by Neesha Powell-Twagirumukiza
Content warning: Mention of sexual violence
Kelly’s violations are well-documented, especially after the release of the Lifetime docuseries, Surviving R. Kelly. Where the docuseries renewed calls for imprisonment and was seemingly successful given new evidence of him sexually assaulting young Black girls on camera, his bizarre interview with Gayle King ushered in humor to his demise.
As someone who practices transformative justice/community accountability (TJ/CA), I don’t feel like laughing at R. Kelly possibly being imprisoned or rooting for it to happen because prison isn’t a joke to me, nor a viable solution.
TJ/CA is a set of community-led strategies that address violence without engaging the prison-industrial complex (PIC) or state-sanctioned institutions. TJ/CA recognizes that US police and prisons and the State are rooted in the surveillance and control of enslaved Africans and thus, aren’t designed to secure justice for Black people or other oppressed groups.
Instead of relying on the police, TJ/CA allows survivors and their communities to decide what justice looks like for themselves. It deals with individual acts of violence while at the same time chipping away at the systems of oppression that cause people to harm.
Because of the recent emergence of Black liberation activists whose aims of prison abolition build on longstanding movements to dismantle the carceral state, more people are politicizing themselves and others to realize how dangerous and pervasive the PIC is. Still, the conglomerate prison system is the apparatus that our society turns to most when violence happens, because there lacks significant and massive community investment into alternatives.Â
So when harm-doers like R. Kelly commit heinous acts of sexual violence, the only solution that’s usually put forth is sentencing them to rot in prison. But will putting R. Kelly behind bars bring healing and justice to survivors of his abuse, or is it just another victory for mass incarceration? We who wish to see the PIC dismantled have to ask ourselves this.
I pose this question while holding space and understanding for the survivors who’ve called for R. Kelly to be imprisoned—for them, incarceration may indeed be the best solution, or it may be the only one they’re aware of. Â
As a survivor myself, my instinct is to want R. Kelly to be cruelly punished, but as someone who subscribes to TJ/CA, I must remind myself of its tenets that we’re all capable of causing harm and that violent behavior often stems from trauma and oppression. I must remind myself that he’s human, just like the rest of us.
Thus, I’m positing that imprisoning R. Kelly isn’t a win because it’s an inhumane practice that reinforces white supremacy. Even as a prison abolitionist, it’s difficult for me to imagine what justice looks like beyond our punitive justice system, but I know that’s it’s my duty to envision a world that’s not yet here.
While transformative justice can be hard to envision, it’s happening right now in communities of color and has been for a long time, even when called by another name. Seeking help from a trusted elder when violence happens — that’s TJ/CA. Forming a self-defense group to protect your community — that’s TJ/CA. Bringing folks together to mediate conflict in a peacemaking circle — that’s TJ/CA, too.
Another way that communities of color have confronted violence using a TJ/CA approach is by engaging aggressors and their survivors in community accountability processes.
adrienne maree brown, a Black queer feminist activist writer who’s practiced, theorized, and written about transformative justice for several years, has seen accountability processes make harm-doers understand the harm they caused, account for it, and validate the experiences of those who’ve been harmed.
“This [accountability processes] can help with the long journey of healing,†brown says.
In an accountability process, both the the person who was harmed and the harm-doer are supported by friends, family, and/or community members to determine what needs to happen for the survivor to be served justice without intervention from the PIC.
What I know about accountability processes has been greatly informed by Communities Against Rape and Abuse (CARA), a now-defunct collective of women of color anti-rape activists in Seattle. I recommend their article “taking risks: implementing grassroots community accountability strategies†as a starting point for people unfamiliar with TJ/CA.
What I’ve learned from CARA and from my own experiences supporting accountability processes is that one size doesn’t fit all, mistakes will be made, and factors within the process will probably get messy at some point. An accountability process isn’t something you can quickly wrap up with a pretty bow — it may take years, or it may never be resolved.
Furthermore, you can’t force someone into an accountability process, so just because one party wants to engage in one doesn’t mean the other is obligated to do so. And after seeing R. Kelly’s irate behavior while being interviewed by King, it feels unlikely that he would agree to being part of such a process, even though it would recognize his humanity in a way that police and prisons never will.
Of course, unless we’ve personally been harmed by R. Kelly, it’s not our place to engage him in an accountability process, but there are TJ/CA strategies that we can all use to hold him accountable.
“R. Kelly has not been held accountable for his harms, ever. Every attempt has ended because there are people more committed to protecting him than protecting young girls. So I think the first step is what has been happening — cutting off resources and destabilizing his situation so that he cannot continue causing harm,†brown says.
This means when we tweet #MuteRKelly to call for an end to R. Kelly’s career, we’re participating in TJ/CA. And the Black women and girls who led protests outside of his studio in Chicago and his record label in NYC are powerful examples of folks attempting to put community accountability into action.
We can also share our ideas about what approaching R. Kelly’s violence through a transformative justice lens might look like when the topic comes up to help move us towards a collective vision. brown shared her vision with me:
“The next step in an ideal world would be R. Kelly having mandated therapy sessions with someone who understands childhood sexual abuse and adult sexual predation. He needs years of healing and accountability. A public apology would need to come from that healing process.â€
And we must consider ways in which such mandated sessions are not at the behest of the systems and structures that do not benefit us. We must consider ways that community-designed and controlled infrastructures for mental and psychological health and wellness are vessels where healing can take place.
It’s up to those of us who believe in TJ/CA to let others know that justice doesn’t have to be synonymous with police, prisons, or the State. These institutions don’t serve Black people, never have, and are the antithesis of Black liberation.
If we don’t want everyday Black folks to be thrown in prison, should we keep that same energy for a Black celebrity accused of egregious acts of sexual abuse? I’m sitting with this question as R. Kelly’s saga continues to unfold, and I’m eager for others to weigh in.
Suggested Reading
“What do we do with abusers like R. Kelly if we abolish prisons?“— Hari Ziyad, Black Youth Project (January 8, 2019)
“How do we maintain abolitionist principles in cases of sexual assault?“ — Simi Muhumuza, RaceBaitr (October 4, 2018)
“What are Community Accountability & Transformative Justice?“— Community Accountability and Transformative Justice Collective
Neesha Powell-Twagirumukiza is a longtime activist writer from the South who conspires in the name of liberated Black futures, queer & transgender Black/indigenous/people of color power, solidarity economics, and transformative justice/community accountability. Follow their musings and retweets @womanistbae.
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