I’ve recently been vocal about the notion that people in our community like “a winner,” usually male, who have gained a level of fame and riches to become nearly untouchable and immune to consequences to felonious behavior. So much of what the black community’s pathology has been normalized, nobody wants to put “another black man” in jail, so many overlook, rationalize, and the BC community favorite, BLAME THE VICTIM.

I couldn’t help but notice a glaring difference in the way other communities handle their high profile criminals when I got wind that Jared Fogle, that “Subway Sandwich” guy who gained fame and fortune when he lost hundreds of pounds eating Subway, pled guilty to accessing child pornography and having sex with underage minors.

Today, Jared got the book thrown at him. He’s looking at five to 12 years in The Clink, and $1.4 million in damages to his victims for, among other things, bragging about his trysts with children, paying hookers a finder’s fee if they can facilitate him having sex with little girls barely in puberty, and being a general scumbag.

Richard Hite, chief of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, said cops were “dealing with a celebrity who had access, power and resources to do whatever he wanted. He used that to … take advantage of children.”

“I want to make sure we send a message,” Hite added. “You may hide in the confines of your home, on the Internet, your laptop and your tablet. We will find you. We’re looking, we’re paying attention, we will find you.”

Let’s now contrast that on how the BC has swept under the rug addressed persistent and provable allegations against R&B R Kelly. Both Fogle and Kelly seem to have a thing for 14 year-old girls, but the way the white community handled this miscreant has been VERY different from what we have seen play out with Kelly.

His list of allegations:

• Proof he engaged with sex with minor girls via videotape
• Sworn affidavits say that R. Kelly went to high schools to have sex with 14 and 15 year olds.
• R. Kelley allegedly impregnated a teenage girl and paid for an abortion.
• He apparently thinks urinating on children as sexually stimulating.

No one white is really touching this, and of course, because the victims were black and not little blond white girls, N.O.W. didn’t say a word and snarky feminist rag, Jezebel, has granted Kelly a pass. One reporter, who obviously cared more about the girls R. Kelly exploited than the black community collective said this, and it’s eerily resonating for me: “Here’s the most sinister. This deeply troubles me: There’s a very — I don’t know what the percentage is — some percentage of fans are liking Kelly’s music because they know. And that’s really troublesome to me. There is some sort of — and this is tied up to complicated questions of racism and sexism — there is some sort of vicarious thrill to seeing this guy play this character in these songs and knowing that it’s not just a character,” says Jim DeRogatis, who went down the rabbit hole that was R Kelly’s sexcapades.

In short, there’s a wild thrill that R Kelly’s fans are getting jazzed that he has been able to evade criminal prosecution, as if him being able to exploit poor young black girls is a revolutionary act worthy of a Black Power fist salute. It’s was the same when O.J. Simpson was acquitted–absolute GLEE that a BLACK MAN who is obviously a criminal was able to evade jail time. Worse, the 14, 15 year-old black GIRLS are blamed for being HOES AND THOTS. These CHILDREN are not seen as children, but Jezebels who tempted innocent men with their hoe behaviors. To hear black women talk about their daughters in such a way is gobsmacking, infuriating, and understandable all at once. No one let them be little girls, so how would they even know the difference??

After the wholesale apathy about Dr. Dre’s abuse, and the vile comments about Dee Barnes, a victim of Dre’s whom he beat to the point that she was going to die, I’m beginning to really absorb the depth of pathology we suffer, and how we behave like slavish zombies for any black male who can make a buck.

They are forgiven of any horror, as long as they MAKE DAT MONEY, MAYNE!! We’re so hungry for heroes that these men escape accountability indefinitely while they wreak havoc on other black victims. We fight for our right to be entertained by the people who beat us, debase our image, abuse our children, poison our street with drugs and gangs, and use their position to exploit the weakest amongst them.

Honestly, at this point, I have little hope. I fear we’re doomed.