By  Janelle Anise Williams
Over the past few weeks R&B mogul and infamous pedophile Robert “R.†Kelly has met severe public criticism for his predatory exploits and has had to cancel multiple shows, appearances and has lost many endorsements. Spotify, Apple Music, and Pandora have all removed Kelly’s songs from playlists. He has not been prosecuted or even charged with a crime, but since Vince Staples expressed disgust with Kelly in a Coachella interview that vent viral on Twitter and Instagram, the public tide has finally swayed out of his favor.
There has just been one question nagging at my mind since reading these headlines:
Why did it take a man to say what Black women have said for over a decade, to get the general public angry enough to #MuteRKelly?
Some people will doubt that Vince Staples being a man had anything to do with Kelly’s recent dethroning in the eye of the Black community. Many speculate that it’s because he was funny, or that he has a large platform full of young people.
I follow Vince Staples enough to know that his typical way of critiquing something is through satirical humor and oddball comedy. But it’s really sad that it took two minutes of satire for the industry and the public to start taking R. Kelly’s transgressions seriously.
Black feminists Mikki Kendall (@Karnythia), and Feminista Jones have been calling out R. Kelly steadily since they were young adult fans of his in the nineties. Other Black women have expressed the same sentiment countless times on social media. And every time they’re met with angry resistance from Black fans or deafening silence.
It’s great that the chickens are finally coming to roost; but R. Kelly has been allowed to prosper in the music business far too long, and I’m sure it’s mainly because his victims have largely been aspiring young Black female artists. He married a teenager. Urinated on a young girl. Kept a sex cult of “barely legal†women locked up in his mansion. A Buzzfeed investigator ran a ten-year expose last year that did nothing. But Vince Staples having a laugh during an interview at Coachella was the wake up call the world chose to hear?! Â
What makes the Black community come to their senses about the abusers we enable? Surely not the victims. They are “fast,†and naïve, and their defenders a nuisance—haters of a legend. Is it embarrassment? Fear of what the outside world will think? The white world? Perhaps all of these things.Â
Why do we and thousands of plucky white allies rush to #BoycottStarbucks when two Black men are led out in handcuffs. Yet, stop shortly after tweeting a few syllables of outrage when a Black woman is sexually assaulted and rushed to the ground by two white male officers on camera? Is it because her name was Chikeshia? She and her friend had “bad attitudesâ€? Her dress was strapless, anyway?Â
Chance the Rapper sent out a singular tweet the next day about how we needed to start talking about how police treat “our women.†I applaud Chance’s effort here, but sadly that conversation never continued. By the next week, everyone had seemingly forgotten about Chikeshia and moved on to observing the spectacle his mentor Kanye West caused with his ahistorical, anti-Black Twitter tirade.
Speaking of Kanye, the running jokes about him being brainwashed into the Sunken Place by Team Kardashian are not funny anymore. Kanye has been straddling that fence since at least 2012, and the need some Black people have to infantilize a grown man at least twice the age of Kelly’s oldest victims is nauseating and tired. Last year I might have said I wish Black women would inspire this much apologism and room for growth that will not occur from our community. Now I just wish we would stop with the lies.
#BlackGirlMagic, #RespectBlackWomen, #SayHerName (which has been co-opted, repeatedly and reflexively into Say His Name, over and over again) and any other Twitter hashtag has all been for show. We do not care about Black women and since we don’t feel like reflecting deeply on our collective misogynoir, the least we can do is stop the charade.
On April 27, 1962, Malcolm X said in a speech that “Black women are the most unprotected women in America, the most disrespected women in America, and the most neglected person in Americaâ€.
On April 22, 2018, Beyoncé sashayed on the Coachella stage for the first time and replied into her gold-bedazzled mic, “Ain’t that ‘bout a bitch?â€
Suggested Reading
“Dear Marooned Alien Princess†– Zahira Kelly, The New Inquiry (October 28, 2014)
“Misreading women doesn’t make Aziz Ansari a rapist, bu he’s still wrong†– Lara Witt, NY Daily News (January 16, 2018)
“On Suicide, Depression, and Loving Black Children†– Gioncarlo Valentine, Racebaitr  (January 8th, 2018)
My name is Janelle Williams and I am a third-year Journalism student at Sacramento State University. I am what is considered “too left†by conservatives and neoliberals alike (a Black woman who believes Black women, girls, and femmes should be treated as people and disagree with American Imperialism and Domestic Terrorism). My work has been published in Courageous Woman Magazine and Black Girl Nerds.
