Ebony magazine Senior Editor Jamilah Lemieux questioned if people would be more willing to turn their backs on Bill Cosby if he “didn’t have that sort of respectability politics” and instead supported the Black Lives Matter movement on Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show.” After guest host Melissa Harris-Perry declared, “we were ultimately more interested as a people, not just black folks, as Americans, in preserving this image, this imagined notion of Bill Cosby, than in understanding actual women’s experiences and allegations.” Lemieux said, “I can’t help but to wonder, say if Mr. Cosby didn’t have that sort of respectability politics, you know, heavy-handed against single mothers, and complicated-sounding names and wearing your pants low, and listening to hip hop, say that wasn’t who he was. Say that he was a supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement, right? Say that he was elected. Say that he was really ‘on our side’ politically. Would we be having this conversation? How willing would people be to turn their backs on him? Or to say, ‘You know, I may love what you stand for here, but I cannot stand in solidarity with you when you have these sort of allegations against you.