if you blame “the white man” for r. kelly’s demise, either you’re delusional or you hate black women

Among all the vile and problematic behavior of grown-up men in our society, I’m most troubled by this reluctance and refusal to hold famous black men accountable for their actions. And few men have skirted accountability like R. Kelly. Until now.

The R.Kelly situation is mostly confusing given how many stories and allegations the singer has been accused of. But like any prolific predator, Kelly has a distinct pattern of allegedly grooming young (often underage) women and girls to service him. There are allegations after allegations from women who claim they were forced into a harem-type of situation where Kelly imprisoned women and forced them to have sex with him, stories that are being revealed in the BBC’s forthcoming documentary about Kelly, ” R Kelly: Sex, Girls and Videotapes”.

But what’s more shocking is that even those allegations ahead of the revelatory doc are just the latest in decade’s worth of allegations. The bottom line is that, frankly, R. Kelly has been accused of preying on young girls and women from the time he maybe (?) secretly married and underage Aaliyah during their relationship between 1994 and 1995, when the young singer was just about 15 years old.

What’s so irksome and unbelievable about R. Kelly is the notion that he has faced allegations of predatory sexual behavior and abuse for damn near 20 years and for some fucked up reason, we as a society and a culture can’t seem to collectively acknowledge the damage this individual has done to black women, let alone remove him from the cultural zeitgeist. Even after the revelations of his Atlanta sex dungeon, the black community as a whole seems reluctant as hell to address what is clearly a very disturbed person (allegedly).

So let’s get to the bottom line: if you’re still holding out support for R. Kelly until the day comes when he’s exonerated for the countless allegations of systematic abuse against women, you’d be better off admitting that you just hate black women. Because “Step in The Name Of Love” surely isn’t THAT good.