To a large extent, #MuteRKelly came to fruition, albeit years after Kelly's commercial and creative peak, and sometimes in highly qualified ways. Kelly in New York Kelly's former manager, Donnell Russell, has been charged with making that threat. "What we are looking for, in our community and out, is some accountability from the corporations that support this person who has a 24-year history of sexual violence perpetrated against Black and brown girls around the country." (At the end of that year, Burke was one of the victims of a gun threat called into an advance screening of Surviving R. Kelly, and he has gone unscathed," Burke continued in that 2018 conversation. "We have seen 24 years of allegations leveled against R. This is a call for public accountability." (Moreover, in many cases Kelly's accusers have said that they were underage girls, not women, when they began sexual contact with him.) Essentially, he is the greatest example of a predator in that he went after the most vulnerable that no one cares about."Ī few months later, though, Kelly's management called #MuteRKelly "a public lynching," noting that "since America was born, Black men and women have been lynched for having sex or for being accused of it." At the time, #MeToo founder and activist Tarana Burke told me, "The reality of lynching in America is so, so painful and so real. We protect problematic Black men in the Black community, and we discard Black girls in all communities. Kelly and his victims are the perfect storm of people we don't care about. If the girls were white, every feminist group would be coming out enraged in droves of pussy hats to march against him. Kelly was white, every civil rights leader would be marching in every street in this country. In an interview Barnes gave to DeRogatis for BuzzFeed News in March 2018, she asserted: "We don't give a damn about Black girls. The most neglected person in America is the Black woman." The most unprotected person in America is the Black woman.
In writing about #MuteRKelly, Washington Post columnist Christine Emba cited a 1962 speech by Malcolm X: "The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman.
Kelly' Producer Dream Hampton Takes On Ecosystem That Supported The StarĪs those projects were being developed, a #MuteRKelly movement - founded by two Black women, Kenyette Barnes and Oronike Odeleye - gathered steam in an effort to pressure large entertainment companies to sever their ties with Kelly. Many fans today seem far less willing to overlook what they perceive as problematic content or context in an artist's work - whether it's related to racism, sexism, unfair power dynamics or homophobia.
In certain ways, the culture has shifted since Kelly last stood on trial. (That same woman, now in her thirties, said in 2019 that she was cooperating with federal investigators.)īack then, it seemed like much of the pop-culture conversation was primarily about Kelly and his alleged predilections and behaviors, and not so much about anyone who may have been hurt. Their subsequent refusal to testify, despite 14 other witnesses identifying the girl, seems to have swayed many jurors to acquit Kelly.
#R kelly afterparty trial#
That 2008 trial figures heavily into some of the current Illinois charges, which include accusations that Kelly and members of his circle intimidated the girl and her father, and persuaded them to lie to both police and a grand jury. The young woman who was thought to be the girl on the tape and her parents refused to testify.
#R kelly afterparty full#
A full six years later, Kelly went to trial and was acquitted of all charges. In 2002, in his hometown of Chicago, Kelly was indicted on numerous child pornography charges after a notorious sex tape circulated: it purportedly showed the singer having sex with and urinating on a female whom prosecutors said was about 14 years old at the time. Editors' Picks The Allegations Against R.
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