The Village Voice’s recent article exposing all of the heartbreaking and gory details of the multitude of rape allegations against R. Kelly has once again reignited the conversation around whether or not people should support the singer.
While R. Kelly has seemed to linger on the fringes, creating “safe” R&B music instead of his signature, sexed up songs, his latest album, Black Panties is a big F-U to the demons and critics of his past and signals his return to his hypersexual roots.
For the record, R. Kelly will never, ever, ever get one DIME of my money. Like, ever.
While I can rattle off the standard radio hits, I wasn’t a HUGE Kelly fan before, but he could literally cure cancer and HIV now and I would still never, ever buy his one of his albums again.
Why?
Well, fifteen years ago Kelly was embroiled in a scandal that found that the singer frequently targeted underage girls for sex, which was often documented on camera.
Many know about the young girl Kelly peed on during the infamous rape tape (no, not sex tape, people–rape) that went public, but according to the Voice there were DOZENS of others.
Here are a few of the horrible details, but I encourage you to read the article:
They were stomach churning. The one young woman, who had been 14 or 15 when R. Kelly began a relationship with her, detailed in great length, in her affidavits, a sexual relationship that began at Kenwood Academy: He would go back in the early years of his success and go to Lina McLin’s gospel choir class. She’s a legend in Chicago, gospel royalty. He would go to her sophomore class and hook up with girls afterward and have sex with them. Sometimes buy them a pair of sneakers. Sometimes just letting them hang out in his presence in the recording studio. She detailed the sexual relationship that she was scarred by. It lasted about one and a half to two years, and then he dumped her and she slit her wrists, tried to kill herself. Other girls were involved. She recruited other girls. He picked up other girls and made them all have sex together. A level of specificity that was pretty disgusting.
Her lawsuit was hundreds of pages long, and Kelly countersued. The countersuit was, like, 10 pages long: “None of this is true!” We began our reporting. We knocked on a lot of doors. The lawsuits, the two that we had found initially, had been settled. Kelly had paid the women and their families money and the settlements were sealed by the court. But of course, the initial lawsuits remain part of the public record.
Despite dozens of under age girls coming forward, witnesses, and a trial—R. Kelly was never charged or convicted of rape. He was charged and acquitted of distributing child pornography, but the other victims took their grievances to civil court and Kelly settled with them all.
From the Village Voice
But here’s the part that got me.
ALL of Kelly’s victims were young, black girls. And as Jim DeRogati, the journalist who has continued to keep this portion of Kelly’s history public, pointed out, it made them ripe for the picking.
DeRogati says:
The saddest fact I’ve learned is: Nobody matters less to our society than young black women. Nobody. They have any complaint about the way they are treated: they are “bitches, hos, and gold diggers,” plain and simple. Kelly never misbehaved with a single white girl who sued him or that we know of. Mark Anthony Neal, the African-American scholar, makes this point : one white girl in Winnetka and the story would have been different.
No, it was young black girls and all of them settled. They settled because they felt they could get no justice whatsoever. They didn’t have a chance.
Sadly, this is far too common. A 2011 study by the New York-based organization Black Women’s Blueprint found that nearly 60% of black girls have experienced sexual abuse, coercive sex, or inappropriate touching before the age of 18.
SIXTY PERCENT!
And for the larger American public, the statistics are just as startling.
According to RAINN—the Rape Abuse Incest National Network—every two minutes someone is sexually assaulted in the U.S., and every year there are nearly 240,000 assaults. Of those, 44% are people under the age of 18.
So while R. Kelly is clearly despicable and needs some serious help, this issue is BIGGER than him.
That’s where we come in.
While we should continue to hold Kelly, and perps like him, accountable for his actions, and while we continue to try to protect our children to the best of our abilities, we can also support organizations who do great work by helping young men and women deal with the scars of abuse.
If you’re like me and REFUSE to give R. Kelly a DIME, please consider donating the $10 you would have spent on an album to one of the organizations listed below that are working to help victims.
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Black Women’s Blueprint
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Black Women’s Health Imperative
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RAINN – Rape Abuse Incest National Network
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Black Women for Wellness
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National Coalition Against Domestic Violence
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National Sexual Violence Resource Center
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Women’s Justice Center
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Break the Cycle
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National Alliance to End Sexual Violence
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Sisters of Color Ending Sexual Assault
This list is by no means exhaustive. Please add the names and links to other organizations we should support in the comments section.
http://www.justbeinc.org
Thank you for sharing.
What a great post! For organizations, I would add GenerationFive.org to end child sexual abuse in five generations.
I have actually met Kelly and yes, I’d believe he’s capable of the acts described. I just don’t get equating enjoying someone’s artistic work or not with the details of their personal lives. Deragotis has not looked as closely into the sex lives of other artists and I’m sure that is because he was close to this story and there was plenty to tell. But yes, i do still enjoy Kelly’s music. There are a myriad of artists,past and present Black and white, who had sex with underaged girls and some, like Elvis Presley and Marvin Gaye, even married them. Yet they remain an iconic. Michael Jackson was acquitted of his child predator case also despite other allegations surfacing and his dubious interactions with young male children. He too, died an icon. Those are just the artists we know about; some folks just covered their tracks better.
As it relates to women, I am certain are many with stories as egregious as Kelly’s or worse. Of course you can choose not to support artists who you have issue with. But to single out Kelly, as reprehensible as his behavior is, is also to ignore the many, many people responsible for allowing him to continue, including the families of these victimized girls. (And I do have sympathy and understand that they may have been further victimized by a trial, but I also know in some cases, not specifying these, the families are also dazzled by money and celebrity and can and do become avaricious and exploitative of their own children.)
I have no problem playing R. Kelly’s music, but I have no problem seeing him in jail either. I think Derogatis is wrong about society not caring about Black girls. Society does not care about poor, unprotected children, period, which is exactly why the abuse of the young men victimized by Sandusky at PSU went on for so long and why R. Kelly has not been made to pay for his crimes. But as for his art, this latest album notwithstanding as it just seems dated and a retread of other, better, work, I will continue to enjoy it. If people knew the half of what goes on with some of the celebrities and artists they revere, they would blanch at supporting a lot more than just this one singer.
When you support perverts like this, you are giving the okay to what he
has done. To say, “Well, he’s a great artist in spite of his perversion
for young girls” means you are supporting his perversion for your girls.
People should be ashamed of themselves ESPECIALLY BLACK WOMEN!!!!
You are extremely naive. Society does not care about young Black girls. You are right that society does not give a voice to children, but it’s worse when it comes to Black children.
Again, you are making excuses, and that, in my eyes, means you are making excuse for them. You should be ashamed of yourself. If you have children, would you want the likes of RK to be around them.
Yup. This.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting HellIfIKnow.
You said, “I have actually met Kelly and yes, I’d believe he’s capable of the acts described. I just don’t get equating enjoying someone’s artistic work or not with the details of their personal lives. ”
The problem is…R. Kelly’s music is ALL ABOUT sex. He isn’t singing about anything other than sex most of the time, and when he does that, I cannot separate his “art” from his rapes of children.
I just can’t.
We have to do a better job of protecting our children from the likes of R. Kellys.
I will choose one of the groups listed to make a donation.
Thank you for adding this Chicago-based org to the list!