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When William Henry "Bill" Cosby burst onto the comedic scene at the Gaslight Cafe in New York City in the early 1960s, he was almost an immediate sensation. His comedy about his experiences growing up, and his sharp humor about a working-class childhood in Philadelphia, has always been considered one of the building blocks of the culture of stand-up comedy — a genre that was itself in the early stages of evolution into an art form at that time. Over the years, Cosby became an institution in and of himself. With platinum sales of his comedy albums, his work on shows such as "I Spy" and "Fat Albert," and his role as family patriarch in the ubiquitous "Cosby Show," as well as his cross-pollination into television advertising for Jello and Coke, his benevolent television dad was an icon of the 1980s, clad in obnoxiously bright sweaters, a foil to the edgier comics in his immediate sphere, like Eddie Murphy and that other great barnstormer, Richard Pryor. So it has come as a major shock to many Americans that Cosby is now accused of severe sexual misbehavior with as many as 50 women over many decades. The allegations not only paint Cosby as a rapist, but imply that he has been prolifically involved in drug-facilitated sexual assault and, in some cases, acts of child abuse. Until recently, Cosby and his lawyers have remained relatively silent on the matter. The performer has aggressively denied any wrong-doing, and this week launched a lawsuit against just seven of his accusers, suing them for defamation. The obvious question then becomes, what about the other 40 or so women who are telling their stories? Why not a blanket suit that pushes back against all of them? Cosby has inadvertently created more doubt and gray area in what is clearly an aggressive gamble; if he can win a suit against seven, then he will be able to use that precedent as leverage against all other contenders, perhaps in an attempt to shut them up and make them go away. Cosby has never been one to play the race card, either in his comedy or in life. He viewed the perception of black comedy as separate from white comedy as a mechanism for prejudice, and preferred to let the humor of his work stand on its own merit, without bringing race or foul language into his routine. His Huxtable family became iconic because it posited that affluent black professional families could and should be the norm in America. Later in life, Cosby has made much of young black men learning to "speak properly" and to dress in a "socially acceptable" manner. A specific complaint has been that young people of color wear baggy pants that hang down below their waists. Now that it is becoming apparent that Cosby may have spent a great deal of his life with his own pants around his ankles, he can hardly continue to point a finger. The issue with the Cosby debacle is one of fame, class and money. His situation is less about race than it is about the privilege of the rich man in America. With a net worth that is reportedly north of $400 million, Cosby is cosseted away in a world of white-shoe lawyers and PR resources that most accused rapists could only dream of. And while Cosby has spent a lot of his time raising the tone of the race debate in America without much alluding to it, he is protected by a power and influence that has traditionally been preserved for wealthy white men. Women who claim to have been hurt, who were allegedly abused while vulnerable, and who came of age in an era when men were held even less accountable for sexual misconduct than they are today, are forming a long line around this man. If any one of the accusations prove to be true, the comedian should pay, and pay dearly, for the crime. The systemic implications of his going scot-free are too horrible to contemplate. Ashland resident Jeffrey Gillespie is a Tidings columnist and freelance writer. Email him at [email protected] .