The 2018 Grammy have come to a close and the spectacle that had so many watching dazzled us for another year.

Kesha’s praying, many claim, took the spotlight--a carryover from Oprah’s ‘presidential’ speech at the Golden Globe Awards. Oprah, like Kesha, sounded the #metoo alarm. This movement has been with us for only a short while, however, it’s emergence has taken down many powerful men with more to come it seems.

Kesha at the Grammy Awards

To abuse anyone; woman, man, boy, girl, is a dastardly act, and the perpetrators of these crimes should be punished accordingly.

Prayer, for many, is good. It brings healing. And in instances where it doesn’t at least there is mitigation against the pain.

Many American women, whether in entertainment, politics, or media, are claiming agency. Good for them. I applaud their efforts. And it is in applauding that I ask: “what about…?

Yes, what about the women, who do not have and will never be able to claim that agency so many prominent women have now embraced and proclaimed?

At the start of the Grammy Awards, former Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton et al, read passages from Fire and Fury, a book who flames are seemingly being extinguished by the welter of scandals and talking points and mayhem coming from out of the Oval Office. Soon, I am certain, most would have forgotten Michael Wolff’s juicy filled stories of President’s Landing. For in times like these, all things seem ephemeral, even CNN’s reportage on the slave auctions happening in Libya.

It strikes me as rather odd, or might I daresay hypocritical, that while the #metoo movement gains steam, the Grammy’s would include the likes of Hilary Clinton in it’s line up. She was secretary of state when Libya was invaded. And of course, her famous words, “we came, we saw, he died,” will ring through posterity.
But should one be surprised by this? After all, freedom, justice and liberty, in the Euro-American sense at least, was always only for a few. And even, in the case of America, many within its borders, to this day, are fighting for that agency.

What Hilary, Obama, the Democrats and the Europeans did, amount to crimes against humanity. Crimes for which, we who reside on the periphery know, they will never be punished. And so I ask: “who will be praying for the women being auctioned in Libya? Who will perform a skit for them? Who will dress in white and sing an anthem for their cause? Will anyone offer them tears and hugs while they wear lily white garb?

In Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Niger, and Haiti, just to name a few, wars being waged in some form or the other, continue to kill, displace and demean women, and men and children. People who just want to make it through the day. They don’t have stages on which to sing, at least not one where they can find a worldwide audience.

The men who rape them, and kill them and rob them of their dignity will never be brought to heel. We will never hear their stories. We will never hear their songs. No prayers for them will be televised.

Remember what King said: “Injustice anywhere, is injustice everywhere.” So, when artists lose conviction, and seek the company of warmongering politicians to express selective outrage, then I must say it is time to pause, take stock and ask ourselves. Is this what we really want? Prayer for a few and not for all?

Disclaimer: I do not claim ownership of the images and videos in this post.