R. Kelly, Cancel Culture & a Social Experiment

Credit: One901

My friends and the people closest to me know hovering social lines and boundaries is one of my favorite quirks.

For a little over a year, I have been intentional on doing a particular social experiment. What is it? Well, it's me requesting whoever is on aux during a social outing to play R. Kelly’s music. To add another layer to it, I will take over and play it myself if I am feeling good. Before you all get outraged, let me explain.

For me, my experiment is a way to gauge and observe what I deem, a wave of lazy activism and social advocacy. You might have heard it called “being woke”. I cringe every time I hear it used in a phrase. Phrases like “He’s so woke” or “She’s not woke enough” or the worst of them all, “Woke Bae” make my skin crawl.  

My issue with the term is that it has become a sloppy way to measure social competence. It has become a trend to know every intricate detail about every social movement known to man. Obviously, there are plenty of terrible things that could be trending and increasing your social latitude is a good thing. However, just like virtually everything else in this world, nothing is ever black and white. Knowing such information is not detrimental, however, the mental state of “wokeness”can be. Hyper-wokeness is nothing but mental paralysis. 

Shaming others for not being woke or feeling a sense of superiority over someone because you have read every Du Bois text or have written compelling papers on multiple Netflix documentaries, defeats the purpose of obtaining said wokeness. The issue beneath the surface is looking at social competence as a state of being or a destination rather than a non-linear journey. We never stop learning. We never stop growing. 

The word that everyone is or should be looking for is advocacy. Advocacy transcends just awareness. It involves application, passion and courageous persistence. Advocacy is public and private. Also, advocacy involves one of my favorite words, consistency.

So my R. Kelly experiment is not just an obnoxious question, it is a stab at the status quo. In a split second, a decision has to be made. In a split second, you show if you live in your wokeness.

Though, I did not mark down every specific interaction, I can only think of about three times where I was shut down immediately out of the dozens of times I have tried it out. Usually, everyone bops their head to the songs. Oftentimes, I would catch people reciting lyrics out of the corner of my eye. That trend would continue for the duration of the song, or songs in some cases, until one person would say something along the lines of, “Hold up, this is R. Kelly y’all. We shouldn't be listening to this.”

I separate the art from the artist. We all do if we admit it or not. We all compartmentalize things in our lives. We still consume brutal forms of sports entertainment such as boxing, mixed martial arts, football, etc., while knowing the physical ramifications it has on the livelihoods of the people involved. We still buy the cheap goods from foreign lands that have brutal sweatshops. We mentally shelve the way animals are mutilated for our dietary and cosmetic needs. You get the point, we all know how to isolate feelings or transgressions when needed. 

Do not be confused while I make my point. By no means am I supporting Robert Kelly’s actions. We are all well aware of the disturbing actions he has done, particularly targeting women of African descent.

In that same juncture, I do not think pro-blackness/wokeness and cancel culture are synonymous. If you back Issa Rae when she said, “I’m rooting for everyone Black,” that sentiment goes for the ugly moments too. You can't love fragments of the culture and the people who belong to it. Love for your people is not conditional. 

When I think of Cancel Culture, I think of essentially throwing someone away like trash. As if the person, thing or movement is trash and is disposable. So with the R. Kelly situation, yes, we still need to hold this man accountable and make sure he endures the consequences for his actions. But in addition to that, we still should make sure that he still gets the help he needs such as counseling, with love.

I get it, the R. Kelly's example might be a bit extreme for you so try this example for chance. Use your relationship with the person/people who raised you. Think of the worst thing you did in your adolescence. I am willing to bet my seat at my family’s spades table that you had your parent, aunt/uncle or even grandparent entirely messed up. In your own right, you deserved to be cancelled. However, if you were loved, you probably received an adequate amount of punishment, but still was loved and cared for in the end of the day. You still got the typical, “You hungry?” apology. That is how our love has to be for each other, unconditional and endless. Transcendent of the differences that we all might have. 

So that takes me back to my social experiment. Never feel like your level of social awareness or wokeness is predicated on exiling people that look like you. Continue to love and fight for the people you love at all costs, even when it is ugly. 

So yes, if you catch me on aux you might hear "Same Girl" or the "Ignition" Remix. Yes, I will question your entire marriage if you did not "Step in the Name of Love." And, your kids did not really graduate from grade school if you did not walk out believing they could fly. 

Stay Black,

Josh