Unapologetic #BushPig

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Phrase #'d by Brown during his twitter tirade

My twitter stream blew up yesterday with news that Chris Brown deleted his account because of a feud with another user. It's like a fight under the bleachers. You're not involved. You don't really know the actors. But you're still drawn to watch or root or intervene or get mouthy spouty in your own way. Even if it's just to walk away. Or write a blog post.

I was so impressed with this piece (written and published before Chris Brown's twitter meltdown) from Jude Rogers, in which she turns phrases so great they should be bronzed. Phrases like:

• Women in pop are asked to be role models all too often, when they're not preachers or politicians – and this annoys me because men in similar positions aren't asked to do the same. 

• It's easy, of course, to cast judgement on people's private lives. It's also easy to imagine Rihanna's irritation at being tagged, forever, as a victim of domestic violence. What's much tougher to get around is the way in which Chris Brown's assault, before the 2009 Grammys, seems to be publicity fuel. 

• (re: some of Rihanna's song lyrics) – this is sex as disengaged performance, not as a powerful statement.  

• It's not just an image of violence as glamour, inked into the skin. It's the memory of an assault as a fashion accessory. And knowing so many people don't think that there's anything wrong with this – young women, especially – troubles me beyond measure.

It's this last sentence that just guts me. Not because I'm a young woman, but because I'm raising one.

Chris Brown is an immature, unrepentant child, whose response to things he doesn't like is to throw things, or punches, to storm out, and threaten to sh*t, fart, shart, or shove a d**k in the offending person's (usually female) mouth, and who's being sheltered/protected/rehabilitated (aka marketed) by people who care only about the almighty dollar and their own bottom line. It's unacceptable.

I'm done with asking why his (and, by proxy, his team's (and his ilk's)) behavior towards women is tolerated. It's unacceptable, can't be condoned, and must be condemned at every turn. It's not the @JennyJohnsonHi5's of this world who are the problem. It's really not.

Shame on Chris Brown for being so crazy talented, but settling for being an ugly stereotype (atm, anyway. I'm all for redemption and change, but until I see some...wishing don't make it so...). Shame on the idiots who are advising this guy. Shame on an industry that protects and promotes this fool. Shame on a us, a public, that supports such an industry and career.

I don't care about Chris Brown. But I do care about young women, like my daughter and her friends, who live in a world where these statistics* are true:

We know that men can be victims of domestic violence. On average, though, more women than men suffer domestic abuse, and younger women in particular (those between the ages of 20-24) are at highest risk of nonfatal intimate partner violence. In fact, 85% of domestic violence victims are women.

According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence:

• One in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime.

• Females are most often victimized by someone they know.

• Nearly 1/3 of female homicide victims are killed by an intimate partner.

• In nearly 80% of intimate partner homicides, no matter which partner is killed, the man physically abused the woman before the murder.

This abuse occurs every day and likely to a woman you know. And it exacts a toll. Monetarily (exceeding $5.8 billion each year (as of 2003)) and in so many other, immeasurable, ways.

Contact information for the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233.

Their website is here. 

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* Sad that I just cut and pasted these statistics from a blog post I wrote earlier this year on the same damn topic....