are doing exactly what people are accusing you of, you are just trying to get your journalistic foot in the door, on the Bill Cosby controversy.. and it’s sickening.
More newspaper articles trying to stir the pot of hatred. When will people learn that hatred isn’t the answer?
Then what is the answer Adam?
I have an answer, however I doubt you would find it suites your liking ether.
Do you really thing a court system that humiliates the accuser is the answer?
“Oh but she was asking for it”
Liz
Nobody’s saying, “Oh but she was asking for it,” Liz. The media’s telling us people are saying that – but where are these people? They’re in your head. Rape is a tough crime to prove. That doesn’t mean we break every rule in the book to put alleged rapists away. That minority of us who actually reason will never accept that. As far as I know, there is no perfect justice in this world. Whatever “answer” you’re keeping to yourself, please spit it out. And if you can prove Cosby’s a rapist in the process, prove it, please. Good luck with that.