This is a good article on the topic. I have my own thoughts as well.
I've been mulling this over. He meant a lot to me and he meant even more to others. He was a great artist who made a huge mistake. But unlike Bill Cosby and R Kelly, he was not a serial rapist. In the rapey drug culture that he was surrounded by in the 1970s, his actions were seen as acceptable. He might have felt like he was supposed to or that he had permission. It doesn't excuse it, but it would suggest that changing the culture and the context can be as important as the behavior itself. To quote the bible, "If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell."
To my knowledge he only did that once. We have to take the good with the bad. His music doesn't redeem what he did but his actions don't take away from his music, or his litany of other contributions. They exist in parallel.
People are fuck ups. We do bad things. We have bad days. We make bad choices, especially when we are surrounded by toxic people encouraging it. He is in a better place now, and he will be judged by a God who I believe is a just and benevolent God whose justice is restorative. His victim seems to have forgiven him and I think we should also be willing to trust in God and that good will prevail in the end.
Submitted January 12, 2016 at 08:24AM by Unknown
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