Hip hop artist Common says the Black community has failed the survivors of R&B singer #RKelly by not putting a stop to his abuse a long time ago.
Celebrities, politicians and other prominent figures are all chiming in with their thoughts on the revelations of the latest documentary “Surviving R. Kelly,” which details Kelly’s sexual and physical abuse towards underage girls through the decades. TMZ caught up with Common, who like Kelly is a Chicago native, and discussed his opinions.
“If it wasn’t just Black women who R. Kelly had been molesting and abusing, if it wasn’t just Black women, he would have been attacked by the system in a different way. Meaning, the system doesn’t have a value for Black women the way they do white women or other nationalities,” Common explained. “But let me say this: You know obviously R. Kelly from everything we’ve seen and what we’re hearing you know, he has some issues that have to be really, really be worked on – some deep and dark heavy issues. And you know, I’m not one to judge him, but I’m not condoning that ever – like ever.”
He then shared his views on the survivors. “And man, for the survivors, man I just feel a lot of compassion for them. We failed as a community because knew that these things were happening and instead of trying to be like, ‘Yo lets go try to resolve this situation, and free these young ladies and stop this thing that’s going on,’ We were just like we’re rocking to the music. I’m guilty of that too myself because I didn’t stop and speak against this,” Common said.
“At the end of the day he’s a human being, he has his issues and we see that, but I can’t condone that and I shouldn’t be allowing that to happen. We failed our community as Black people. I’m not even going to talk about what the system did by not caring about Black people. We should have been caring about our young ladies. But we’re stopping that cycle and people are aware and you know we live and learn.”
