R Kelly Verdict: Black Men Speak Out

Spelman Professor and Journalist Jelani Cobb, a colleague and friend, shared this piece today. I am posting it in response to the verdict in the 5-week R Kelly child prnography case. View several videos about the case and fan reactions at ChicagoTribune.com.

I was appalled. I heard some jurors felt the 13-year seemed too developed to give her case credibility though she never testified in court and she denied it was her on the tape. What could the jurors do with that. But some are suspicious of the circumstances anyhow.

Check this statement out by Jelani and the brothers who contributed to BE A FATHER TO YOUR CHILD that I wrote about a couple days ago.

Dear Friends:
I am one of the contributors to the anthology Be A Father to Your Child, which focuses on encouraging healthy fatherhood development in the black community. We felt it necessary to issue the following statement and petition in response to the recent verdict in R. Kelly's child pornography trial.

Please read and, if you agree, sign and forward this to your networks.

Sincerely,
Jelani Cobb

Statement of Black Men Against the Exploitation of Black Women
Six years have gone by since we first heard the allegations that R. Kelly had filmed himself having sex with an underage girl. During that time we have seen the videotape being hawked on street corners in Black communities, as if the dehumanization of one of our own was not at stake. We have seen entertainers rally around him and watched his career reach new heights despite the grave possibility that he had molested and urinated on a 13-year old girl. We saw African Americans purchase millions of his records despite the long history of such charges swirling around the singer. Worst of all, we have witnessed the sad vision of Black people cheering his acquittal with a fervor usually reserved for community heroes and shaken our heads at the stunning lack of outrage over the verdict in the broader Black community.

Over these years, justice has been delayed and it has been denied. Perhaps a jury can accept R. Kelly's absurd defense and find "reasonable doubt" despite the fact that the film was shot in his home and featured a man who was identical to him. Perhaps they doubted that the young woman in the courtroom was, in fact, the same person featured in the ten year old video. But there is no doubt about this: some young Black woman was filmed being degraded and exploited by a much older Black man, some daughter of our community was left unprotected, and somewhere another Black woman is being molested, abused or raped and our callous handling of this case will make it that much more difficult for her to come forward and be believed. And each of us is responsible for it.

We have proudly seen the community take to the streets in defense of Black men who have been the victims of police violence or racist attacks, but that righteous outrage only highlights the silence surrounding this verdict.

We believe that our judgment has been clouded by celebrity-worship; we believe that we are a community in crisis and that our addiction to sexism has reached such an extreme that many of us cannot even recognize child molestation when we see it.
We recognize the absolute necessity for Black men to speak in a single, unified voice and state something that should be absolutely obvious: that the women of our community are full human beings, that we cannot and will not tolerate the poisonous hatred of women that has already damaged our families, relationships and culture.

We believe that our daughters are precious and they deserve our protection. We believe that Black men must take responsibility for our contributions to this terrible state of affairs and make an effort to change our lives and our communities.

This is about more than R. Kelly's claims to innocence. It is about our survival as a community. Until we believe that our daughters, sisters, mothers, wives and friends are worthy of justice, until we believe that rape, domestic violence and the casual sexism that permeates our culture are absolutely unacceptable, until we recognize that the first priority of any community is the protection of its young, we will remain in this tragic dead-end.

We ask that you:

• Sign your name if you are a Black male who supports this statement: http://www.petitiononline.com/rkelly/petition.html
• Forward this statement to your entire network and ask other Black males to sign as well
• Make a personal pledge to never support R. Kelly again in any form or fashion, unless he publicly apologizes for his behavior and gets help for his long-standing sexual conduct, in his private life and in his music
• Make a commitment in your own life to never to hit, beat, molest, rape, or exploit Black females in any way and, if you have, to take ownership for your behavior, seek emotional and spiritual help, and, over time, become a voice against all forms of Black female exploitation
• Challenge other Black males, no matter their age, class or educational background, or status in life, if they engage in behavior and language that is exploitative and or disrespectful to Black females in any way. If you say nothing, you become just as guilty.
• Learn to listen to the voices, concerns, needs, criticisms, and challenges of Black females, because they are our equals, and because in listening we will learn a new and different kind of Black manhood

We support the work of scholars, activists and organizations that are helping to redefine Black manhood in healthy ways. Additional resources are listed below.

Books:

1. Who's Gonna Take the Weight, Kevin Powell
2. New Black Man, Mark Anthony Neal
3. Deals with the Devil and Other Reasons to Riot, Pearl Cleage
4. Traps: African American Men on Gender and Sexuality, Rudolph Byrd and Beverly Guy-Sheftall
5. On Gender Relations & stereotypes (the issue is not limited to black masculinity and many women supported the R Kelly's verdict):
   The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes from Double-Dutch to Hip-Hop, Kyra D. Gaunt
   

Films:

1. I Am A Man: Black Masculinity in America, by Byron Hurt
2. Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, by Byron Hurt
3. NO! The Rape Documentary, by Aishah Simmons

Organizations

1. The 2025 Campaign: www.2025bmb.org
2. Men Stopping Violence: www.menstoppingviolence.org