Campaign to #MuteRKelly gains momentum, joins forces with #TimesUp women of color
The reluctance of the mainstream music industry to engage with the predators in its midst has been well-documented, from Kesha’s legal battle with her accused abuser Dr. Luke to the silence from industry executives on decades of allegations of sexual abuse leveled against R. Kelly. Today, a campaign to pressure Sony and Live Nation to drop the latter from their roster gained a high-profile new ally, as the Women of Color (WOC) of Time’s Up say they are joining forces with #MuteRKelly.
Calls for Kelly to face consequences, whether legal or otherwise, for his alleged misconduct have been gaining momentum over the last few months. It’s already resulted in the cancellation of nine R. Kelly shows, most recently resulting Kelly’s homecoming show at Chicago’s UIC pavilion. (Kelly blamed the cancellation of his Chicago show on “rumors” in a video posted to Instagram last night.)
The #MuteRKelly campaign began with a hashtag created by activist Kenyette Tisha Barnes, then grew into a petition that now has more than 65,000 signatures. There have also been in-person protests in Atlanta, Dallas, New York, Detroit, and Birmingham since the campaign’s creation in July 2017, according to Barnes. Referring to the recent allegation that Kelly purposefully infected a young woman with an STI, Oronike Odeleye, a leader in the #MuteRKelly campaign, says in a video interview with Care2, “we need to look at it as battery. Not as something that is a byproduct of [a] sexual relationship he’s having with them, but something deliberate … The emotional manipulation, the physical abuse, the sexual abuse, this is another tool of abuse he’s using against these young women to keep them under his control.” Barnes adds, “he will face his Me Too moment.”
The letter from #TimesUp—printed in full in our sister publication The Root—begins with a rallying cry for women of color to come together to bring each other’s long-ignored pain to light: “We intend to shine a bright light on our WOC sisters in need. It is our hope that we will never feel ignored or silenced ever again,” it reads. Citing the recent conviction of Bill Cosby as a step in the right direction, it continues: “We call on people everywhere to join with us to insist on a world in which women of all kinds can pursue their dreams free from sexual assault, abuse and predatory behavior.”