Jide Zeitlin And the Sickening Hypocrisy of America

I was surprised to learn about the abrupt resignation of Jide Zeitlin, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Tapestry, the company that owns amongst many other brands Coach and Kate Spade luxury handbags.

Zeitlin was one of only four black men to lead a Fortune 500 company, so his untimely resignation, just after his tenure had been extended by the board for another three years was indeed unsettling.

So here’s the story: Jide Zeitlin led a double-life. He was a Chairman and Chief Executive Officer by day, and a photographer (with an alias), by night so to say. The photographs that he took were sexual in nature, and 13 years ago, he engaged in an extra-marital affair with one of models he photographed.

Yes, for some this behavior can be considered morally reprehensible, but let us deconstruct a bit.

In a free world, anyone, especially artists, writers and creators, should be able to use an alias to protect their identity. There is nothing illegal about that. As long as the individual is not seeking to harm someone else, I see no problem with that.

Zeitlin admitted to having an extra-marital affair with one of the ladies he photographed. According to both his and her accounts, it was a consensual relationship. They dated for months and he broke it off.

In what sounds like a case of jilted love, his lover and her husband decided to investigate Zeitlin and found out that he was not a professional photographer after all. They felt that he had misled them. Ok yes, so Zeitlin was dishonest, but is this a crime? No.

They also found out that Zeitlin had engaged a slew of other models for nudity pics. Here again, there is no wrong doing. The models photographed were over age and consented for the photos to be taken. So quite simply a transactional relationship as is quite often the case between model and photographer. Here again, no transgression of the law whatsoever.

Jide Zeitlin was certainly no Bill Cosby, Harry Weinstein or Jeffrey Epstein, he was not a sexual predator. He did not rape, drug or traffic women. He engaged in what some but not all may call sexual misconduct, but was there anything illegal about what he did: No.

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