Today, I just finished watching the 5 Hour, Lifetime docu-series “Surviving R. Kelly”. And folks, can I just say ” W O W” !!!

About 12 years ago I remember hanging out at a friend’s house who downloaded the R. Kelly sex tape from Limewire. Shoutout to all the 30 something year olds who remember. If any of you saw the infamous video, you clearly saw the young girl was a minor, give or take 13 to 14 years old. Looking back, I’m not sure I truly understood what I was watching.

Currently, I’m not only angered but it truly saddens me these girls/women had to endure this. I recommend everyone watches the documentary because it opens your eyes to a great injustice. We let men with incredible power get away with murder (figuratively speaking of course); although, I wouldn’t be surprised if some have.

Today’s entry started out as a reaction piece to “Surving R. Kelly”, but as I began writing my mind wanted to tell you a story. The following is based on a true story about how we let men with power manipulate and control the situation.

During the fall of 2013, a friend of mine started working at a new company. She was the Executive Assistant to the Owner of the company. Her boss was very nice and showed a lot of favoritism towards her. She thought nothing of it, to her it was because she was new and he was training her. The owner would often ask her to work Saturdays and stay late to fulfill orders. Sometimes her boss made inappropriate jokes or remarks but they were often swept under the rug.

Soon enough the new quarter started and they hired more staff. Everything seemed normal even with the semi perverted under breath jokes. A couple of month’s in, one of the ladies from the new group brought something startling to her attention. The owner tried to make a move on her. Apparently, it wasn’t his first time either; he tried before with other another former staff member.

There were rumors floating that he’d faced some accusations before and those too were swept under the rug. Another rumor was, he had a tough lawyer that cleared him of the charges. He didn’t even need to settle. The new staff member quit a couple of days later. It wasn’t like my friend trusted a lot of people at work so she stuck to herself.

One Saturday afternoon, the owner asked her to go to the storage space and help him find some products he brought back from China. He showed her several cheap marked down wallets, he needed to take some in for a meeting Monday. She grabbed five of them and he held one. He then, told her “This one is for you,” she nervously said “No, no need; thank you very much that’s very kind of you to do that but I don’t….”. Her boss came in for a kiss and she pushed him off and went back to her desk.

That was the first time in her life someone overstepped their bounds like that. She was unsure how to react and she left shortly after to her house. With only 4 months working there she was unsure how to proceed. She had no job lined up and she was stuck thinking about the sexual assault that just happened.

A month later she left that company and started working closer to her home and at a higher pay. She never told anyone about the situation for the thought of being reprimanded. After the rumors she heard she was too timid to file a lawsuit. It was very humiliating. She felt helpless and emotionally distraught for a very long time till she told some of her close ones.

And now I’m telling you …

Don’t let money overpower or silence women. There are real situations out there that can hurt and traumatize. We should not promote these men with power that use it and exploit it. We need to give everyone a voice.

Speak out and tell your story.