Kelly is a mentally ill individual and the people who let him fly under the radar failed our young black girls. I am sure by now you are all familiar with the controversy around R. Kelly. R. Kelly, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, has been charged with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse after being indicted by a grand jury on February 22, 2019. He then turned himself into the Cook County Jail that same day, and was released after a woman by the name of Valencia P. Love, owner of a popular brunch spot called Love On The Blu, paid his $100,000 bond. She claimed to be a friend of the singer and also owns a day care. On February 26th, 2019 Valencia P. Love broke her silence during a phone with Tia A Ewing, a well known journalist who currently works for Fox 32 News. During the interview, Love tries to deflect the attention from herself and Kelly by mentioning that there are women who have been missing since last year and people are more focused on R. Kelly’s situation rather than the women.

 

#RKelly’s friend that bailed him out breaks her silence. I spoke with Valencia P. Love for 14 minutes. She says the singer isn’t broke and she didn’t use her $100,000 for Kelly to bounce from the county. Here are notes from our conversation by phone. @fox32news pic.twitter.com/CvTblkyT2j

— Tia A. Ewing (@TIA_EWING) February 26, 2019

 

The interesting part of this is that R. Kelly still has supporters to vehemently deny any wrongdoing on Kelly’s behalf despite clear evidence that says otherwise. I noticed while reading about the story on twitter that many people were still saying R. Kelly is innocent, and were gas lighting the naysayers with the argument that white people do the same thing, but they don’t catch as much hate, or R. Kelly is only being “cancelled” because he is a black man.

Very mean and hateful people on here, our own wishing and hoping for the down fall of each other. At least white people will stick together no matter at the end of the day she is a friend no matter what or how bad it may be. She didn’t do shit

— MELODY (@melfinch82) February 26, 2019

And another user

I agree with what you are saying. People are wishing a downfall on someone else is just wrong. She did nothing wrong by helping a friend. I bet if this was one of their relatives they would try and have car wash to help raise money.

— Mrs. Renita Trinea W (@mrs2hott) February 27, 2019

 

I also noticed a lot of the people that were saying this and defending him were middle aged black women. And it reminded me of the memories my friends would share with me about their childhoods. Aunties, grandmothers, and even mothers sucking their teeth as a girl walked by in short shorts, exhaling something along the lines of,

 

“look at that fast lil’ girl. I hope her mama pops her for coming out of the house like that.”

 

Those same relatives not believing young girls when they tell stories of how someone in the family touched them inappropriately and writing it off as them being fast and saying maybe they’ll learn not to be that way next time. As if it mattered what they wore, my friends described to me that they would be dressed down in overalls or baggy track pants and covered up head to toe and still being touched inappropriately. My friends talk about how these experiences have scarred them and even alienated them from their families, while the relative that did wrong is accepted and loved with open arms. This just is not right, and this is something that needs to change in generations to come. Girls, especially young black girls, need to start being believed. If they say something is wrong or something happened to them, we need to not shrug it off out of fear it may be true, we need to spring into action and investigate in order to help them and try and prevent it from happening to anyone else. When I was younger, I went to a private school, and a boy had touched me inappropriately. We had been friends prior to this so and he had not done anything inappropriate before, so this shocked me tremendously. I told my mom and without any further explanation she believed me. I didn’t have to beg, or even explain right away what happened, she just hugged me and called a meeting with the principal and demanded the situation be investigated or she was pulling me out of the school. This should be the standard when someone says something happened to them, boys or girls, but especially when our young black girls say it because they are so often disregarded and labeled as attention seekers or liars.

 

 

 

People are also speaking ill of the underaged girls who voluntarily went with him and blaming their parents. It’s not always the parents’ fault, and I can say this from personal experience. Kids will end up doing what they feel is right for them, and yes, it is a parent’s job to guide them and teach them, but even then, the child may disobey. When I was 14 and got my first laptop, I started to engage in an online sexual relationship with a man who claimed he was 28 but appeared to be way older. I also engaged in an online dating relationship with a man who was 21 but again could’ve been way older. My parents always told me not to talk to strangers and the typical spiel about internet safety and as my dad is a computer engineer and works with technology, he was especially adamant about this. But I disobeyed anyways for reasons I still don’t know. I think it was a cocktail of the awkward stages of puberty and low self-esteem coupled with the clinical depression and anxiety I was battling. It made me feel confident about myself because in my mind I thought I must be really special if this older man wants me even though there are women his age he could associate with.

 

But as I got older, I realized how sick it was for them to be attracted to a teenage girl who took the school bus and whose mother still did her laundry. Now that I have reached the ripe age of 19, I wish I could have stopped myself from making those mistakes and going through that stuff, but I feel in a way it built character. I still do enjoy older men but in moderation, and it is not illegal anymore because I am of legal age to consent and do so. But even then, it’s still weird when I’m out or I’m on the dating scene and a man who is 30 and over tries to slide his way into my life. I’ve even gone out with a man who is as old as my dad and had three children, one of whom was my age. He and I never went on a second date. I’ve told my parents about these experiences and they were disappointed that I did this stuff, but they were just glad I had enough sense to never meet up with those older men from the internet. But they have created a space where I feel comfortable opening up and sharing my experiences with them. I’ve even told them about how I lost my virginity at 18 to a man who was 24. My mom got upset about it and so did my dad, but they were just content that I was happy with him for the time being and told me to be safe and protect myself.

I noticed in majority of these interactions, they could be classified as hebephilia or ephebophilia. Illinois Family Institute defines hebephilia the primary or exclusive adult sexual interest in pubescent individuals approximately 11-14 years old and is one of several types of chronophilia (sexual preference for a specific physiological appearance related to age) and ephebophilia as the primary or exclusive adult sexual interest in mid-to-late adolescents, generally ages 15 to 19. Kelly exhibits signs of both because of his attraction toward the 12 year old girl he was allegedly with, but also because of his marriage to the late singer, Aaliyah.

 

Hebephilia and ephebophilia are recognized as a mental illnesses, and many get help for it when they even start having thoughts of acting on it. R. Kelly was also molested as a child by his own sister, but the difference is instead of breaking the cycle and getting help, he chose to keep the cycle going and not own up to his actions. Because he cannot be classified as a pedophile because as far as we know, he is not attracted to pre-pubescent girls, so people don’t think his crime is as bad. This is also problematic because our society does not shame men who like teenage girls as much as they should be shamed. Because the stigma of hebephilia and ephebophilia not being painted as the awful crimes that they truly are, he is able to get a pass from other mentally ill individuals or people who don’t fully grasp and understand the severity of the crime. He is someone who is truly sick and possibly recognizes their actions are wrong, and who could afford to get professional help for themselves, but because of the people around them making excuses as to why his actions are okay, he simply does not get help because his peers have excused it for so long, he thinks that no matter what he does, he will be in the clear. But now that the documentary about his life, titled Surviving R. Kelly, sparked so much outrage and brought the situation to light, he may finally have to answer for his actions, and hopefully not only does he own up to his wrong doings, but he gets the help he desperately needs.