Before Scandals, Cosby's Wife Faulted Media Treatment of Blacks
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Nxxx,2015-01-20,C,004,Bs-BW,E1 C4 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, TUESDAY, JANUARY 20, 2015 Before Scandals, Cosby’s Wife Faulted Media Treatment of Blacks media, said Mrs. Cosby was “ad- make her available for this arti- From First Arts Page amant and passionate” about try- cle. But she was interviewed by dia’s treatment of blacks. ing to get network executives Oprah Winfrey in early 2000 and In her doctoral dissertation at and others to be more responsi- said she had known about her the University of Massachusetts, ble in their depictions of African- husband’s affair with Ms. Berkes in a book she later published, in a Americans. since the 1970s. Mrs. Cosby de- series of newspaper opinion arti- “She wanted to shake things scribed a period in their marriage cles and in a range of other activi- up,” Ms. Dates said. “We were when they both had to learn to be ties that stretch back two dec- saying those images are demean- unselfish and said she did not be- ades, Mrs. Cosby has argued that ing caricatures. That’s a thread lieve in “unconditional love” and the media, particularly television, that is still being woven today.” wanted to be surrounded by has so distorted the image of Af- Her quest to create more posi- “people with integrity.” rican-Americans that it can taint tive images for blacks began dec- Around that time, a young ac- the way young black people come ades ago and included efforts to tress who had worked on “Cos- to view themselves. convince her husband that by,” the CBS show in which Mr. “I don’t want others outside Heathcliff Huxtable, the charac- Cosby starred from 1996 to 2000, our community to define us, be- ter who would evolve into Ameri- told New York City police officers cause they are doing a horrible ca’s Dad during eight seasons of that Mr. Cosby had attempted to job of it,” Mrs. Cosby said in a “The Cosby Show,” starting in force her hand down his sweat- 1994 interview. “And they are ly- 1984, should be a well-to-do doc- pants. But no charges were ing.” tor with a solid family, not a lim- brought in that case, and Mr. Cos- To some, Mrs. Cosby’s ability ousine driver, as Mr. Cosby had by, 77, who has denied all the alle- to dismiss the accounts of more proposed. gations of sexual abuse, has nev- than two dozen women who have In other settings, independent er been criminally charged. now publicly accused her hus- of her husband, Mrs. Cosby It is unclear when Mrs. Cosby band of some form of sexual worked to preserve black history learned of that actress’s account abuse, reads like denial, regard- because she said it was being ig- or to what extent she understood less of what the media may have nored. In 1995, she co-produced a Mr. Cosby’s reputation as a wom- anizer during a period when he bungled in the past. But Mrs. play, “Having Our Say,” about LEIGH VOGEL/GETTY IMAGES Cosby has characterized the alle- two pioneering centenarian sis- was a fixture at the Playboy gations as a media feeding fren- ters raised in the Jim Crow South Camille O. Cosby, who has called the accusations against her husband a media feeding frenzy. Mansion and later when he often zy, and not unlike those she has who became successful after traveled alone on comedy tours. seen before. moving to New York. Nominated views with accomplished Afri- But Mrs. Cosby’s concerns wrote an opinion article in USA Certainly Mrs. Cosby knew her Jannette L. Dates, who with for three Tony Awards, it ran for can-Americans. Charles J. Hamil- about the media run far deeper Today with a headline that read husband had settled a 2005 civil Mrs. Cosby wrote a 1992 newspa- almost nine months on Broad- ton Jr., a former board member, than simple neglect. Friends say “Don’t Believe the Tabs.” suit filed in Philadelphia by a per op-ed article critical of the way. said Mrs. Cosby had been drawn she became particularly incensed The following year, when the woman who said she had been More recently, in 2001, she to the project because “major in- by coverage of the murder of her shooter was convicted, Mrs. Cos- drugged and sexually abused. Susan Beachy. Elisa Cho and helped found an organization, the stitutions have relegated African- son, Ennis, in 1997. He was shot to by wrote another essay in USA The terms of the settlement were Alain Delaquérière contributed National Visionary Leadership American history to the lower death on the side of a Los Ange- Today suggesting that the mur- never disclosed, but the woman’s research. Project, that videotapes inter- rung of the ladder.” les highway while changing a tire derer, an immigrant from lawyer said they had sworn state- by a man who tried to rob him Ukraine, was a racist who had ments from 13 other women who and later referred to him by a ra- killed her son because he had said they, too, had been molested cial slur. On the same day as the been taught to hate blacks by, in some way. More than a dozen shooting, a young woman, Au- among other things, the Ameri- other women have surfaced in tumn Jackson, claiming to be Mr. can media. the past few months with similar Cosby’s daughter from an extra- In a 1998 letter to The New stories, a number that prompted marital affair, demanded money York Times, she complained that several institutions that had been from him to buy her silence. She the newspaper’s account of the Mr. Cosby’s longtime allies, in- was later convicted of trying to crime had depicted it as an at- cluding Spelman College, to drop extort millions of dollars from tempted robbery and omitted a their ties. Mr. Cosby. racial slur the killer had used, One friend, who asked not to be Mr. Cosby ultimately admitted which minimized race as a moti- identified for fear of upsetting the to an affair with Ms. Jackson’s vation. (The letter was never Cosbys, said that beyond her love mother, Shawn Berkes, but he de- published.) for her husband, Mrs. Cosby sim- nied his paternity, and Mrs. Cos- “I think the death of her son ply had not seen the evidence to by became frustrated that the hardened her,” said Sylvia Fad- suggest she should put any faith media focused so much of its cov- dis, a friend at the time. “And I in the accounts of women she erage on her husband’s infidelity, think she became hard in the didn’t know as relayed by media not, she believed, on finding her years she had to fight for the pri- outlets she had long distrusted. son’s killer. vacy of their lives. I think it is “She does not believe these “All old personal negative is- hard for her to trust anyone.” women because they have no sues between Bill and me were Mark Whitaker, an author who proof, only their stories,” the resolved years ago,” Mrs. Cosby wrote a largely favorable biogra- friend said. said in a statement she released phy of her husband last year, Mrs. Cosby’s faith in her hus- in 1997. “We are a united couple. “Cosby: His Life and Times,” band is not so different from that What occurred 23 years ago is said Mrs. Cosby was hardly the of the many ticket holders who not important to me except for first spouse to see protection of still flock to Mr. Cosby’s shows, the current issue of extortion. the family as the primary priority give him standing ovations and What is very important to me is when confronted by a situation say they are skeptical of accounts the apprehension of the person or like this. of abuse that took as much as 30 persons who killed our son. I ap- “You see this with political years to surface. peal to all of you to help us find spouses,” he said. “They come to Such proof is also essential to the murderer.” see things as a battle and a siege Mrs. Cosby, who last year wrote When The National Enquirer and who is on our side and who is an op-ed article in which she re- published an article saying the not.” lated the trusted advice that her death had pushed her to the edge An intensely private woman, father, a research chemist, had of a nervous breakdown and that Mrs. Cosby declined to be in- drummed into her. she was sedated, the Cosbys terviewed by Mr. Whitaker, and “The evidence,” she remem- threatened to sue. 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