It's a fairly unpopular subject I know, but it is one of those things in popular culture that strikes at the root of a lot of things I believe. As educated people we need to be serious about solutions and I tire of misguided outrage which gives us permission to turn out brains off in the name of presenting a pretty image. My beliefs stand up to facts and logic, I don't mean that people's emotional responses are wrong, but you owe the world some level of self examination.
First of all let me admit, I am a fan of R. Kelly's music. I think dude makes some good music, even though most of the recent stuff is more ignorant/ funny, I am cool with dude. It's music, entertainment is entertainment, I don't get ultra offended. However apparently that makes me a sketchy individual because now that there has been a not guilty verdict I should be marching around with such great outrage because this pedophile has been released and if you believe in God, Justice and are not in favor of raping black women you should condemn his acquittal. I am being sent emails with the so-called "black male" response calling on ending the exploitive treatment of black women like this is going to be a real Rosa Parks movement for Black America. I have lost friends for my position on the subject matter, but come on we people have got to do better.
R. Kelly is sick. He obviously does not care about sleeping with teenagers, he is a grimey motherfucker, there is no question about that. Was he guilty of a crime? More than likely. Was he guilty of the crime that they charged him for? That is less certain. Did the prosecution come close to proving their case? Hell no, the ran a trial based upon the emotional responses of the people who I have conflict with right now, who can't understand the issue well enough to prosecute it.
The point is that R. Kelly is not a pedophile. A pedophile is described as a person who is sexually attracted to a child. A child is described as a person between the ages of birth and puberty. Once a person has passed the age of puberty and are an adolescent or teenager there is a very large psychological, legal, and societal grey area that people don't like to deal with. In psychology the definition of an adult who is attracted to a person in this post puberty/ pre-adulthood stage is ephobilia. In the law under certain circumstances a person as young as 13 has been held to be an adult to face criminal charges, yet a person as old as 21 is not consider an adult for the ability to drink. A 14 year old can consent to sexual contact with a person up to 18 years old, yet not with anyone above 19 years old. In society, thousands of fourteen year olds are pregnant by men of all different ages, proms and school dances consistently add maximum age provisions because some people just don't see the problem with their 15 year old daughter having a 26 year old "boyfriend."
This argument has people accuse me of being petty. I am justifying a dirty old man sleeping and pissing on a 13 year old. I am sick and disturbing and I have issues. Why draw the line? Sick is sick. I have two responses. First the line is important because the super majority of people believe that pedophilia is wrong, when you attempt to expand the definition into fields that all evidence points to the fact is not a universally held belief you lessen the power of the term and you open yourself up to losing trials. Had the prosecution argued the legal merits of the case instead of trying to condemn a monster they would have won the case, but instead they presented salacious evidence with tremendous holes in it in the name of holding this man up as the face of evil. They learned the hard way that this view was not universally held.
My second response is the folks, particularly educated black folks need to get their heads out of their asses. I see more negroes walk around strutting with a sense of superiority because they have this degree or that degree yet whenever any issue comes up negroes pretend like their degree is nothing but another fancy accessory like their Prada bag. I am not saying that you need to necessarily agree with my argument, I can even give you a pass if you want to argue that the definition isn't important, but the concept that making a valid intellectual argument in term makes you the devil is the most backward slave plantation thinking ever you educated Niggas need to do better.
My position, so that it is on the record, is this:
1. I do not care about the jury verdict. Had he been convicted I would not be claiming a black victory, and I am not claiming a victory at his acquittal. This case has absolutely nothing to do with the underlying issue affecting the community.
2. Explain the outrage. People scream that this is so wrong, but I need to know what was so wrong. Is the issue that the age difference was too great? That the girl was too young? That he was too rich? That he urinated on her? That he videotaped it? What is the outrage people are feeling? This matters because if the mass coalition of the outraged people were to ever try to define their outrage they would find that their agreement was falling apart. This matters because I have to ask where the continued outrage was when the video came out. My opinion is that there needs to be an age set, like 16/17 which is a universal age of consent no matter how old the other party is. I also believe that pissing on a woman whether she is 14 or 50 means you are a sick fuck. People don't think about the reason for statutory rape laws.
If the girl needs protection because she does not have the cognitive development to consent then it does not matter how old the other party is. Of course cognitive development is generally an argument that requires a case by case examination and opens up the question of whether individuals who sleep with someone who is physically of age, though not mentally, yet not disabled to the point of currently being illegal should be prosecuted if they fall in the level of development that we are arguing is not sufficient to consent to sexual activity. The statutory argument is that a law must be passed for the maintenance of an orderly society and there is an age under which that while a person who could legitimately make the decision to engage in sexual intercourse should not have that right, similar to the right to vote and to drink. This is a law that people would support, even those who did not think that it was a big deal would be willing to convict because the "law is the law" and it is applied fairly. This of course bothers people because people want to protect the "right" I suppose for their 14 year old daughter to get busted down by her 15 year old boyfriend when neither are old enough to work in order to support that child. Of course supporting a examination of the law and its purpose would require people to:
3. Face the hypocrisy. Is that so? R. Kelly case shows the exploitation of Black Women and we must stand up to degrading behavior? Because BET doesn't exist. There is no song called Bust it Baby on the radio, right? Actually let me hit closer to home for my educated people. Its not all thugs and drug dealers who travel to Brazil and Thailand. It is not all thugs and drug dealers who keep the strip clubs in business. It is not all thugs and drug dealers who hit the club every weekend chasing every shapely body they see, ignoring every other thing about her until they can hit it and never call back. And it is not just the men, it is not all uneducated sisters and hood rats that are chasing every fancy car they can find. It is not all uneducated sisters and hood rats that judge a good man strictly by his income and objects. It is not all uneducated sisters that are filling up stripper classes like having a degree all of a sudden makes pole dancing less exploitive. Are we really arguing that had R/ Kelly urinated on a grown woman it would have been morally acceptable? No, as each day goes on we support all of the same ole bullshit that reduces individuals and their interactions to a collections of parts that has no bearing on who they are and what they think. Men are their wallets, cars, homes, and dick size, women are ass and breasts, face and what they will let you do and how easily. We promote this thinking in everything we value in our elite social life then when it bites us in the ass being pushed to an extreme we need to demonize an R. Kelly, or a Michael Vick, or a Pacman Jones because it allows you to justify your bullshit for another moment or two.
The underlying problem is that objectification and hyper sexual relationships have gotten out of control. Whether a person is used, demeaned and discarded at 15 or 50 there is still a major harm to the victim, and the abuser is not relieved of "moral" responsibility. You want to prosecute every person who sleeps with a person under 18? I'm with you. You want to boycott all music that sends a negative image or objectifies? Let's do it. Don't forget the drug deal music, and the 8 million shake your ass harder songs. You want to set a better role model for your friends and children? Let's do it, but stop cheating on your spouses, stop hiding money from child support, some the boys or girls weekends to Vegas and Miami where you fuck whatever, stop going out ass naked in the street. If you want to feel better about yourself by blasting R. Kelly as a deviant strain that is the root of emblematic of the exploitation issues destroying gender relations in the black community? Leave me out of it and come back when you get serious.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
My Relationship Story...
Ok, so constantly I am referred to as being anti-relationship. Anti-girlfriend or some version of this by so many people I know. So once I will try to completely explain my opinion on the subject matter.
The first, and last official girlfriend I had was my sophomore year in high school. She was cute, I didn't like her that much but she wanted to "go with me" and I didn't have shit else to do so I was like "cool." We will talk on the phone, and walk through the hall at school, and people will tell us how cute we are, and I can pretend like I am just so into this person that in reality I thought was a little bit petty, and that I knew had moments of pure insanity like getting in fist fights with her mother. But it was all whatever because I was in a relationship with a cute girl that gave me a little bit of status in the halls and I was down for the cause. Until the end of that very first day of school when I was standing outside with my boy waiting on my newly minted girlfriend so I could walk her to the train or something like that when this other cute girl that I didn't really know rolled up on me. She came at me with the, "hey I don't really know you, but I have been watching you for a few weeks, and I really want to get up with you." WTF? I have been in a relationship one day with a girl who is saying I have to work my way towards winning, and now I have one throwing it at me? What to do, what to do? Well me being an honorable young man who was taught that you do not disrespect your relationship, I played the second girl to the left and was committed to my relationship. Man, I swear the number of girls that game out of the wood work trying to get up, (mostly because they hated my girl I think) had me blown. Eventually, all of the things that I didn't know about the girl and didn't like about the girl got to the point where I wanted out anyway, it was all no harm, no foul but I couldn't help feeling like I had just wasted my time. I mean what was really the point of this relationship? I had created stronger friendships in less time with people that I was not "dating," there was never really any end goal in mind from out interaction, and I had pushed off other opportunities in the name of being noble. What exactly was the point?
Now most men come to this point of thought at one point or another but the conclusion they come to is to still play the relationship game but to just cheat if opportunities come up because in reality most of these so-called relationships aren't going to work. I am not on that, so I am basically really upfront about what we are. I mean why exchange titles because in my opinion titles no matter what our relationship is once you place it into titles become the bullshit that they attribute to that term. The fact is that if a title is that important to a woman she can have it, I am not talking about not claiming her and I usually would even hold you out as my girl if you are comfortable with that because its easier than explaining all of our business, but if you leave it up to me I hate the titles. The titles present this idea of stability long before it should exist. People get complacent too quickly and take people for granted way too soon and that is much more apt to happen when someone feels like they have a boyfriend that is committed to them as opposed to someone they are still trying to impress and date. Complacency is wack, but its the norm, and the other problem with titles and me is that just because another person has decided that they are fine settling for bullshit, if I let them have the title I am supposed to settle for their bullshit. There are plenty of reasons that are perfectly acceptable to stop dealing with the woman I am dating, but much less for breaking up with your girlfriend. Personally I think I am lying to her if I give her the signal that I am at the point of looking past certain shit before I am.
I know that people often believe that the issue is a problem with commitment, but that is not the case. Personally I don't enjoy all the back and forth of dating and hollering at girls enough to want it ever extended. Getting to know someone in the beginning is that same fucked up dance of the same bullshit conversations that personally kill me on the inside. When I am dating someone that I am into I don't and have no interest in dating other people. Most people that know me from the street don't have a myriad of stories of me out there hollering at this girl or that girl I am just cool, and usually it's because I am mentally off the market. I actually get there fairly quickly, that just means I want to see how this thing plays out, but I play it close to the vest because I want to let things develop without the pressure of knowing that I am potentially all in.
What makes sense to me is for two people to just chill drama free for an extended period of time and find out if they actually like each other before focusing so much on getting to know each other deeply or whatever other feel good shit people put out there. I just want to know do I like you, regardless of your ideas on politics, or faith, and family, do I like eating with you, do I like watching tv with you, do I like our life. Basically I just want to extend the amount of time that you are perfect, before I know some of the dumb shit you did in college, or something completely silly that you believe, it allows me to put it into a better perspective about which things are deal breakers and which are not. I have been known to cut a girl of things that some would consider a minor lapse in judgment, but that was easy to do because I had no glimpse of the idea that working through this issue would lead to happiness. I want to know I can be happy with you when all things are equal then I will know when the rough times come that there is something real that I am trying to get back to, not some random hope that we actually are compatible.
I think formal titles and relationships in the traditional sense do harm to the ability to do that. People spend so much time presenting their representatives and exchanging sad stories that it is difficult to walk away when it's just not right. Sometimes all the work in the world can't make up for the fact that you too are just not a good fit, but if your entire relationship is built on working to make a fit instead of actually checking it out to see if this works there is a problem. Too many times I sit around and end up in a conversation with a woman attempting to convince me that she loves me and that we should be together. When I get past the point of indulging these conversations I ask them some fairly pointed questions about me, about us, and about how we would work. They generally have no idea, people want to sign up for a relationship with someone who they do not know at all. They want to feel like they know you when you are actually less close and have built up less trust than they have with most friendships, all of this supposed connection is generally a pretense that people have produced to present themselves with what they feel is a more acceptable reason to have sex. I just don't think it is necessary.
Yes from the outside many of my relationships may look fairly traditional, that is why I know that my perspective in not particularly as radical as it sounds in print. It is generally more honest and based more upon actions and work, but that is also why my female friendships are generally different, or so I have been told, from other peoples cross gender friendships. I am fairly aware of when and how I fuck up, just as I am very acutely aware of how the woman may fuck up. I don't, however, believe that it is always necessary to bring it up. With each obstacle there comes a fork in the road, does this make me want to leave or do I want to stay? If I want to leave we can end things politely and there is no need to attack someone with the lists of what they have done wrong in your opinion, and if you choose to stay riding someone for their perceived faults that you don't think is that large of a deal doesn't serve a purpose either. The only time the conversation is important is if you can fix a pattern of behavior that will change your desire to stay into a desire to leave. I believe in marriage, I even want one conceptually, but I know that I would have a difficult time being married to anyone who couldn't understand how I see dating and relationships because it needs to be our own thing, and if veering slightly off the beaten path is that shocking now, you won't be able to adapt to the type of marriage I want/need.
But if you have that real love and you are happy I support you, I am all about your joy. As long as you are happy I am happy for you, my way does not need to be your way for anything in life. But understand that I don't hate on true love, I just believe it's much rarer in this world than people present.
The first, and last official girlfriend I had was my sophomore year in high school. She was cute, I didn't like her that much but she wanted to "go with me" and I didn't have shit else to do so I was like "cool." We will talk on the phone, and walk through the hall at school, and people will tell us how cute we are, and I can pretend like I am just so into this person that in reality I thought was a little bit petty, and that I knew had moments of pure insanity like getting in fist fights with her mother. But it was all whatever because I was in a relationship with a cute girl that gave me a little bit of status in the halls and I was down for the cause. Until the end of that very first day of school when I was standing outside with my boy waiting on my newly minted girlfriend so I could walk her to the train or something like that when this other cute girl that I didn't really know rolled up on me. She came at me with the, "hey I don't really know you, but I have been watching you for a few weeks, and I really want to get up with you." WTF? I have been in a relationship one day with a girl who is saying I have to work my way towards winning, and now I have one throwing it at me? What to do, what to do? Well me being an honorable young man who was taught that you do not disrespect your relationship, I played the second girl to the left and was committed to my relationship. Man, I swear the number of girls that game out of the wood work trying to get up, (mostly because they hated my girl I think) had me blown. Eventually, all of the things that I didn't know about the girl and didn't like about the girl got to the point where I wanted out anyway, it was all no harm, no foul but I couldn't help feeling like I had just wasted my time. I mean what was really the point of this relationship? I had created stronger friendships in less time with people that I was not "dating," there was never really any end goal in mind from out interaction, and I had pushed off other opportunities in the name of being noble. What exactly was the point?
Now most men come to this point of thought at one point or another but the conclusion they come to is to still play the relationship game but to just cheat if opportunities come up because in reality most of these so-called relationships aren't going to work. I am not on that, so I am basically really upfront about what we are. I mean why exchange titles because in my opinion titles no matter what our relationship is once you place it into titles become the bullshit that they attribute to that term. The fact is that if a title is that important to a woman she can have it, I am not talking about not claiming her and I usually would even hold you out as my girl if you are comfortable with that because its easier than explaining all of our business, but if you leave it up to me I hate the titles. The titles present this idea of stability long before it should exist. People get complacent too quickly and take people for granted way too soon and that is much more apt to happen when someone feels like they have a boyfriend that is committed to them as opposed to someone they are still trying to impress and date. Complacency is wack, but its the norm, and the other problem with titles and me is that just because another person has decided that they are fine settling for bullshit, if I let them have the title I am supposed to settle for their bullshit. There are plenty of reasons that are perfectly acceptable to stop dealing with the woman I am dating, but much less for breaking up with your girlfriend. Personally I think I am lying to her if I give her the signal that I am at the point of looking past certain shit before I am.
I know that people often believe that the issue is a problem with commitment, but that is not the case. Personally I don't enjoy all the back and forth of dating and hollering at girls enough to want it ever extended. Getting to know someone in the beginning is that same fucked up dance of the same bullshit conversations that personally kill me on the inside. When I am dating someone that I am into I don't and have no interest in dating other people. Most people that know me from the street don't have a myriad of stories of me out there hollering at this girl or that girl I am just cool, and usually it's because I am mentally off the market. I actually get there fairly quickly, that just means I want to see how this thing plays out, but I play it close to the vest because I want to let things develop without the pressure of knowing that I am potentially all in.
What makes sense to me is for two people to just chill drama free for an extended period of time and find out if they actually like each other before focusing so much on getting to know each other deeply or whatever other feel good shit people put out there. I just want to know do I like you, regardless of your ideas on politics, or faith, and family, do I like eating with you, do I like watching tv with you, do I like our life. Basically I just want to extend the amount of time that you are perfect, before I know some of the dumb shit you did in college, or something completely silly that you believe, it allows me to put it into a better perspective about which things are deal breakers and which are not. I have been known to cut a girl of things that some would consider a minor lapse in judgment, but that was easy to do because I had no glimpse of the idea that working through this issue would lead to happiness. I want to know I can be happy with you when all things are equal then I will know when the rough times come that there is something real that I am trying to get back to, not some random hope that we actually are compatible.
I think formal titles and relationships in the traditional sense do harm to the ability to do that. People spend so much time presenting their representatives and exchanging sad stories that it is difficult to walk away when it's just not right. Sometimes all the work in the world can't make up for the fact that you too are just not a good fit, but if your entire relationship is built on working to make a fit instead of actually checking it out to see if this works there is a problem. Too many times I sit around and end up in a conversation with a woman attempting to convince me that she loves me and that we should be together. When I get past the point of indulging these conversations I ask them some fairly pointed questions about me, about us, and about how we would work. They generally have no idea, people want to sign up for a relationship with someone who they do not know at all. They want to feel like they know you when you are actually less close and have built up less trust than they have with most friendships, all of this supposed connection is generally a pretense that people have produced to present themselves with what they feel is a more acceptable reason to have sex. I just don't think it is necessary.
Yes from the outside many of my relationships may look fairly traditional, that is why I know that my perspective in not particularly as radical as it sounds in print. It is generally more honest and based more upon actions and work, but that is also why my female friendships are generally different, or so I have been told, from other peoples cross gender friendships. I am fairly aware of when and how I fuck up, just as I am very acutely aware of how the woman may fuck up. I don't, however, believe that it is always necessary to bring it up. With each obstacle there comes a fork in the road, does this make me want to leave or do I want to stay? If I want to leave we can end things politely and there is no need to attack someone with the lists of what they have done wrong in your opinion, and if you choose to stay riding someone for their perceived faults that you don't think is that large of a deal doesn't serve a purpose either. The only time the conversation is important is if you can fix a pattern of behavior that will change your desire to stay into a desire to leave. I believe in marriage, I even want one conceptually, but I know that I would have a difficult time being married to anyone who couldn't understand how I see dating and relationships because it needs to be our own thing, and if veering slightly off the beaten path is that shocking now, you won't be able to adapt to the type of marriage I want/need.
But if you have that real love and you are happy I support you, I am all about your joy. As long as you are happy I am happy for you, my way does not need to be your way for anything in life. But understand that I don't hate on true love, I just believe it's much rarer in this world than people present.
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