V.

You guys, R. Kelly is ruining my life.  Seriously.  In this particular region, he reigns.  His songs flood the radio, the homes and the stores. He comes spilling out of car windows. I can't escape him.  It's bad enough that I really do believe I can fly and I excel at stepping in the name of love.  You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't know that the Ignition Remix goes hella hard.  That man is musical maverick, but he's also the unapologetic pied piper of pedophilia.  He gives no fucks and he faces no consequences.   And here's the thing,  Black men have such a long history of being villainized and falsely accused that we feel a collective call to come to their defense.  We protect them at all costs.  Even at the cost of innocents.  Even at the cost of our innocence.  

We band together and provide cover.  We cover them in prayers and alibis and generational lies.  We blanket our daughters in blame and neglect and arm them with a insatiable thirst for validation.  We fatten them for slaughter.   We tell our girls that they must sacrifice themselves for the greater good.  For Chicago Step.  For a man.  For the culture.  We tell ourselves that simply listening can't hurt those girls.  We tell ourselves that there's no proof anyway.  We tell ourselves those girls were 'fast' and it's the parents fault anyway.  We tell ourselves that men have always taken certain liberties and  that this is a generation of whiners.  That if these girls - these children- are dumb enough to get themselves in that situation then it's on them.

But, one must wonder how the village thrives when its future creators are locked outside it's walls.  When the nurturers cradle the wolves and spoon feed them sheep.  Needless to say, I have a mini shit fit a couple of times a week.  I have to change the station when I hear him croon his grooming techniques.  Often, he's just gone from feeling on one station's booty to having sex in the other one's kitchen.  As difficult as it is,  I will continue to change the station and sit on my hands when Fiesta comes on.  If anybody asks you why I do it,  I do it for love.