Charlie Rose (1942- ), a US journalist, is best known for his thoughty interviews featuring a floodlit table in a pitch-black room. His interviews have been a fixture of late-night television in the US since 1984, first on CBS and then on PBS. He has also been a host of “CBS This Morning” since 2012. But on November 20th 2017 all of that came to a screeching halt when eight women came forward to accuse him of sexual harassment.
insert pictures of his accusers
insert lurid details
He was in the news for just a day or two, was fired and that was it. Was he ever arrested? Was there a trial? Is he slowly losing his mind in solitary confinement on Rikers Island, like Kalief Browder after he was accused of stealing a backpack? Even Rose’s Wikipedia page does not say.
By May 2018, as it turns out, 27 more women had come out against him. That comes to 35 women in all whose accusations cover a period from 1976 to 2017.
In December 2018, CBS settled part of the lawsuit against him by settling with three of the women, presumably paying them off:
- Katherine Brooks Harris,
- Sydney McNeal, and
- Yuqing “Chelsea” Wei.
#MeToo: CBS is on the hook because it knew about Rose and did nothing. His behaviour has been an open secret since the 1990s. The #MeToo movement made it possible to bring him down.
Award-winning: Charlie Rose used to be an award-winning journalist. Some have taken their awards back. He is no longer so award-winning.
Wealth: He still has his apartment in New York overlooking Central Park. And his apartment in Washington, DC. And his apartment in Paris. And his beach house on Long Island. And Grassy Creek Farm, his soybean farm back home in North Carolina.
Ethnicity: English, not Jewish.
Membership: He was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Bilderberg Group, rubbing shoulders with some of the most powerful people in the Western world.
White privilege: Unlike Bill Cosby, New York magazine did not show his 35 accusers on their cover, even though they have 35 chairs. Unlike R. Kelly, Lifetime did not show a “Surviving Charlie” documentary. Unlike Michael Jackson, Oprah did not interview his accusers. Why is that?
True, none of his accusers were underage. But the same is true of Cosby.
True, Rose worked in the news media itself. Gayle King, for example, is still friends with him. She was a fellow host on “CBS This Morning” – and is Oprah’s best friend. But the #MeToo scandals of most other White men have been equally low-key. Kevin Spacey was in court the other day and it barely made the news.
Media firestorms have been reserved mainly for Black men, whether dead or alive (Cosby, Kelly, Jackson), and for White men with political enemies (Brett Kavanaugh, Roy Moore, Donald Trump). But while Cosby and Kelly have been arrested and disgraced, Kavanaugh was put on the Supreme Court and Trump was made president.
It has always been thus. Think back to slave times.
– Abagond, 2019.
See also:
- English Americans
- Tarana Burke – founder of #MeToo
- the accused
- Oprah
- Kalief Browder
- The Black Brute stereotype
- lynchings
- Thomas Jefferson
560
Oh Abagond, not you too with the what-aboutisms…
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Three things:
White privilege: Unlike Bill Cosby, New York magazine did not show his 35 accusers on their cover, even though they have 35 chairs. Unlike R. Kelly, Lifetime did not show a “Surviving Charlie” documentary. Unlike Michael Jackson, Oprah did not interview his accusers. Why is that?
True, none of his accusers were underage. But the same is true of Cosby.
True, Rose worked in the news media itself. Gayle King, for example, is still friends with him. She was a fellow host on “CBS This Morning” – and is Oprah’s best friend. But the #MeToo scandals of most other White men have been equally low-key. Kevin Spacey was in court the other day and it barely made the news.
Media firestorms have been reserved mainly for Black men, whether dead or alive (Cosby, Kelly, Jackson), and for White men with political enemies (Brett Kavanaugh, Roy Moore, Donald Trump). But while Cosby and Kelly have been arrested and disgraced, Kavanaugh was put on the Supreme Court and Trump was made president.
I started wondering about this myself. It seems like black celebrities are under more scrutiny than white celebrities for the same kind of crimes. They’re also more likely to suffer damaging repercussions, and have TV specials and “documentaries” that condemn them.
On that note, I’m curious if you’re going to write about “Leaving Neverland” and the firestorm it created one day.
Will we see any documentaries about Donald Trump, Elvis Presley, David Bowie, Charlie Rose, Bryan Singer, Mario Batali, Louis C.K., Kevin Spacey, Charles Dickens or any other famous white person past or present that condemns their (supposed) actions and/or gives a voice to the victims? It doesn’t look like it.
I remember watching a documentary about Adolf Hitler’s medical history where it theorizes that he may have had Parkinson’s which may have played a part to Germany losing the war. That special had a sympathetic angle making the views feel sorry for him if not make him more fascinating.
Again, it was ADOLF HITLER.
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I just remembered.
There’s a documentary called “Untouchable” that’s focused on Harvey Weinstein and his accusations. It premiered on Sundance alongside “Leaving Neverland”, but the latter got way more attention while the former is hardly mentioned.
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I haven’t seen the documentaries mentioned above, because I assume they’re just a dramatic rehash of the overwhelming media coverage those men received. However, I would totally watch a documentary/expose on all the “news” men like Lauer, Rose, Moonves, Ailes, O’Reilly, Horowitz, etc… because you’re right, there really wasn’t much airtime dedicated to them. News media covering themselves is a lot like police investigating themselves.
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Also… on the broader topic of racial bias to media coverage… sexual harassment is no different than anything else. White victims get coverage (they love their missing White girl stories) and perpetrators of color get coverage. Doesn’t matter if we’re talking about smash-n-grab thieves on the local news or sex assaulting celebrity documentaries. The dynamic is, and has always been, the same. White people looking in a mirror is a lot like police investigating themselves.
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@ Brothawolf
Unlikely: I have not seen it and, at this point have zero desire to see it, especially since it is four hours long, five if you count the Oprah part. It seems like a hit piece not a sincere search for the truth.
But if I do wind up seeing it for some reason, like if it becomes more than a one-week wonder and becomes Required Viewing, then yes, I will certainly do a post on it.
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Black celebrities also get jailed for avoiding taxes. I can’t recall any white actors going to prison over taxes.
I watched “Black Earth Rising” on Netflix the other day. One point they made was that the Hague focuses on Africa and goes after “war criminals” while turning a blind eye to everywhere else.
I think all the people the Hague have convicted have been black. I haven’t had time to research that but if true might make an interesting post.
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@ MJB
Martha Stewart went to jail for lying about a stock trade, but that’s the only one who comes readily to mind.
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@ MJB
I only did a quick search, but it looks like that may indeed be true for the ICC, established in 2002:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_detained_by_the_International_Criminal_Court
However, that is not the only international court located at the Hague, and whites have been convicted:
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/22/ratko-mladic-convicted-of-genocide-and-war-crimes-at-un-tribunal
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Abogond, these last two posts are classics, thank you!
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femmebott, yeah, we need to go there, it’s an automatic response from the
A-WS1000, Abagond.
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Abagond, this past month has been very prolific, you did posts on ADOS, Bernie’s racial hypocrisy, and Metoo’s anti-black male bias.
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I’m really not sure about the point of this post. Are we saying that if white men can get away with it, black men should be able to get away with it too?
Are we now fighting for equal privilege with regard to the “right” to abuse of women? It is wrong to abuse women period.
I think the post should have been more geared towards equality in terms of a fair trial and being proven guilty. As it stands, it sounds more like how come R Kelly wasn’t let off quietly to chill at his penthouse like the white folks? Those are not questions to be asking. He was arrested because he has been damaging girls in their most venerable developmental stage for years and was going to continue until he was a grandpa. Let us not use race to deflect.
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@ Okaydaisy
This post is about the racist bias in the media and the courts. Sexual abuse is clearly wrong, but that does not make racial demonization right.
We had Bill Cosby, then R. Kelly, then Michael Jackson, right in a row, BAM, BAM, BAM. I was thinking of doing this post in the wake of “Surviving R. Kelly”, and then came “Leaving Neverland”, with Oprah’s interview as the cherry on top. At that point I knew I was not being “oversensitive” or just “imagining” it.
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@Abagond
Whew! Thank you for the clarification and love your blog.
I guess even with the #metoo movement, all manner of races of men are being exposed but it is the black men who get dragged the most and get dragged all the way to jail. As a black woman, and I speak only for myself, I can see the racial bias in the media and the swiftness of the justice system (has Harvey Weinstein been arrested yet?) but at the same time, this has been overdue for all the R Kellys in entertainment.
Apart from Micheal Jackson, who I do not think was guilty, the black celebrities should have known better – this platform is giving all black men one more negative stereotype and reason for unfair arrest that we as a people do not need. Ultimately, in most of these cases, it wasn’t handled within the black community for years and now the oppressors are going out to use it for their own agenda. I exit here.
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I need to say more about this “Neverland” hype.
The media jumped all over it based on how supposedly “heartbreaking” and “devastating” it was. From what I read, it’s just interviews with Wade Robson, James Safechuck and their families in four hours. The director did little to make their cases strong with solid evidence. But it was still “powerful” enough for the media to say, “You got to watch this film.”
It was shown alongside “Untouchable”, a film about the accusations against Harvey Weinstein. But it hardly got any publicity and no network, as far as I know, has picked it up. “Neverland”, on the other hand was picked up by HBO, England’s Channel 4, and others around the world.
I always ask why Michael Jackson of all people? Did he consider the race and gender orientation factors in this and how it will impact both communities? Why did he choose Robson, who’s known for changing stories, as the focus?
It’s whatever as far as the media goes. But it was enough for radio stations in Canada, Australia and New Zealand to remove MJ from their playlists, have statues of him in several locations all over the world removed and a few shows based on him cancelled.
I honestly don’t remember if there were these kinds of reactions during his trials or after that special with Martin Bashir some years back.
But Charlie Rose hasn’t been the focus of news or documentaries since he was exposed. He just vanished.
In the end, I don’t want black celebrities to avoid harsh treatment and punishments like most white celebrities. I just want equal punishment and treatment, and especially liberal white people to get over their racial bias when seeking social justice, getting angry at whites but furious at blacks. Whenever a social problem is brought up, somehow, somewhere, a black (or brown) face is chosen first. Black people accused of the same crimes as white people will mostly get harsher punishments.
I’m sorry, I just needed to vent.
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Also, don’t get me started on Jussie Smollett.
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@ Brothawolf
Vent away! “Leaving Neverland” is part of why I wrote this post. I did not see “Leaving Neverland” itself, so I feel I cannot do a post on it directly, but the setup of it was just so wrong: a one-sided documentary featuring two men going back on their sworn testimony, their stories close to that of a published fictional account. And to do all this after Michael Jackson is dead and can no longer defend himself. It should be roundly mocked, but now even the creator of “The Simpsons” is removing Michael Jackson from the series.
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We’re not alone though. On Twitter alone, there are numerous accounts supporting MJ with, I would guess, tens of millions of tweets. Some of them present court documents, videos, pictures, etc. to show how those two men can’t simply be trusted. There’s even a campaign promoting his innocence that’s big enough to have flyers and posters all over London alone. Seems there are more people defending MJ than the film or the accusers as they pretty much think it’s low to trash someone who’s dead without any evidence other than hearsay with zero proof.
The frustrating part about all of this is how the media call these people ‘stans’ without much context. I guess they’re so into the Me Too movement that there’s no room for questions or scrutiny. They seem to have faith in the director Dan Reed and the people he interviewed.
I seriously hopes this falls.
For those reading, let me just say that I’m not against Me Too. I’m just saying that it’s dangerous to think in absolutes all the time. Remember, history has shown what believing a certain kind of woman has lead to (Strange Fruit and Rosewood anyone?) and there are people today who would resort to still play with people’s emotions and absolute thinking.
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I said:
That refers to “Michael Jackson Was My Lover” (1997) by Victor Gutierrez.
You can buy it now on Amazon as a used paperback for $636.49 to $5,001.00:
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