From January 3rd until January 5th of 2019, the internet was swept away with the mini docu-series. The series is based on the allegations formed against R&B Singer R, Kelly. The suspicions started to arise in the late '80s and early '90s when we would be seen outside of the high school talking to young women before his career started to take off initially. It has since escalated to parents not being able to see or hear from their daughters in YEARS. Sadly, this is a 3 night special that you can only watch once because that is how raw and heartbreaking this documentary is. This documentary is coming from women that have been in his inner circle, people that have nothing to gain from outing R. Kelly and all of his sins committed against these young women.

R. Kelly is known in the black community as the go-to man whose music you can play and always have a good time with. You play some R.Kelly at a cookout and you will hear all the old heads say, "What Y'all know about this song, right here?" Everyone was stepping in the name of love and remixing to ignition. Everyone believed they could fly at high school graduations and we ain't see nothing wrong with a little bump and grind at college parties. His music has literally followed people into adulthood. R. Kelly always found a way into the spotlight and made hit after hit after hit with more top artists on his way up. It came to a point where everyone knew who he was and he ended up becoming a household name. We, as a community, built him up and made him into the musical icon he is today. But, with all this fame and fortune and musical genius, none of that stops or changes the fact that he is a pedophile and a rapist.

"OH NO! SHE SAID IT! SHE SAID THE WORD! SHE CALLED HIM A RAPIST! SHE CALLED HIM A PEDOPHILE! SOUND THE ALARM! COME ON, EVERYONE! PROTECT THE BLACK MALE IMAGE AT ALL COSTS! BURN HER AT THE STAKE!"

This is the reaction most people would receive the second someone says something negative about a black man that everyone loves and holds dear. As if, for some reason, he is untouchable once he reaches a certain level of respect in the black community. Let's not bullshit, okay? Let's call a spade a spade and be done with it. There are rapists and pedophiles in the black community. This is the worst kept secret known to man. Newsflash: Black men are not perfect. Black people are not perfect. We are still people who can be very flawed and very sick. In this case, R. Kelly is very sick. The women who were apart of this documentary have told their fair share of the truth and all of their stories and timelines match up with one another. There are people who are vouching for them and coming out and still talking about how this grown man is mistreating underage women. Is he the only one to blame? Not at all! But is he the mastermind? Absolutely! Now, let's talk about it.

For two decades, R. Kelly has been accused of sexually assaulting underage women. To put it bluntly, he was raping girls from the age of 12 to 17 years old at the beginning of his career. Remember when he "married" Aaliyah? Yeah? SHE WAS UNDERAGE! Aaliyah was 15 years old when he married her. The complications with that are, where were her parents? Her parents left her in the care of her uncle who was managing R. Kelly at the time. They thought he could be trusted and left their daughter alone with this man. In the docu-series, one of the women who worked closely with Aaliyah and R. Kelly said that the door flew open on the tour bus they were all in and they caught R. Kelly having sex with Aaliyah. She was 14 years old. She, also, got pregnant at 14 years old. He and his team "took care of it" and they were married in order to make everything look OK. Does nobody want to talk about how sick this was? They say that she lied about her age and that they had documents forged in order for them to get married legally. Are we STILL ignoring how he made a 14-15-year-old girl MARRY THIS GROWN 27-YEAR-OLD MAN? No one sees anything wrong him writing her song, "Age Ain't Nothin But a Number?" How this song was about a young girl "seducing" an older man trying to convince him to "go all the way?"

Also, I'm sure everyone and their grandmother know that this man was sent to trial because there is VIDEO FOOTAGE of him urinating on a young girl. You would have had to been living under a rock for the past 16 years if you did not know this. The girl in the video was under 18 years old, obviously. There were people who came to stand against him in court that identified him and the young girl in the video. The sad part? R. Kelly wasn't tried for rape or abuse or sexual acts with a minor. No no. He was on trial for possessing CHILD PORNOGRAPHY! Not for committing it. According to everyone who watched the tape, it was obviously him in the video. You could even hear people in the background calling him by his real name in the video! Then, allegedly, he had the nerve to say that this was his younger brother in the video and offered his brother $100,000 cash to take the fall and keep quiet. His brother refused. With the two obvious allegations of him marrying Aaliyah and VIDEO PROOF OF HIM URINATING ON A CHILD, you would think people would immediately seize all contact with R. Kelly and his music correct? Wrong. The black community continued to make jokes about it and downplay the accusations held against him. Why? This is a terrible disgusting cycle that we have in our community of protecting predators and this stereotype has to STOP.

While R. Kelly was being put on trial you can see people with signs saying that he did not do it! Everyone saying. "There are two sides to every story." There are people saying that he was being framed and people who are saying that he could never because, "where are the parents?" Little do they know, HE MET AND PICKED UP AN UNDERAGE GIRL AT HIS TRIAL! She was standing outside like every other fan who didn't believe he could do these things and then she, in turn, ended up becoming one of his victims. This isn't enough information for you to see that this man is sick in the head?

Please, understand and listen to me. In the black community, we have rapist and child molesters like any other community out there. There is no "trying to bring the black man down" in this case. I believe survivors and I believe people domestic abuse victims. His ex-wife was one of them and she has no reason to lie to anyone about what she's been through. The families of the women who are being held captive by him have no reason to lie. The women who left his grasp have no reason to lie. He paid for their silence and, being who he is, it was more than any of us could imagine. He tried to buy their silence and this time, they weren't having it. More and more underage, black females are being targeted by this grown man and no one is doing a thing about it. Why is that? Because no one will believe the black woman and the black community has yet to "cancel" the rape culture that goes on in our very homes.

I have talked to many of my friends, who are women of color, and many of them know of an uncle that they aren't allowed to be in a room alone with. Why? Uncle Jim likes to touch little girls. Can't sit on his lap. Why? He likes to touch little girls. Don't let Uncle Jim walk you to the bathroom. Why? He likes to touch little girls. Did anyone say this out loud? Of course not. So what do they do? They maneuver kids around the "rapey uncle" instead of putting him in jail for his crimes! How many times are the women told, "put on sweats when your uncle gets here! You can't walk around the house in shorts when men come here." Why is that? Are they looking at this child in something more than a child should be looked at? If that's the case, why are you allowing this person to come over your house? Why aren't you calling the cops? Why aren't these men going to jail?

The only answer I need to all of these questions is, "We were naive. We will do better. Things are going to be different." There will be no more harboring pedophiles and rapists from 2019 on. There will only be more and more prosecutions on men who commit crimes against our families and more importantly, our children.

Do better!