Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Micheal Jackson is going down

Conclamo Ludus · 12-01-2003, 10:34 AM

Here's an interesting outlook. Stanley Crouch's opinion piece on R. Kelly has a couple of things to say about M.J. too. The fact that M.J. leads such a bizarre lifestyle as it is, he gets a lot less flak from the press than R. Kelly.

STORY LINK

Quote:

Applause should stop
for disgraced rapper R. Kelly

Given his own upcoming trials, popular rhythm and blues singer and songwriter R. Kelly might hope he can slink through with his career intact because of the attention and repulsion Michael Jackson is magnetizing.

After all, in 2002 Kelly was slapped with a 21-count indictment for possession of child pornography material in Chicago and was soon smacked with 12 more counts in Florida. The trouble, amplified by an underground videotape of someone who looked exactly like the singer having sex with an underage girl and then urinating on her, brought down a storm of gossip, discussion, recrimination.

Then the paper chains were put on Kelly as the pariah for a short while. The singer went on BET and implied he was attracted to underage girls in such a powerful way that, "I been crying for a long time, even in my music, as far as trying to battle this storm within myself."

Yet just last month, the paper chains snapped. At the Vibe Awards in Santa Monica, Calif., Kelly received the R&B Vanguard Award for "continuing the legacy of R&B with innovation." His "The Chocolate Factory" was released to good reviews, and not long afterward a judge - obviously as impressed by Kelly's artistry as were the editors at Vibe magazine - gave him permission to do limited tours.

He recently performed at a Texas benefit for soldiers in Iraq, of whom he said, with no irony, "They have my utmost respect, because if it wasn't for them protecting our land, none of us would be able to live the way we do."

Perhaps, if he is guilty, Kelly is more of an all-American guy than not, since 66% of the children born in California during the '90s were sired by men in their middle 20s who had impregnated girls just old enough to become mothers, reported Leah Latimore for BET online. Latimore is correct in her assessment of the moral laxity in our society to such an extent that she can write, "I suspect the strongest reason for the lack of prosecution and parental outrage is that we have accepted the sexualization of children at younger and younger ages even as we loathe it."

But that is restricted to female children, which is why Jackson is in greater trouble. The hypocritical line is drawn at homosexual exploitation of children while pop culture roars at full blast creating an easily exploited American girl who is "a runaway child running wild."

Hypocrites all, Kelly's defenders have leaped back to the severe, contemptuous 18th century vision of children as miniature adults fully capable of willful evil, blaming the girls themselves for supposedly trying to be grown up, while the industry itself has to bob and weave to avoid being accused of the ruthless, money-driven degradation of black people, women and American youth at large.

If Kelly turns out to be guilty, I sincerely hope his fall helps topple the entire industry. It well deserves it.

Originally published on December 1, 2003