I’ve been getting a lot of questions about this and thought I would quickly write something about the whole saga since it’s getting a lot of press.

As a disclaimer, it’s important to understand that there’s no one right way for a woman or man to behave after they’ve gone through domestic abuse. There isn’t one path to follow, one opinion they should have about their abusers. Domestic violence is an incredibly difficult issue because it is violence being perpetrated by a loved one to a loved one. No matter what the circumstances, we all need to understand that it IS difficult to cut ties with someone that you have loved, loved deeply, and shared many memories with. 

So victimizing Rihanna by saying ‘she needs to own up to what she’s doing’ or ‘she needs to take responsibility’, or other comments along those lines, aren’t helpful. 

I think for me, the way I feel about it is that I’m just really sad and disappointed. As I said above, I would never try to insinuate that there is only one correct way to handle this kind of situation. But as observers, it’s painful for us to watch someone (even someone we don’t personally know) go back to a source of abuse. We wish that she would ‘be stronger’, or ‘be a role model’ , because she has the ability to be with her fame and influence. 

It’s obvious that Rihanna had a deep connection with Chris Brown, a connection that wasn’t broken even after the violence. The opening monologue from ‘we found love in a hopeless place’:

“It’s like you’re screaming, and no one can hear. You almost feel ashamed that someone can be that important, that without them you feel like nothing. No one will ever understand how much it hurts. You feel Hopeless. Like nothing can save you. And when it’s over, and it’s gone, you almost wish that you could have all that bad stuff back, so that you could have the good.”

is widely believed to be about Brown, and it is also widely being circulated that she was the one who asked him for a duet on Birthday Cake, not the other way around. So it’s clear to me (as it is clear to me in all domestic abuse cases) that the situation is not black and white, cut and dry. There is an overwhelming tendency in the north american justice system to demand a clean break - ‘leave him!’ we all shout, and sometimes that is truly the best way to move on. But in other cases, it isn’t. A cursory glance, for example, at the aboriginal methods of dealing with family violence will show you that ‘leaving him’ isn’t the only way to deal with spousal abuse, and it certainly isn’t always the appreciated route by the survivor. Sometimes, space, counselling, removal of outside triggers like drugs or alcohol and others can be just as helpful as ‘leaving him’. There are other options, and we need to remember that.

That being said, (and I think this is the root of my disappointment) chris brown doesn’t seem like he really understands what he’s done. He doesn’t seem like someone who really wants forgiveness. He doesn’t seem like someone who is interested in counselling and exploring his anger and in being a better person. He didn’t come out and say ‘I made an absolutely horrible mistake, one which severely injured a person I care deeply about, and one which I will regret for the rest of my life. I want to try and be a resource for learning about domestic violence, and I am going to pledge to NEVER be a perpetrator of this kind of violence ever again, and to also give money, time, and other resources to educating other men about how wrong resorting to violence is, and to shelters and resources for women who are survivors of this kind of violence’. he didn’t say that. Instead he paraded around, almost flaunting his freedom, getting upset when others called him out on it. he acted like a spoiled child, a child with an incredibly dangerous temper and incredibly dangerous fists. The industry forgave him - other artists said things like ‘it’s their lives, we need to respect their privacy’, and that is part of the problem. After the grammy’s, young girls took to twitter with tweets like ‘chris brown you could beat me any day’! Chris Brown does not want to be forgiven, he wants to be a popular music artist. The music world doesn’t want to crucify him, they want to embrace him- and so too, apparently, does the public.

This is why the situation is so sad, and why I am so disappointed. Because Chris Brown will do this again. Rihanna will again, be the victim - or some other girl. And we will watch it unfold, again, and again, in a social environment that doesn’t want to talk about it lest we ‘hurt Chris Brown’s feelings’. If Chris Brown could be believed as someone who was capable of change and remorse - this would be a different post. But we can’t. And so it will continue.