I have zero tolerance for rape culture, pedophilia, and its allies. Z E R O.
We live in a society where a woman named Cyntoia Denise Brown was convicted of murder at the age of 16 years young. When she was young, she dropped out of ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. Yes, elementary school. She killed a 43-year-old child predator that she was sold to for sex at fifteen years old. She was forced into domestic sex trafficking. She was tried as an adult. She is now 30 years old and STILL in prison. Read her story. #CyntoiaBrown
Kenneth Sammons was sentenced to six months in jail for sexually assaulting a 3-year-old girl. He beat the child’s mother after she caught him in the act. Brock Turner was a college student who sentenced to six months in jail for attempting to rape an unconscious woman in an alley. He only served three months… and his father supported the rape attempt. Kenneth W. Starr was the president of Baylor University. He was let off for sexually assaulting football players and aggressively (nearly killing) a female student. By let off I mean, he served not one night of jail time, he isn’t registered as a sex offender, and he was demoted from the president of the university, yet kept his status as Baylor’s chancellor and a professor at the law school.
Robert Sylvester Kelly is in the same breath of disgust. He pissed in the mouths of children and illegally married a 14-year-old at the age of 27. Let’s just stop right here. I shouldn’t even have to go beyond this point. If you have any moral human dignity, you should understand at this moment. There should be no questions. You shouldn’t even need to watch the documentary. I don’t care how good one can sing, nor how much money one is paid. I do not separate the artist and the person and the art. That’s just not me. All of that is tied together. I threw away O.J., Kanye, and R. Kelly YEARS AGO, and now folk who actually knew the same facts that came out years ago are starting to agree with me in pursuit of bandwagoning. If folk didn’t know before, then I can understand. I can not blame someone for ignorance. But forcing yourself to put horrific truths aside to “enjoy” the music of a disgusting person OR not doing anything at all and being complacent makes me want to vomit. This is not “just music”. This is a person who wrote and sings songs about having sex with children. These are that you play at your public family reunions or when you’re about to have sex with a significant or insignificant other, all with the voice of a pedophile. I abhor to your silence and affirmation of a pedophile. Again, Huey was right.
Pedophilia is not funny, at all. It cannot be funny. It’s not meant to be funny. It’s not going to be funny. If you’re reading this and laughing for any heartless reason, you need to question what you see as laughable and what your boundaries are. Not at some point, but at every point, when truth is exposed to someone in a positive or negative way, we must discern our collective and individual support.
- This is my copy of R. Kelly’s 1995 self-titled album. Now I look at it with clearer eyes.
Arthur M. Powell II 