Howard University to Phylicia Rashad: "BYE, PHYLICIA!!!"

Not quite "bye, Phylicia" from Howard; despite their statement about supporting the victims, they still haven't asked Rashad to step down.

Howard posted their statement on Instagram as well, and the majority of the comments from (mostly-female) students were supportive of Rashad: "she said what she said, period!" "white women have lied on black men for decades", yadda yadda. Very disappointing.

This tweet will not ruin Rashad, especially in the eyes of the black community. Howard will ride this out-- Rashad is not going anywhere. She was hired was for her name.

[quote] the majority of the comments from (mostly-female) students were supportive of Rashad: "she said what she said, period!"

I SAID, what I SAID!

But still, what a fool.

She knows which side her bread is buttered.

She's has probably signed a lucrative non-disclosure agreement.

Please pass the roofies.

The primary function of a college Dean is fundraising. She will keep that position if she performs.

Forget these women!

- Phylicia Rashad

[quote] Aunt Viv Checks Claire Huxtable For Cosby Defense, Says “He’s Is An Old A*s Guilty Man’

Janet Hubert is one of many to chime in on yesterday’s conversation around Phylicia Rashad’s problematic tweet, expressing relief and happiness over Bill Cosby’s release from prison.

MadameNoire reported on June 30, that Cosby’s sexual assault conviction was overturned by a Philidelphia Supreme Court. The 83-year-old comedian is set to be released after serving two years of his three to ten-year sentence.

As you can imagine, many Twitter users were disappointed in Rashad’s decision to once again publicly defend Cosby — a man whom over 60 women have claimed being sexually assaulted by. Especially since Rashad was just named the new dean of Howard University’s College of Fine Arts.

In response to all of the backlash, Rashad followed up her problematic tweet with:

[quote] “I fully support survivors of sexual assault coming forward. My post was in no way intended to be insensitive to their truth. Personally, I know from friends and family that such abuse has lifelong residual effects. My heartfelt wish is for healing.”

Even though she did a backpedal, folks weren’t having it. That evening, Huber tweeted, ”

[quote] Phylicia what are you thinking!!! I don’t know you but to say this was terribly wrong. EVERYONE knew what he was doing back then. How could you NOT! Get your umbrella sista here comes the shit shower. I am outraged that he has been released. Yes, he is an old a*s guilty man!”

[quote] “I would have said he’s old he’s out and I’m happy for him, but he still …guilty,” Hubert added later. “I know 5 women who have not come forward. Enough Ya’ll we know better. Powerful men do wrong things, black or white…”

I went to Howard University's Instagram page. It's true. Black people absolutely LOVE rapists

They're jealous cosby really, really, really preferred to rape white women

[quote] Howard Students and Alumni Call for Phylicia Rashad’s Firing Over Bill Cosby Support

Mere hours after Bill Cosby’s TV wife Phylicia Rashad celebrated her former co-star’s shock release from prison, she attempted to walk back her joyous statement following a tidal wave of backlash.

Cosby, 83, walked out of a Pennsylvania prison on Wednesday, serving just three years of his three to 10-year sentence for sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004. The state’s supreme court suddenly overturned the disgraced comic’s 2018 conviction on a legal technicality—it found the prosecutor couldn’t go back on his predecessor’s declaration not to charge him.

Rashad, who played Clair Huxtable alongside Cosby for eight seasons on The Cosby Show, was thrilled. “FINALLY!!!! A terrible wrong is being righted—a miscarriage of justice is corrected,” she not only tweeted, but shared on Instagram.

It did not go over well for Rashad, who was tapped in May by Howard University to be its new dean of College of Fine Arts, recently renamed to honor the late actor and former student Chadwick Boseman.

The 73-year-old was immediately slammed, as people raised the question of how students could feel comfortable reporting instances of sexual assault to a dean who had rejoiced in the release of an alleged serial predator who had 60 women publicly come forward to accuse him of assault?

Howard alumni and others began calling for the university to fire Rashad, using the hashtag #ByePhylicia. In an attempt at damage control, she deactivated her comments.

“I fully support survivors of sexual assault coming forward,” Rashad conceded. “My post was in no way intended to be insensitive to their truth. Personally, I know from friends and family that such abuse has lifelong residual effects. My heartfelt wish is for healing.”

Still, Rashad’s initial tweet in support of Cosby remained up, despite people pointing out that if she truly meant what she said, it would be deleted. Of course, she had already made her stance on Cosby clear in 2015. “Forget these women,” she said, dismissing the accusations of models Janice Dickinson and Beverly Johnson. “What you’re seeing is the destruction of a legacy. And I think it’s orchestrated.”

Howard stayed quiet on the brewing controversy until late Wednesday night, issuing an overall weak and deflective response, saying “personal positions of university leadership do not reflect Howard University’s policies.”

“Survivors of sexual assault will always be our priority,” the statement, which was unattributed, said in full. “While Dean Rashad has acknowledged in her follow-up tweet that victims must be heard and believed, her initial tweet lacked sensitivity towards survivors of sexual assault... We will continue to advocate for survivors fully and support their right to be heard. Howard will stand with survivors and challenge systems that would deny them justice. We have full confidence that our faculty and school leadership will live up to this sacred commitment.”

Still, Howard’s statement didn’t cut it for some current students and alumni.

“Hold her ass accountable,” Whitney Meritus, class of 2024, declared on Instagram. “I’d take a non-famous dean who believes SA victims over a celebrity dean who does shit like this... Don’t get me wrong, I know she was his professor and all, but I don’t think she deserves to lead the Chadwick A. Boseman School of Fine Arts. Not anymore.”

Alum Nylah Burton told The Daily Beast that she was disappointed by Rashad’s statement, but not necessarily surprised. “I am learning not to expect anything from people when it comes to this issue of supporting survivors and sexual assault,” she explained. “I’ve just learned that people are just kind of shitty, and especially the more people are empowered.”

She is so smug, why is she still supporting that terrible man?

[quote] She is so smug, why is she still supporting that terrible man?

Maybe she's hoping that some network will run "The Cosby Show" again (now that he is "exonerated"), so that she can rake in the RESIDUAL payments from syndication.

The gravy train stopped, when he went to prison.

All of that, R14.

This woman will never apologize. Her ego is off the charts. She'll have someone else submit an apology via the press, but don't expect her to ever answer for this.

Howard University deserves better - she doesn't belong there in that position.

[quote] "white women have lied on black men for decades",

Most of his victims were black, but a few were white, and that’s all it took to shore up support for Cosby — when whites and blacks are in a controversy, the black is always the victim, don’t EVEN bother me with the facts.

[quote]While Dean Rashad has acknowledged in her follow-up

Is she transitioning?

Wendy Williams read her to filth on Thursdays show

No network will ever touch "The Cosby Show" again.

It's radioactive.

If they dared air his shows again, there would be OUTRAGE!

Not to dogpile here, but the phrase “their truth” is problematic here.

It's a combo of her legacy, her generation and staying on code.

I’m a person of colour and I feel she needs to step down simply because of the subject matter is controversial.

And her issuing a public statement like that on social media was absolutely uncalled which makes her no better than Trump when you think about it.

She really showed a lack of sensitivity towards the victims when she said that.

I’ve lost all respect for her and I hope the University let’s her go.

Her back up statement is meaninglessness to me and a lot of others.

De Nile is a river in Africa.

[quote] Howard University deserves better - she doesn't belong there in that position

She is qualified to be the dean of a college

She ISN'T qualified to be the dean of a college

Sorry I screwed typing

[quote] She ISN'T qualified to be the dean of a college

If I can be a doctor, then SHE can be a Dean!

I have some open fields in California where she could learn how to pick cotton, learn domestic work, or learn tap dance. All the watermelon and man-made pussy she can eat too! If she starts running mouth again, I can beat her straight while taking my hormones and shaving my cat.

Dean Rashad and the other despicable trolls supporting Cosby would be demanding the death penalty if it had been a white man accused of raping black women.

Stop pretending you care about women getting raped

Yes gay men don't give a shit about women despite have mothers, sisters and female friends. Those faggy little queens just care about their next lay, brunch, cats and home furnishings.

R14 Technically, it didn't. "The Cosby Show" runs on several cable channels, particularly TV One, and is also available on AmazonPrime. It was only pulled for a short while when the allegations went down. In time, most outlets brought it back.

R32 Sorry, have to correct myself - some brought it back, and it seems most pulled it again in 2018. TV One is the only current cable channel that does have it. As well as Amazon Prime, Sling Tv and FilmRise. So, it is technically still out there. Just saying.

I don't know what social media that writer at the Grio was reading, but Phylicia Rashad was most certainly getting hardcore support in a lot of areas - not monolithic, but, still quite a lot. There are still people who insist he's innocent for Christ's sake.

She's not going anywhere.

Bitch is back pedaling as fast as her stumpy little legs will carry her.

Let’s hope the season opener of This is Us begins with them returning from her funeral, poor Beth has endured enough under her.

Will she be returning to “This Is Us”?

I follow Loni Love on Facebook. She shared a CNN story about the story. Honestly, a good half the commenters, pretty much all Black women, support Rashad and what she said, and the odd one goes on to victim blame (i.e. excuses Cosby).

R37 I assume so, before this debacle people were saying this year she was going to get her third Emmy nomination for guest starring and they were saying she might win. But with this show even when you die you keep coming back ad nauseam, they killed Milo off and he’s still omnipresent.

It is a little underwhelming to have Cosby locked up while Trump prances happily around enjoying the adulation of millions. Justice is not served.

I'm too goddamned old for this!

Fuck y'all muthafuckas!!

It's like OJ Simpson. The majority of black people stick up for black people, no matter what

They don't have a problem with all the rising crime either

Did this woman learn NOTHING from Sharon Osbourne?

R43 That is great. I would love to be sitting in a bathroom stall when Phylicia and Sharon had both been taken down by men who had no relation to them, other than deep, blind friendship.

“I’m sure she has a story to sell, BYE FELICIA!”

She sees herself as the Rosa Parks of her generation.

She's too fucking old to start a new career.

It must have driven Phylicia crazy that her younger sister was a big star on Fame and made a splash on Broadway in West Side Story while Phylicia was still an understudy and in the chorus of Dreamgirls.

[quote] She's too fucking old to start a new career.

Craft.

Was Aunt Viv a Broadway understudy at the same time as Phylicia?

She was Betty Buckley's understudy and had an ensemble role in Cats r50. She never did Dreamgirls on Broadway.

I never wrote that Aunt Viv was in Dreamgirls.

I thought you were asking that r52. Sorry.

Cats opened a year after Dreamgirls so not sure if they were understudies at the same time. Sheryl Lee Ralph held on to the lead in Dreamgirls for a long time so Phylica never got it nor did she get the LA company. Hubert left Cats pretty early too to lead the tour of Sophisticated Ladies.

Does this old cunt have dementia?

[quote] Sheryl Lee Ralph held on to the lead in Dreamgirls for a long time

Well, that's good to know because it wasn't like she was flooded with other offers. I know she played Moesha's grandmother a decade later in the show with (Another) Brandy (Before I Drive). I wonder how Sheryl pays her bills.

Her husband is a state senator in Pennsylvania.

(plus she still acts. Was in Wicked on Broadway off and on for a bit.)

that's about Sheryl Lee at r56

Phylicia is a BORN teacher. Just look at how mesmerized James Earl Jones is by her eloquent profundities!

Sheryl Ralph sounded pretty dreadful singing at a Dreamgirls reunion. Was she always an iffy singer?

Don't blame her, R59. Anyone who had to perform next to the shrieking, hollering, hysterical sledgehammer and chainsaw known as Jen Holliday for two years would lose their hearing and their mental balance too. Sheryl and Loreta both went deaf after working with Jen "She Sure Ain't No" Holliday and can't hear themselves sing.

no r59 I think she sounds pretty good in Dreamgirls (I don't really remember from the live performnace but on the album she sounds good.

Had the soft Diana Ross style to contrast Holliday's bellowing gospel style.

And she had real stage presence in that extended Dreamgirls commercial that was made. Real glamour.

Here is pretty recent clip (well, 2017) or Ralph. Maybe she's smoked her voice away.

*of Ralph

Sheryl Lee Ralph needs to get her ass back to “It’s a Living”.

This thread has been hijacked. Who cares about Sheryl Lee Ralph and Dreamgirls? We're supposed to be discussing what a cunt Phylicia Rashad is.

Bump

An ad popped up in my facebook feed a few months ago right around the time she tweeted about Cosby. It was for Manhattan Theater Club where she will be appearing in a play.

There were just pages and pages of people replying that they'd be canceling their subscription for the season since she will be employed there.

As we used to say, Phylicia is "bad for the race". Howard needs to clean this up even if it's costly. Did they think she came with connections to deep pockets? Very bad judgement. She's been tarnished for years.

Telma Hopkins would never.

I’ll be interested to see if Ms Rashad will still be on This Is Us. I’m thinking probably she will.

If a white woman came out in support of Harvey Weinstein she'd be canceled.

Has Juliette Binoche been cancelled?

She supported Harvey?

She said enough was enough and that people need to let the law do its work.