This article was written by a non black liberal racist...
The movement has pissed off Hollyweird and racist MSM because they cant control the narrative anymore.
So they do what they do best. LIE.
#Firstthem we not going to stop.
Tariq has responded to the bytch ass piece of shyt who wrote this lying ass article.
R. Kelly supporters are using #FirstThem to protect him.
Surviving R. Kelly is the docuseries that no one can stop talking about, for good reason.
The six-part Lifetime series, which aired earlier this month, highlighted the immense scale of the mental, sexual, and physical abuse inflicted on underage Black girls by R. Kelly. After decades of allegations without much consequence, response to the docuseries happened swiftly: The Georgia police opened an investigation into Kelly, his shows were canceled and deniedpermits, other musicians withdrew their collaborations with him, and most recently, his record label, Sony, dropped him.
Meanwhile, though, another movement has been brewing on Twitter—and it’s having a counter effect.
The #FirstThem hashtag aims to bring light to other musicians and artists, predominately white ones, who were romantically involved with underage girls in their time and went unnoticed. On the surface, calling out predators who got a pass seems valuable in showing the pattern of men getting away with harming young girls.
But the hashtag has since spiraled into a defense for Kelly, with many saying that the R&B musician is a “smokescreen” to distract from allegations of abuse against white men.
Though it’s not clear who started it, there is a website for the #ThemFirst movement that refers to the #MeToo movement as a “corporate agenda” that’s been “racially tailored.” It’s been rumored to be the brainchild of media personality Tariq Nasheed, as he has shared numerous tweets as well as Facebook posts with the hashtag, calling out other artists who have a record of sexual abuse against minors. (Neither Nasheed nor the First Them movement responded to the Daily Dot’s requests for comment.)
It isn’t that the hashtag is unfounded in highlighting racial injustice: Black men are significantly more likely to be imprisoned than white or Latino men. But the “smokescreen” narrative is problematic as it implies that Kelly—who carried on his abuse in near-plain sight for nearly three decades without much fallout—is now having to face consequences because he is Black, not because he has allegedly raped dozens of young girls. That isn’t to say white predators shouldn’t be called out and held accountable too—all predators should. But the diversion implies that Kelly should be protecetd and that his crimes do not matter.
In fact, Survivng R Kelly sparked a lot of conversation about the intersection of race, sexual abuse, and protecting (and not protecting) those in one’s community. As Jelani Cobb wrote aptly in the New Yorker: “There’s a gulf between the accusations directed at Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, and Les Moonves—wealthy white men whose alleged excesses were understood as a prerequisite of their status—and those directed at Bill Cosby and R. Kelly, Black men for whom success represented some broader communal hope that long odds in life could be surmounted. Cosby and Kelly know this, which is part of the reason that they were so effective at manipulating public sentiment around their various accusations.”
Then there are Kelly’s victims: underage Black girls. Experts who testified in the exposé repeatedly stressed that a big reason why Kelly went years without being held accountable for his crimes is because his victims were Black girls, for whom society didn’t prioritize justice.
The #FirstThem hashtag, in this way, takes away from that narrative by again putting the focus on “poor Kelly” not the young Black girls who were his victims.
Are R. Kelly supporters using #FirstThem to protect him?
The movement has pissed off Hollyweird and racist MSM because they cant control the narrative anymore.
So they do what they do best. LIE.
#Firstthem we not going to stop.
Tariq has responded to the bytch ass piece of shyt who wrote this lying ass article.
Crackers can't control our minds anymore. You pale sterile fakkits can keep trying tho
aint no fun when the rabbit got the gun
Violence can be a form of therapy in its own right.
