Recent
conversation has been of Robert Kelly aka R Kelly on the Soul Train awards that
aired last Sunday night. I didn’t get to see his performance but from what I
gather he performed a medley of backyard, bar b que jams that had everyone on
their feet reminiscing.
I read
several Facebook post condemning the people that enjoyed his performance,
calling him a pedophile (which he is), a pervert and pure scum. The posters
stated that if we (people in general) like and jam to R Kelly’s music then we
are cosigning his pedophilia behavior.
It was said
that R Kelly had molested/sexually violated more than a dozen young girls
ranging in age from 13-16 years old (now to be fair in writing this piece said
girls did consent to sexual activity with R Kelly but due to they were not at a
legal age to consent, their consent is null and void. Plus R Kelly should have
known better due to he was the adult). He had relationships with these girls,
some lasted 1-2 years some were just sexual hookups. Some of the parents of
these girls knew about the relationships and some even took money and gifts for
their silence in the matter. With all that being said R Kelly when brought up
on charges of child pornography was acquitted of said charges on June 13, 2008.
In talking
about this whole situation I would like to focus on the girls, the lost girls
of this horrible ordeal. Outside of R Kelly being a celebrity, a grown
man/adult celebrity what would make a 13, 14 or even 15 year old girl engage in
sexual activity with him or any other grown adult male? It is said that children
are most vulnerable to sexual abuse between the ages of 7-13 years. We also
know that lack of attention at home can be a contributing factor in these young
girls seeking the approval and adoration of boys and men. I also recognize that
older boys and men tend to prey on young girls that have low self-esteem, girls
that have issues at home and girls that don’t have loving fathers or men
present in their life.
I read in various
post regarding the victims of R Kelly that they were fast/promiscuous and that
they knew what they were doing in dealing with R Kelly (him being a grown man)
because they lied about their age. That very well may be true but the one thing
that that statement is missing is that these young girls lack the emotional
intelligence to know that they are being used, taken advantage of. They don’t
understand that this so called relationship/sexual encounter is based on a quid
pro quo, you do something for me, sex and I’ll do something for you, in the R
Kelly case it consisted of buying tennis shoes, giving them money and spending
time with him.
We teach our
young girls that sex before marriage is bad, a sin. We teach them that their
worth is not in their body but in their brains but yet in still they continue
to find their worth in the attention of the opposite sex. It’s not enough that
mothers, aunts and family tells these girls to wait, don’t be so quick to grow
up, enjoy your adolescence. Now days love ones have to compete with peer pressure,
the likes of reality TV where most of the women are dressed provocatively, heads
full of weave, fake inflated behinds and the women fighting over men. That’s
what we as loving parents and family members have to compete with when trying
to raise and nurture confident, self-loving young girls. I believe we have to get back to the village
mentality when it comes to raising our children. We need more mentors for our
young girls, whether they are in our click of women that we associate with, our
sorority or whatever the case may be. It is imperative that we snatch up a
young woman that we see in need and rescue her from the ills that society and
lack of love and attention has dealt her. We have to put these girls on the
right path and show them that they are so much than sex, they are valuable and
they are worth loving.
I speak so passionately
about this subject because I was once a lost girl and I am thankful that there
were women that didn’t give up on me and decided that I was worth saving.
