At the risk of blaming the victim, I have to voice a bit of collective anger about Rihanna’s decision to go back to Chris Brown, or as I like to call him, “Rapper-Batterer Chris Brown.” Yet, every time anger rises, sympathy follows, partially blocking the righteous rays of indignation.
Take one look at the fact/sympathy/anger matrix and you’ll see what I mean:
Fact: Rihanna took him back even though she needs facial reconstruction surgery.
Anger: She’s teaching a generation of women that the proper response to getting the crap beat out of you is to go back for more. All in the name of love.
How are we supposed to curb violence against women if the violated women ENDORSE the violence? (btw, if you like a little absurdity to go with your anger, click here to see Rihanna’s full page Cover Girl ad with the headline, “Lighten Your Eyes.” Great. A Cover Girl who has to cover her face).
Sympathy: She’s got trusted friends who are telling her the wrong thing. “It’s no problem,” said close family friend Sharon Bellamy-Thompson, a Barbados fish-market operator, to US magazine. “I have had boyfriends who beat me and then I took them back. I stayed with them because I was in love.”
The Rapper-Batterer’s mom Joyce Hawkins has been no help, lobbying for them to get back together. HIS MOM! Shouldn’t she bet the first to tell Brown, “Don’t even think about getting back together until you’ve gotten help”?
And worse, at a February 13, 2009 taping for VH1’s Storytellers, Kanye West asked the audience, “Can’t we give Chris a break?”
No, Kanye, we can’t. Not until he publicly apologizes, says, “I was wrong and I’m getting help to make sure it never happens again.”
. . .
Fact: She took him back in a matter of weeks.
Anger: Does the woman have no dignity? No self-respect? Does she not understand that by giving HER abuser permission to keep abusing she’s giving EVERY abuser to do the same?
Sympathy: The “Battered Wife Syndrome” is pretty clear about the self-respect and dignity thing–the abuser took it away long before he hit her. First, he bleaches it out of her through ‘abuse escalation’–starting with passive-aggressive put-downs, moving to explicit insults, then to veiled threats and physical intimidation to the final (and usually frequent) beatings (see The Wheel of Violence to understand the sequence of domestic abuse). Batterers don’t go from 0-60. They go from 59-60. When Rihanna writes her inevitable Tina Turner book, we’ll find out how it went from 1-59.
. . .
Fact: Rihanna took him back BEFORE he got help.
Anger: To take somebody back because they couldn’t stop calling or texting amounts to caving in to yet another form of intimidation. The message? He doesn’t actually have to DO something about his problem–he just has to apologize for it. Earth to Rihanna: The organizing principle of batterers is to promise, SWEAR, it’ll never happen again. And it won’t. For a few months. Thanks for the teachable moment. Now I can tell my 11-year-old niece what you’re telling the world: Words matter more than deeds. Don’t believe the black and blues you see in the mirror if you get sweet nothings in your ears.
Sympathy:She’s confused and isolated. “The whole family is in a fog,” said a close family member to US magazine. “We don’t know what’s going on. She’s not telling us anything.” If Rihanna’s anything like the 80-90% of battered women, she’s thinking the Five Thoughts That Keep Women Coming Back:
1) It’s my fault. If I weren’t such a bitch to him, this wouldn’t have happened. I know what sets him off, but I do it anyway, so I’m to blame. It’s my fault that he hit me and it’s my fault that I’m being so unforgiving.
2) He’ll change. I know he loves me. He’s apologized a million times.
3) I’ll ruin him if I leave. If I make him out to be a monster, he’ll lose his career. Does busting my nose give me the right to bust his career?
4) I’ll never find a man as good as he is. I know this because he’s told me a thousand times.
5) But I love him. And isn’t that what love’s about–sacrifice?
And so it goes, Sympathy asking Anger to dance while the Facts play their favorite song. But in the end, it’s anger that does–and should win out. Here’s why: Rihanna has the one thing that most battered women don’t have–resources. Many if not most battered women have kids, no job, little savings and a valid fear for their lives if they dare to leave. Or some combination of the above.
Rihanna? She can jet off on Jay-Z’s plane with her middle finger up against the window as the plane takes off. She has the money and power to walk out, but she won’t. And that’s why, when the Facts play their tortured music, Anger leads and Sympathy follows.