The R. Kelly trial shocks us. Here’s what shouldn’t.

arranged to marry her so she couldn’t testify against him. The accusation that he knowingly spread herpes to several of his young victims. The accusation that one of the victims, then 16, was slapped and choked until she passed out because she texted a friend. 

But sexual assault experts say some revelations should not be surprising: that Black girls were brutally victimized, that many individuals around Kelly were complicit and that it’s taken more than two decades for much of the public to care. 

“Black girls have historically and culturally been disproportionately impacted by sexual violence,” said Indira Henard, executive director of the D.C. Rape Crisis Center. “This case is so powerful because it puts center stage the sexual violence that Black women and girls experience every day.”

Society has long failed victims of sexual violence. Rape, sexual assault and child sexual abuse are pervasive social problems, yet justice for survivors and accountability for perpetrators remain rare. But sexual violence experts say Black women and girls face particular challenges around victimization: They experience disproportionate rates of sexual violence, find it much harder to be believed and are often reluctant to engage with law enforcement for fear that accessing that system will result in more harm. 

More than a third of Black women have experienced some form of sexual violence during their lifetime, according to the National Center on Violence Against Women in the Black Community. One in four Black girls will be sexually abused before the age of 18.

The Kelly case may command our attention because of his fame and power, but the experiences of his alleged victims are not uncommon. 

It’s been years since the #MeToo movement exploded. Now what?

For every Black woman who reports rape, at least 15 Black women do not report, according to the National Center on Violence Against Women in the Black Community.

Black women and girls also face additional barriers to reporting.

“Because our assailants are often Black and brown men, we are afraid to call the police or we have greater concern because they too are maligned. They are also targeted,” Lovelace said. “You have the most neglected dealing with the most targeted.”

In the Kelly case, Lovelace said, his victims were dealing with someone who may be targeted as a Black male, but who also had structural access to power.

“They felt like there was no way they’d be heard,” she said of his victims.

‘This was childhood rape’

While the accusers in Kelly’s trial are adults now, many of them are testifying about abuse that happened when they were children. 

“What people need to realize … is that this was childhood rape. This was childhood sexual abuse,” Lovelace said.

Children are manipulated and groomed to trust their perpetrators and to remain silent about abuse. But Black girls can be seen as complicit because of what researchers call “adultification bias,” which projects negative stereotypes of hypersexualization onto Black girls and causes adults to empathize with them less than their white peers.

R. Kelly trial:Woman says star forced her to have sex with another man, lie to defend him

“We see them as wanting, willing and able,” Simmons said. “Even if, let’s say, they lied about their age, they pursued him, all of that, they’re still children.”

Jerhonda Johnson Pace, one of Kelly’s accusers, testified that she had sex with Kelly when she was 16, under the age of consent, though she told him she was 19. When she eventually revealed her real age to Kelly, she says he continued a sexual relationship with her.

Experts say to better support Black women and girls, there needs to be a collective acknowledgment that this abuse goes well beyond Kelly’s victims.

“Let’s just say some form of justice is served. People will say, ‘OK, now we can just go back to business,'” Simmons said. “It’s like, ‘no!’ We’re not safe. Black children, especially, are not safe. There are all these ways in which children are looking for love and attention and this is what they get. … Rather than blaming them, we have to embrace them, protect them, and hold those people who are causing harm, not just the person performing the sexual act, but all the bystanders, accountable.”

You may also be interested in:

• Cyntoia Brown, R. Kelly and the refusal to recognize black and brown female victims
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• America’s history of racism was a preexisting condition for COVID-19

• Microaggressions don’t just ‘hurt your feelings’

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