Tis’ an interesting experience to be a black person in a country where anti-blackness is ubiquitous.

“Turn your brain off”

“You’re looking to deeply into things”

These are probably the most common words uttered in hopes of discouraging the intellectual curiosity. Intellectual curiosity, however, is essential to black survival.

It was the intellectual curiosity of those who precede the black present, those who forged paths polluted with hegemonic potency, that made pro-blackness a possibility. It was the intellectually fearless who personified the audacity of the African in American and dared to survive.

On January 2nd, the second day of 2020, the second chapter of Being R. Kelly aired.

It goes without saying that I passed on viewing the first installment of this venomous series.

I have written on this topic before, so I will resist the urge to repeat myself. What I will do, is say that only in a white world will the black person learn to “Survive” a black man while simultaneously bowing to his white male counterpart.

R. Kelly is not employing people to murder black people. R. Kelly is not affording those who murder black people more dignity than the black collective has ever witnessed. R. Kelly is not the problem; in fact, his social lynching personifies the larger problem at hand.

Allow me to play devil’s advocate. Let’s say, for instance, that you believe R. Kelly is guilty. Let us say that to you, R. Kelly epitomizes the worst of the black collective. Even in this instance, it is imperative that the black collective not forget that the “worst” black person on earth does not rival the sins cast onto our collective by the African-adjacent.

In failing to forget what we as a collective must continue to remember, our intellectual curiosity engenders our interest solely in literature, books, etc that delineate how to survive white supremacy.

What does the cold world offer the black seeking self and esteem in a setting that lusts for their battered bodies as ornaments? Who will teach the beautiful black woman to survive systemic hyper-sexualization? Who will teach the black man his worth when the media consistently depicts him, his father, his brothers, his uncles, and cousins as worthless?

To survive white supremacy is to understand that every day is an attack—from the food we eat to the physical and visual texts marketed to our community. The black collective remains encouraged to consume harmful content, fattening and poisonous food, medication that guises dependency as relief, and material things to appease white supremacist want rather than black need.

The white world encourages black people to consume and consume until they eventually consume themselves.

The documentary, a psychological slaughter, is yet another means to lure the black consumer away from the cognitive core necessary to survive the wave of western thought designed to drown the alliance of dark peoples.

Our oppressors wish to turn the oppressed against the oppressed in order to afford white supremacy pseudo invincibility. This invincibility result from an ignorance anti-black agencts incite in the black collective. If the African-adjacent can convince the oppressed that they are not the enemy, they can continue their harm from behind a shield. 

If the oppressed see themselves as the enemy, they will never survive white supremacy let alone evolve from the misplaced wrath against one another. 

It is the intellectually curious black person that thinks outside of the cognitive compartmentalization that exists to strand the souls of black folk in the global racist paradigm.

To survive white supremacy, is to understand that anything helpful to black people will never make it on Netflix, television, or the big screen.

The white world works diligently to ensure that black collective finds peace when Bill Cosby, R. Kelly, and Russell Simmons are convicted in the court of public opinion, Kamala Harris is out of the presidential race,and Kevin Hart does not host the Oscars, while the Harvey Weinstein’s, Kevin Spacey’s, Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly’s, and every other faceless anti-black assailant remains free to rape our daughters, mothers, grandmothers, aunts, friends, and sons, while employing funds made possible by our ancestors to systemically disenfranchise our communities.

Furthermore, seeking to survive R. Kelly, or even affording this toxic visual text any viewing time, exposes a collective blindness to that which will only place harm where we must heal. This blindness enables white supremacists to celebrate their own survival at the expense of our collective sanity.