Sexism on Trial

This article is crap......a lot of black women I know, myself included do not support R. Kelly and haven't for years. I'm highly pissed off at this article. Black women with common sense like myself don't support child molesters thank you very much.

I too find the article offensive. The notion that I, as an African-American woman, have a responsibility to support any claim made by an African-American woman is ludicrous. This country was founded on the notion that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. God made us sentient, intelligent beings. In this age of technological advances, a great deal of expertise isn't required to create a videotape that depicts anything the human mind can imagine. Why are African-Americans eager to judge one of our own so harshly, and without careful consideration?

As children we learn by asking questions. This process doesn't change as we age. As a people, and a nation, too often our opinions are formed, and decisions made, based on snippets or sound bytes of information. On subjects that are presumably important to us; be it R. Kelly, politics or the economy; why are we so opposed to an investment of our time to seek out and examine the overwhelming amount of information now available to us? Why must we be labeled disloyal to race, gender or country; for simply questioning the voracity of what we're told and the motivation of those doing the telling? Could manipulation be the ultimate agenda of those who would belittle us for daring not to blindly believe? I submit that should we be unwilling to devote as much energy to the reasonable and rational evaluation of information, that we give to gossiping and denigrating one another; then we mustn't cry fowl, sexism or racism when we become the target of such attacks. Perhaps we are simply reaping what we have so often sown.

I too find the article offensive. The notion that I, as an African-American woman, have a responsibility to support any claim made by an African-American woman is ludicrous. This country was founded on the notion that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. God made us sentient, intelligent beings. In this age of technological advances, a great deal of expertise isn't required to create a videotape that depicts anything the human mind can imagine. Why are African-Americans eager to judge one of our own so harshly, and without careful consideration?

As children we learn by asking questions. This process doesn't change as we age. As a people, and a nation, too often our opinions are formed, and decisions made, based on snippets or sound bytes of information. On subjects that are presumably important to us; be it R. Kelly, politics or the economy; why are we so opposed to an investment of our time to seek out and examine the overwhelming amount of information now available to us? Why must we be labeled disloyal to race, gender or country; for simply questioning the voracity of what we're told and the motivation of those doing the telling? Could manipulation be the ultimate agenda of those who would belittle us for daring not to blindly believe? I submit that should we be unwilling to devote as much energy to the reasonable and rational evaluation of information, that we give to gossiping and denigrating one another; then we mustn't cry fowl, sexism or racism when we become the target of such attacks. Perhaps we are simply reaping what we have so often sown.

As an Aftrican American woman i am personally offended by this article. To generally lump one group of people together and to assume that majority of black women saw R.Kelly as inncocent before his trial. I did check in o the trial on occassion. The alleged victim said it was not her, R. Kelly said it was not him. The question your article should have address is, How can we live in a country that says that you are innocent until proven guility, try and convict a black man without being sure that it was even him on the tape. What if this were your son in this situation would you not want justice to be served.

Allison, do you actually READ What about our daughters? I mean, seriously, if you had actually read the posts and comments about R. Kelly, you'd have come to very different conclusion. If you simply gave WAOD a cursory review, then I would suggest you return and peruse the site at your earliest convenience.

You are simply wrong about the readers of WAOD and I'm just going to correct you so that you don't make the same error again. Stop generalizing black women and please stop thinking that you are the only one who feels the way that you do. In fact, you're not even the first person to write about as the blogosphere has been more active than ANY journalist or magazine providing an anti-thetical view to the black community's support of the pedophile.

Please do a better job of reseraching your sources, specifically if those sources are blogs BEFORE you lump them all into one category in an effort to bolster your ridiculous claims. Black who read WAOD have the good sense to be righteously ouraged and had you taken the time to read you'd know that.

I find this article highly offensive. Not all black women support R. Kelly. I do not personally think he is innocent, but there is such a thing as reasonable doubt. The prosecution unfortunately could not over come it. Also, just because most women in Kelly???s local jurisdiction supported him, does NOT mean most in the country support him. But, I guess saying ???all black women??? gets more attention than just saying the truth. I personally think that your behavior is UNPROFESSIONAL. If you had performed a national survey, you might have found out that most do not support the verdict. Most importantly, I don???t appreciate that you insinuate that black people are indifferent to criminal justice, and that we play favorites with celebrities. Black people can write the book on injustice; we know what it feels like to have been wronged. We are not the sort of people to just turn our heads on justice because someone is rich and famous.

I find this article highly offensive. Not all black women support R. Kelly. I do not personally think he is innocent, but there is such a thing as reasonable doubt. The prosecution unfortunately could not over come it. Also, just because most women in Kelly???s local jurisdiction supported him, does NOT mean most in the country support him. But, I guess saying ???all black women??? gets more attention than just saying the truth. I personally think that your behavior is UNPROFESSIONAL. If you had performed a national survey, you might have found out that most do not support the verdict. Most importantly, I don???t appreciate that you insinuate that black people are indifferent to criminal justice, and that we play favorites with celebrities. Black people can write the book on injustice; we know what it feels like to have been wronged. We are not the sort of people to just turn our heads on justice because someone is rich and famous.

I am one black woman who does not support him, nor will I ever buy his music again. I realize that there are numerous black men that our locked up when the "system" sometimes can work against them. However there has been too many instances where we turn our black on black women when they are the victims. The mainstream media certainly does not care about us. If we do not stand up and protect "us", who will? I am apalled that the victims mother sold her child out for money. This is the only reason why she did not come forward in because R Kelly paid the victim off.

What angers me is that someone can be found not guilty of a crime and yet they are still vilified in the media; I think THAT is criminal!

What should amaze anyone reading this is the lack of trust the writer of this article and those interviewed have for the legal system. R Kelly was found not guilty by the jury, not by some mistrial or by the release of some racial rants by a bigot cop. We should all hope that if ever we are accused of any crime that we too have a fair and just trial. Once the jurors have cast their votes and the judge accepts then that should be the end of it. Complications arise when the defendant is rich and the victim is poor. How does anyone truly know if someone is innocent or guilty? Maybe one proven way is by confession. With that said, maybe Ms. Harlins should be arrested for admitting to watching the tape since it has been deemed as child pornography and the person watching the tape is just as guilty as the person making the tape. Enjoy the lovely week....

Those women were probably happy at their daughters' new found chance to be in his next video.

It seems that his innocence has been overshadowed by notes of prejudice. Unfortunately, the only thing that people would like to hear is that R. Kelly is guilty, including myself- if he did indeed make this horrendous video. If he wasn't in the video, I feel for his long painful journey in the justice system. If Allison Samuels did not impress anyone with her article then I persuade anyone to rightly print their semi-opinionated views of race and politics on a national level. I applaud your article Allison not so much for the content but for your abiilty to express free speech and actually piss people off in the process.

FYI_Allison Samuels is an award-winning Newsweek correspondent who has covered sports and entertainment since 1996. Samuels is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists, the Big Sisters of America, and the UCLA Black Studies Department board of directors. She lives in Los Angeles.

First, as one who has observed the justice system from the perspective of a white family with little financial means, it is important to note that money is the discriminator there, not race. If you have no money, you are at the mercy of the system. If you have money, you can beat the system - but it will extract a high price in money. This part is not about race. Regarding R. Kelly specifically - he got off because he's rich. Some people continue to support him and most don't I think. And not because he raped an underage girl; I think it was the perversion of what he did to her that crosses the lines for most people. That's unfortunate that we rationalize in this way, but it is true I believe. If it was a filmed love scene with her, the reaction would have been different. Either way - let's move this from the realm of raciscm and poor journalism, to the issue of tort reform and providing level playing field for all citizens. Not as sexy to talk about but much more important.

I disagree with your opinion in your article on black women supporting R. Kelly because it was highly opinionated and based on your ignorance of black history and stereotypes. African-American women supported R. Kelly because that is what we do. It is called forgiveness, which is a Christian concept that has been historically significant to the survival of our people. Next time, please keep your opinions to yourself and don't write an article unless you know all of the facts and not just the silly stereotypes.

Allison Samuels, are you kidding me? Is it not enough that African American women have to deal with senseless stereotypes, that you would smear us with your ill-advised article. How dare you! Do yourself a favor and get out of the journalism business. Your name is already tainted in this arena.

Allison Samuels, are you kidding me? Is it not enough that African American women have to deal with senseless stereotypes, that you would smear us with your ill-advised article. How dare you! Do yourself a favor and get out of the journalism business. Your name is already tainted in this arena.