Epic Fail: The "Spectacular" Bust Out of Kiely Williams

Former Cheetah Girl Kiely Williams is a beautiful young lady who not so long ago was a regular face in the Disney lineup of young starlets.  She was part of a relatively recent history of young black women (Raven Simone, Kiki Palmer) who found success with wholesome shows aimed at young people from media giants like Disney and Nickelodeon.

She also appears to be a recent albeit willing casualty of the music industry's drive to literally and artistically whore out young girls. Kiely recently put out (pun intended) a video for her single "Spectacular", a sordid tale glorifying a drunken one night stand.  I'm not sure I've heard or seen something quite so worthless from someone who could have done so much better. Neither the song nor the trashy video are worthy of the adjective.




I was both saddened and disgusted to see this latest attempt by a young starlet with a prior body of work I was totally comfortable with letting my daughter watch try to run away from it.  This video and song are such a huge mistake in terms of artistic merit and business sense that its almost incomprehensible why anyone who gave a damn about her career didn't stop it.  The song itself is juvenile in its lyrics and its arrangement. It sounds like an x-rated Disney tune designed for teens overheating on their raging hormones.  The video is a train wreck.  It has the look of someone trying to be trashy but doesn't really know how, which I actually hope is the truth about the young lady herself.  She can't dance and they used a guy in the video who isn't particularly attractive.  As an exercise in provocation marketing, the entire video fails "spectacularly"  in its intended purpose, namely reintroducing Kiely Williams as a sexy hot adult starlet.  How the people responsible for directing her career believed this to be the right business move is simply beyond me.  How do you take a built in market of young people that have watched her for years and simply throw them away? What data convinced her management or her that she had some audience out there that was just waiting for this trash from her?

Perhaps its not that huge a mystery.  Artists like Lady Gaga don't appeal to me and the string of forerunners before her didn't either, but they are rump shaking money makers. Predictably, this bid by Kiely Williams to remake herself in a similar mode has been a "spectacular" fail, with pushback and outrage so severe, she felt compelled to defend it on her YouTube video blog:


She is a beautiful girl and its a shame that her business and career sense are clearly not as striking as her looks. She simply doesn't get the problem here.  Its not about shooting the messenger because we don't like the message. Its about shooting down trashy material that has no redeeming value from an artist whom we've seen better from and had every right to expect better from.  There was nothing necessary or laudable in doing this song and video.  They were a craven attempt to shock and to break into the big money world of selling sex and being racy for profit. The problem for Kiely is, you can buy that product elsewhere and done better.

Kiely made a choice to go this route. She didn't have to.  You'd think she would have taken the lesson from Lisa Bonet's career disaster with the movie Angel Heart . Other stars have taken a pass on this dead end approach to showbiz fame, most notably Raven Simone and Kiki Palmer.  Both of these women have built on the platform of their prior work without whoring themselves out. In Kiki's case, she actively rebelled when  Atlantic Records was pushing to bust her out with suggestive lyrics and trashy material. So even though her label was probably gung ho for this trash, she didn't have to consent to be part of it.

The pushback and outrage Kiely has received is well deserved and we can only hope she and her label figure out this this is a dead end.   Whats your reaction to this mess? Did your kids watch Kiely as a Cheetah Girl? Why can't the music industry and artists coming out of the family fare sector manage this transition without it becoming a race to the bottom?

Another Sexting Scandal in Detroit?

I wonder if the extent, scope and breadth of the casual culture of corruption that existed among the black elite during the Kilpatrick years will ever be completely known to the public. Kwame Kilpatrick's text messages appear to be offering another window on the kinds of shenanigans he was getting up to. The Detroit News is reporting today on the revelation of a relationship of a personal nature between Kwame Kilpatrick and Sheryl Robinson Wood, a partner in Venable LLP, a business law firm based in Baltimore and with offices in D.C. and elsewhere. Wood was the monitor of a consent decree entered into between the City of Detroit and the Justice Department regarding problems with the Detroit criminal justice system's handling of prisoners. Reportedly paid $287.00/hr, Wood was paid $10 million dollars through 2006 for her work as monitor of the consent decree.

Kilpatrick lobbied hard for the appointment of Wood to the monitor position, according to City Council members. The text messages, which have not been released to the public, reportedly indicate an inappropriate personal relationship between Wood and Kilpatrick and some exchange of information regarding the litigation surrounding the consent decree. References to going to dinner are apparently included in the texts.

The text messages are in the possession of the U.S. Dept. of Justice and confirm that there is an ongoing federal investigation into Kilpatrick and corruption and I'm willing to bet right now that this is not going to be the only shady set of circumstances to emerge from that investigation. The texts and apparently statements and admissions from Wood herself appear to be pretty damning. According to the Maryland Monitor;

"In an order filed Friday, Judge Julian Abele Cook Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan wrote that he had learned through “certain documents” and a subsequent conversation with Robinson Wood that she “had engaged in conduct which was totally inconsistent with the terms and conditions of the two Consent Judgments in this litigation.”

“Specifically, it has now become readily apparent to the Court that the Monitor had engaged in undisclosed communications, as well as meetings of a personal nature, with the former City of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick during the term of the Consent Judgments, which included inappropriate discussions with him about this lawsuit,” Cook wrote. “Under these circumstances, the Court finds that it is absolutely necessary to suspend all monitoring of this case immediately.”

This looks as though it may be another scandal replete with the same sort of tawdry elements that were present in the relationship of Christine Beatty and Kilpatrick. If so, it will be another cautionary tale for professional black women about the decisions they make and could become a story every bit as tragic in terms of its impact on a family. Ms. Wood is married to Wesley Wood, a business owner and candidate for the State House in the 44th District of Maryland. They have two young children. Like Beatty, this may end up another case where we are left wondering, "what was she thinking" and "what the heck was Kilpatrick doing to make educated, intelligent, married, professional black women with young children behave so foolishly?".

However, those questions are really only the titillating eye candy on the surface of this mess. The real question that should be raised is how black electorates in Detroit and elsewhere seem unable to muster the will to hold accountable in any way elected officials they know are dirty.

Plan B is the equivalent of an F - Failure

Crossposted from A Work In Progress - (Yes Villager, Alaine does post). As always, she takes mindshare.

Plan B?

The morning-after pill -- made by Duramed, a subsidiary of Barr Pharmaceuticals -- is intended to prevent pregnancy after unprotected sex. It works by stopping ovulation and decreasing the chances that a fertilized egg will attach to the uterus. When used within 72 hours of unprotected sex, it can lower the risk of pregnancy by almost 90 percent, the maker says.

The casual nature surrounding the Plan B pill is extremely interesting to me. The pill will be available to "women age 17 and older" the FDA announced today. What child do you know classifies as a woman at age 17. I'm not even opening the conversation for true debate - I'm really just reflecting on what I know to be the case. Every memory of being 17 reminds me that 17 year olds are not women - they are children in more mature bodies. When I look around at the family members, church members, neighbors and friends who are 17, they too are not women. Young women in training maybe, but do we want Plan B to be part of their educational process?

For the most part, we're talking about young people who still rely on their parents for food, clothing and shelter. When, and if they work, they earn what my mother used to affectionately call "play money." Even when I worked as a young "woman" I wasn't responsible for my living expenses and upkeep, I was really just offsetting the tremendous expenses I was incurring. When I look at who I dated, the decisions I made and the person I thought I wanted to be - I realize that I have evolved into a much different person. Thank God. Instead of allowing young girls the time, space and ability to evolve into who they aspire to be, we have created a society that believes fast and easy is the answer for everything. And we're producing a generation of fast. and easy.

Planned Parenthood and every group that supports them may very well consider this a victory, which is a sad commentary on our evolution as a society and a community anyway. The real concern that I have, however, rests with the false premises associated with pseudo abortion as a family planning method. Since when does someone who doesn't qualify as an adult in any other context become woman enough to obtain medical treatment without parental consent? At 17 I had already graduated from high school, started college and moved into my "higher education experience". At that time I couldn't get an antibiotic without using the insurance card that was directly tied to the medical coverage my mother paid for. Allergy medicine required authorization. How in the world do we go from that to Plan B.

I surely wish we'd write more articles about Plan A. I imagine Plan B, Plan C and Plan D could have many alternatives other than the "Oops pill." Oops I shouldn't have had unprotected sex, so let me ingest an emergency (cough) contraception (cough) pill (cough), so that I don't have any of the consequences. If we continue to believe that the only damage done by poor judgment is physical, we are doing a disservice to the young ladies we are bringing up as the next generation. We have authored and labeled alternatives as if we are oblivious to the historical, cultural, societal, personal, emotional and financial implications of the choices being made. I know that someone will write, or think, its a woman's choice. I dare say, we aren't talking about women at all. This isn't a choice in my book - plan B offers more stunted growth in decision making. No wonder we can't problem solve or plan strategically, from an early age we're taught that there are no consequences to our choices.

We live in an oversexed society that trains young girls from birth that their value is tied to their sexuality and virtue, or lack thereof. When they are tweens we are preparing them for being teens. The new teen looks like the equivalent of your average 20 something - with less fashion taste, and even less sense. We try to make it better by saying that 17 year olds are women and spouting about their rights. With rights come responsibility, and I don't see very many children at age 17 being ready for all of those either. What can we expect of the women we are raising, when Plan B is covered in the media like something to celebrate as a culture. Plan A could be Abstinence. or Adoption. or Academics. or Athletics. or Aspirations. or the ability to actually grow up.

A better name for Plan B would be Plan F - we keep failing our girls.

Other Shoe Dropping on Kwame's Hot Mess

Further proof that Mayor Kilpatrick considers the coffers and resources of Detroit to be synonymous with his own is on display in the Detroit Free Press today. The Freep reports

On Tuesday, Wayne County Circuit Judge Robert Colombo Jr. granted a Free Press request to release secret settlement documents under the Freedom of Information Act. City officials initially claimed no such records existed, and now argue they should remain private.

The judge also unsealed the transcript of a five-hour deposition Stefani gave to newspaper lawyers last week in which he detailed negotiations between him and the mayor's lawyers last October and November.

The judge said the records in question were clearly public property.

Now you know that last statement means nothing to this corrupt administration. Kwame has directed city attorneys to appeal the unsealing of the documents. Reached for comment by reporters in Washington, Kwame "Playa" Kilpatrick responded

"We want the public to have all the information the public wants to have,"

We also want to make sure that we understand what the FOIA is all about -- that it's about private issues that go on in a lawsuit,"

Is that priceless or what? What private issues? Oh, you mean like you screwing your chief of staff, the wife of a personal friend you went to high school with? Or the $9.5 million the city has paid to cover it up? One of those was private, I'll give you that much. But it ceased to be so when you paid out $9.5 million in Detroit taxpayer money to hush it up. Now, the citizens of Detroit own the rights to that story Pla--, er I mean Mayor.

Its just another data point proving the corruptness of this administration in Detroit and the foolishness of black folks if its tolerated. It ain't just Kwame. He has partners in foolishness. Apologist in chief for this sorry mess is Detroit Corporate Counsel Sharon McPhail. She was busy on the radio today accusing the Free Press of a vendetta and the attorney for the cops, Mike Stefani, of extortion. Well, now the shoes are dropping. Tommorow Judge Columbo releases the documents but the Freep is already reporting their content: the mayor signed the $9 million settlement to cover up his affair. But the BS train is coming to a stop. Whats in the secret agreement? The key record is a Nov. 1 document, marked “Confidential Agreement,” which Kilpatrick and Beatty personally signed, along with the cops’ lawyer, Mike Stefani, to conceal the text messages. The messages remained secret until January, when the Free Press published excerpts from nearly 14,000 texts received and sent from Beatty’s pager. The agreement requires Stefani, and his clients, former police officers Gary Brown, Harold Nelthrope and Walter Harris, to never speak of the messages again.
A violation of the confidential agreement required that the former cops would pay back the money. This document, which city officials repeatedly said did not exist, was withheld from the Free Press and perhaps as well from City Council when they gave their approval to the settlement. McPhail insists "No secret deals exist or have ever existed. The possibility that personal documents...might become public would have a chilling affect on any mediation," she said" Personal documents? Because you see, Kwame has given up fighting the release of the confidential agreement, but he is fighting release of other docs, so clearly there is some more mess thats being hidden.

The plots getting thicker too. Council President Ken Cockrel, the new mayor if Kwame is turned out of office, may have decided that he'd like to have the job. Today, he introduced a resolution calling on City Council to hire a special counsel to represent the city’s interest in any potential appeal of the judge’s order to release secret settlement documents in the whistle-blower lawsuit. "Our attorney would more or less be filing a court pleading on council's behalf saying we do not believe an appeal is in the best interest of the city of Detroit and that an appeal should not be granted,” Cockrel said of the special counsel. “It gives us a certain legal standing." "I think the law department has a clear conflict of interest," he said. "On paper, they represent the city of Detroit, which means council and the mayor. But on this issue, I don't believe the law department can serve two masters."

So its dropping like its hot in Detroit. Ken Cockrel is making his move, the settlement papers will be released soon, and we have not yet heard anything further from prosecutor Kim Worthy about perjury or other matters. As more of Kwame's outrageous behavior and that of his corrupt cronies surfaces, lets hope that the citizens of Detroit will turn him out of office.

Kwame Kilpatrick: Poster Child for the Failure of Black Accountability

I lived in Metro Detroit for eight years, a time span that included Mayor Archer's second term and Kwame Kilpatrick's first. Detroit has been the nightmare scenario of white flight, ineffective black political rule, racial polarization and urban decay for better than 20 years. The city has a history and well known status as the most segregated city in America. Sadly, that racial legacy and present day context has been the excuse for a low standard of accountability when it comes to Detroit's black political leadership. The latest embarrassment is the now publicly outed sordid extramarital affair between Mayor Kilpatrick and Chief of Staff Christine Beatty.

It was an affair those in the know and among Kwame's security detail knew about and one of those open secrets the rest of the city suspected. It became public knowledge for sure when text messages were revealed which confirmed the affair. The seeds of Kwame's undoing began with a pair of police officers that sued him and the city for alleged violations of the state’s Whistleblower Protection Act. The suits were brought by Officer Harold Nelthrope, a former mayoral bodyguard, and Gary Brown, a former deputy chief who previously headed the Police Department’s Internal Affairs Unit. Brown says he was fired for letting members of his unit investigate Nelthrope’s allegations and Nelthrope said that Kwame violated whistle blower laws by outing him and slandering him in retaliation.

Nelthrope approached Internal Affairs, known as the Professional Accountability Bureau, with allegations that some members of the mayor’s security team were getting paid for overtime hours they didn’t work, as well as other alleged transgressions. He also reported rumors of a wild party at the mayoral mansion involving strippers, one of whom was allegedly assaulted by the mayor’s wife, Carlita Kilpatrick who supposedly walked in on a lap dance Kwame was enjoying. Deputy Chief Gary Brown pursued an investigation into Nelthrope's claims about the overtime as well as the party rumors, a path certain to bring him into direct conflict with the Mayor. In responding to the allegations, Kwame identified Nelthrope publicly, even though his identity by law should have been confidential. The mayor called his allegations false and publicly said he was a liar and that he hoped Nelthrope's family was listening.

Kwame's counterattack was hard core and revealing of his character. He told the then Police Chief, Jerry Oliver, ( a man universally hated by rank and file DPD) to fire Deputy Chief Brown and to say publicly that it was his decision and not the Mayor's. The hilarity of that lie was brought home to me one morning during my morning commute listening to AM760 as the scandal unfolded. On a morning show, the Mayor was interviewed and when asked who's decision was it to fire Deputy Chief Brown, he confidently stated it was Chief Oliver's call. Not more than an hour or so later, Chief Oliver, interviewed on a different show, same station, said the opposite, that the Mayor instructed him to fire Deputy Chief Brown. They clearly had not gotten their stories straight. Later that same day, Chief Oliver was interviewed again and it was clear that the Chief had been given a thorough review of the talking points memo by Kwame and now he was taking the hit and stating that it was his call to fire the Deputy Chief.

In the course of giving testimony in the case, the plaintiffs lawyers asked Kwame and Beatty both if they were romantically involved, clearly prompted by the plaintiffs inside knowledge of what was going on. Christine simply responded no. Kwame gave an indignant speech in his answer, saying angrily that it was wrong to brand Beatty as a whore. All the time, the both of them flagrantly involved in a torrid liaison that was carried on in the presence of administration insiders and was certainly known to their police detail. The case was eventually settled for about $6 million with another $3 million paid in legal fees, and the plaintiffs committed to a secrecy agreement about the deal.

Political Season's take on this sordid mess? Kwame should lose his job for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, he's a married man doing his at the time also married chief of staff employee, opening the city to potential sexual harassment liabilities from her or other men and women in the administration. That is stupendous bad judgment. Everybody in town in the know knew it was going on, and the rest of the city pretty much assumed it.

Secondly, they fired people to cover the affair up and other foolishness he was doing. They made the police chief fire the deputy police chief that initiated an investigation into goings on with Kwame's security detail and those people sued. So they axed people to cover up their mess.

Lastly, the jacked up, stone broke City of Detroit forked over $9.4 million in a settlement plus legal fees to settle the case and keep the plaintiffs quiet about what they knew, mainly his affair with Beatty, perhaps others and likely the real story about the big stripper party that supposedly never happened.

Detroit is the poster child for urban decay. Michigan's economy has been in the toilet for several years now which is why I live in Indy and not Detroit. Here in Indy, they talk about not becoming "Detroit". Detroit, a city with so many things wrong that is so badly in need of leadership and good stewardship, and they pay out $9.4 million plus legal fees to hush the Mayor's sordid affair with his chief of staff, who was also married and was cool with his wife? The man should resign. If this brother worked for you or if you or I cost our company $9.4 million because of an affair with a subordinate, would we have a job? Hell no.

Don't feel sorry for him and don't cut him an inch of slack. Black people in Detroit and in general are too often all too willing to tolerate any mess to keep "black" leadership, even if that means no accountability. And with no accountability, the city will continue to be a dump because black people are not taking responsibility for ourselves. Already the hit parade of excuses is beginning. According to the Detroit Free Press, Sharon McPhail, one of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s top aides, said today that she believes Kilpatrick will not be charged with perjury despite contradictions between his testimony in court in a whistleblower case and text messages sent between him and his chief of staff.

McPhail, speaking with reporters as she entered the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, said she doesn’t believe enough evidence exists to charge Kilpatrick, although she also said she had not read the text messages.

“When the facts are known this is just going to be a blip on the screen of all the wonderful things he’s done for the city,” she said.

McPhail said calls for the mayor to repay the city for paying his legal bills in the whistleblower suit and the $9 million judgment in that case are misplaced. The case resulted because of Kilpatrick’s official decision, justifying a taxpayer-funded legal defense, she said.

The text messages exposure of his affair with chief of staff Christine Beatty was not why three former police officers sued the city, she said. The case originated because former Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown continued to investigate a never-proven wild party at the Manoogian Mansion.

And lets not forget about the rather sexist nature of our substandard community accountability on display here with the resignation of Christine Beatty. As my wife pointed out, her career is effectively destroyed. She is now out of a job, divorced, and branded as a whore and certified home wrecker. Who is going to be willing to employ her in any position of public trust or responsibility again? What will be the quality of her professional relationships with other women and men in the future? She is out of her job right now, but Kwame's staff is going on the defense of him and I'm sure the drumbeat from the community may already have begun that he should not have to resign, that if he is, he's being held to a different standard than white politicians. I don't see anyone coming to Beatty's defense. Why shouldn't the excuses being advanced on Kwame's behalf apply to her as well? How that plays is even more interesting considering the number of other high profile black women in the orbit of this mess. The prosecutor is a Black woman. Christine Beatty is a Black woman. Carlita Kilpatrick is a Black woman, as is Kwame's mother, Carolyn Kilpatricke head of the Congressional Black Caucus. Don't be surprised if Beatty is vilified by the same black community that wants to excuse Kwame.

This is the accountability issue front and center for black people and the kind of stuff that makes us look like total jackasses. We are on a hair trigger when a white person makes a comment rightly or wrongly and will DEMAND folk be fired and punished, but we will make every excuse for black people in positions of responsibility who are guilty of egregious behavior, from taking a crack hit on camera to banking $90,000 in bribe money in the freezer. The result: underperformance in nearly every aspect of the community when it comes to implementation of effective strategies that address the interests of black people. Black Americans must call check on the poor performance of black leadership and demonstrate more maturity as a community by refusing to any longer tolerate the exercise of extremely poor judgment in positions of responsibility in order to have "black" leadership. If we effectively demand accountability and responsible leadership irrespective of the race of the person in a leadership position, we would be far better off.