Good Girl Gone Bad

HuffingtonPost, linking to a story on E! Online, led me to believe Usher had "slammed" fellow R&B star Chris Brown. So I clicked over to see this curious image that sort of shows Usher saluting Chris and an article about how Usher, when asked about Chris's jet-skiing photo op, said:

"I'm a little disappointed in this photo. After the other photo [of Rihanna's brutalized face]? C'mon, Chris. Have a little remorse, man. The man's on jet skis? Just, like, relaxing in Miami?"

Is this what constitutes a slam in the black-and-famous community? Disappointment in a photo? A slam would be more along the lines of: What the fuck? Chris Brown is an animal who needs to be charged with assault and go to trial to defend himself, hopefully lose the case, go to jail for a spell and get serious counseling. And of course Rihanna is an idiot for going back to him and basically asking for seconds.

I have not heard many famous black people condemn Chris Brown. Instead, I've heard lots of expression of support.

Most recently, R&B singer Monica said they should "ask God for forgiveness for whatever they did wrong as individuals and as a couple." !!!

When you're a minority, you're of course going to cut slack to members of your community, especially if you think your community is not always given a fair shake. But for fuck's sake, is beating up your girlfriend support-worthy? If so, why so? It's like when the Congressional Black Caucus stuck up for Roland Burris—not that Mr. Burris is a violent criminal like Chris Brown, but the concept of expending what capital you have on a worthless proposition. When you do that, you actively demote your cause, you throw away your credibility. Then when someone in your community truly is being unfairly attacked and you speak up, outsiders will just roll their eyes at you.

That's already happening over Chris Brown. How many blog commenters across the 'Net have said "blacks will stick up for anyone black" or have reverted to racist tendencies with comments about "this is what they like in the black community, Chris wants the thug image to help his career." Of course, anyone who's a racist—declared or de facto—is responsible for his or her own conclusions. But anyone combatting racism has to see that this episode, even though it's about one 19-year-old guy and one 21-year-old girl, has already been a huge net loss. 

And that's not even to mention the unbelievably negative impact it's had on young people regarding women's rights. Too many youngsters (aka 30 on down) seem to thing it's a personal matter, Chris just made a mistake, maybe Rihanna was partly to blame for her attack, etc.

In this week's Us (March 16, 20090, Rihanna is said to have taken him back after "countless calls and daily apology e-mails." This is reported against a backdrop of Brown happily jet-skiing, flexing his muscles OJ-style ("I got away with it!" is plastered all over his expression) and even openly checking out a girl on a nearby jet ski (he seemed "weird and aggressive" a witness tells Us). Despite the fact that her friend Sharon Bellamy-Thompson was directly quoted saying, "It's no problem. I have had boyfriends who beat me and then I took them back. I stayed with them because I was in love," the magazine says everyone from Jay-Z to Oprah to Beyoncé have tried to "reach out" to her, and that a meeting with Tina Turner is being hastily arranged. Jesus, if only every abuse survivor had these resources. A diamond bracelet from Brown apparently trumped all that.

Oh, and she might be pregnant.

If that's all true, and if Rihanna does take him back, it does not mean she deserved her past abuse, nor that she will deserve the next, inevitable round. But to me, it does mean that she does not deserve any of my concern or sympathy going forward. She is not worth it. There are too many other people, not famous, in this world who have had the same and/or far worse experiences and who have reacted to them and/or recovered from them with more intelligence and grace and responsibility.

You're on your own, RiRi.

Comments

[dannyr]

Hey Matt,

Then you'll really enjoy this: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1606241/20090303/usher.jhtml

[Kevin]

It makes me sick that people have bent over backwards to defend Chris Brown. I've had heated discussions with people who truly believe Rihanna's beatdown was partly deserved or expected because she supposedly gave him herpes, and poor lil' Chris couldn't control his anger.

It makes me even sicker that she's decided to take him back, but I'm not that surprised. It took Tina almost 20 years to leave Ike.

To me it's a repeat of the R Kelly trial, a misguided act of racial solidarity where some black folks will turn a blind eye to an obviously guilty man and support him regardless (I'm black by the way:). If you ever saw the Boondocks, they did an excellent satire of the whole Kelly fiasco.

[Blah!]

I totally agree with you on your take of the issue Matt. I really have not heard too many prominent Black entertainers criticize Chris Brown, but instead give some vague words of "inspiration" and it pisses me off. I think Rosario Dawson was quoted criticizing the whole thing, but I don't know how much pull or notoriety she has. I don't get what a meeting with Tina Turner is being planned for. Oh wait, it's the publicity machine (whether it's Rihanna's or Tina's is beyond me) being put to work.