Today (Sept. 24), two Black men are driving the algorithms on the app formerly known as Twitter. As Sean “Diddy,” Combs’ name or some version of it, and his likeness, make their way down the timeline every few minutes, there amongst the spectrumed commentary on his behavior is a tweet about Marcellus Williams, who on this very day, will have his final breath stolen from him.
Both men had humble beginnings, and while one was a meteor who seemed to crash out from the trappings of his own universe, the other never had much of a good life.
Killing an innocent man in front of millions of people won’t be a good look as a politician. Any good that you may have done for Missouri will pale in comparison, and your name will always be tied to Marcellus Williams’ if you go through with this. https://t.co/5Pknsp7KPP
— Jay. (@Annettea96) September 24, 2024
Now, they both sit in jail cells in different parts of the country, two cogs in the same machine; one, almost worth a billion dollars, is worth no more than the other now. They both sit and await their individual day of reckoning, one scheduled for far too soon.
Williams is not an innocent man, but he is innocent of the crime for which he is set to be legally murdered. In 2001, Marcellus was convicted of murdering Felicia Gayle Picus, a news reporter, inside her home in a gated community in University City, Missouri. Despite another man’s DNA being present at the crime scene, including on the murder weapon, Williams, who was already serving a 50-year sentence for robbing a donut shop, was convicted of the 1998 murder. He was convicted using the testimony of an inmate who stated Williams had confessed to him and from another witness who stated the same. Both witnesses stood to gain a financial reward and one could have possibly been linked to the crime itself and could have been using Williams to deflect attention away from the real murderer.
Diddy is not the first Black media icon who has been accused of sexual abuse. Unfortunately, he probably won’t be the last. Some of the rhetoric about his predecessors, i.e., Bill Cosby and R. Kelly, has been that holding these men accountable is just another ploy to keep a Black man down and that white men get away with sexual abuse all the time as if Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein never served time.
Many of these Black men’s victims have been Black girls and women, however there is never a consideration for the victims’ futures in these conversations. These are not gray-area crimes either. These are sexual acts committed on girls who are not old enough to consent or girls and women who are under the influence of drugs, often without their knowledge, who also cannot consent. For some reason, parts of the internet think that every single woman these rich and powerful men came across was ecstatic to have sex with them, that none of these women ever objected before, leading up to or during the act, and were still made to endure the actions. Girls and women do not get the privilege of realizing something is wrong while it is happening, they must know the danger exists, before they can even sense it. The abuser is never wrong for the situations he creates, but the abused is always wrong for being in the situation. In the midst of championing the rights of Diddy, Cosby and Kelly to be abusive because white men have done the same things without punitive damages, people who think like this are okay with bartering the emotional and sexual health of Black girls and women in order to protect the Black men who abuse them. The same people who will deny the existence of patriarchy and its toxicity—especially in the Black community—are the same people who eagerly ignore abuse while championing a Black man’s emulation of the destruction and lack of accountability caused by the same white male patriarchy that ultimately harms him.
Ironically, there is even less empathy when the victims are Black girls and women but even more feverish championing of the Black man’s plight when the victims are white.
The O.J. Simpson trial happened two years after the policemen who mercilessly beat Rodney King on video were acquitted. This acquittal sparked the infamous L.A. riots, setting the city on fire, and though the flames were no longer visible, by the time of the Simpson trial, the smoke had yet to clear. There was still a heavy smog of racial discord and rightful anger in the city—which not only experienced the King beating but an unarmed teenage girl, Latasha Harlins—was murdered by a Korean store owner—who was later convicted of voluntary manslaughter but received no jail time…the same week of the King beating.
Most of you don’t know who she is but she’s important. Her name is Latasha Harlins. In 1991, at the ripe age of 15, Latasha went to her local Korean owned food mart and never made it out. The store owner’s wife, Soon Ja Du, mistook her for trying to steal a bottle of orange juice pic.twitter.com/6hV4eIVGjh
— Kwasí (@KwasiMotivated) March 16, 2019
The Black community in L.A. and around the country were tired.
Simpson was not just a generational talent athletically; he was also super likable, so likable that white people forgot he wasn’t one of them. His charisma made him commercially bankable in the box office, as well as in advertisements. Simpson left his Black wife to be with his young white mistress, whom he would later marry and be on trial for murdering, as well as murdering her friend Ronald Goldman. Simpson had a long history of abusing Nicole Brown and getting away with it. Most women who are murdered are murdered by their spouses, not some stranger on the street. However, even with a low-speed police chase, cuts on his hand, previous instances of abuse, blood on Simpson’s possessions and in his car and home, a shaky alibi and bloody footprints, Black people overwhelmingly supported Simpson even when he didn’t support them.
O.J.’s freedom, no matter how undeserving, was a win for Black people.
Here is the thing about Simpson going home that day or Bill Cosby getting to live out his final years at home: their freedom is only their win.
Bill Cosby goes free after 60 women accused him of assault. I never wanna hear “but why didn’t they come forward?” ever again.
— Ben Yahr (@benyahr) June 30, 2021
Black men have the highest conviction turnover rates. Still, Cosby’s inclusion and Simpson’s acquittal are only the result of money and luck amongst an unlucky and often poverty-stricken demographic. According to The Innocence Project, nearly 60% of the people they have freed are Black. Black men still lead in the number of wrongful convictions. Meanwhile, Simpson, a Black man who eagerly separated himself from his Blackness, and Cosby—the king of respectability politics aimed at Black youth—were the mascots of Black justice, even if it came at the sacrifice of a Black woman or two.
These men have only championed other Black men in power and never the same Black men they’ve shared the dark with once the lights are out. They have never donated or raised any concern about Black men who have been wrongly convicted; they just rode their waves. Sparing R. Kelly, Diddy and whomever won’t stop injustice for Black men but it will continue to stop justice for Black girls and women.
Even when donned in all orange, these men still behave like a new Black.
