Here is another conversation that I was trying to avoid. In the media frenzy surrounding the relationship of R&B singers Chris Brown and Rihanna, I needed time to sit back and observe how the media and the general public would handle the controversary. For those of you who may have been on another planet for the last month, on the night of the scheduled airing of the Grammy Awards, a warrant was issued for Chris Brown on pending charges for alleged domestic violence. According to media reports and released photos, Brown had badly attacked girlfriend Rihanna, which allegedly included biting, punching and choking.

Like some, I cringed when I heard the media release of the warrant. Like many others, I also took a stance of "We don't know what really happened, so lets sit back and wait to hear Chris Brown's side of the story." However, as days passed and more information leaked out to the media, and Brown allegedly did not deny the pending charges, I listened to individuals in the media, in the grocery store, in magazines, in college classrooms, and in high schools contribute to the dialogue regarding the assault. For example, I heard comments from popular hip hop artists like, "Man, we weren't there, so we don't really know what happened." During a high school visit, I heard teenagers state, "I heard she gave him an STD," and, "She hit him first. If a girl hits me, I'm going to hit her back." The general public was beginning to blame the victim. The discourse surrounding the Rihanna and Brown scandal is not surprising to me.

As a trained social worker and domestic violence educator, too many men and women still believe that domestic assault is a private matter. When we hear individuals say, "Well, we weren't there" or "That's there business," the American public is taking on the age old practice of turning a blind eye to private issues that are very much public matters. For example, annually in America, approximately 1.3 million women are physically assaulted by an intimate partner (Tjaden, et. al., 2000). Of all female murder cases, nearly 33% of deaths were at the hands of a male partner (Rennison, 2003). And, although domestic violence affects all family types, genders, racial, ethnic and class groups, African American women and those women between the ages of 15 and 25 are more likely to be victimized by intimate partners. In fact, according to Africana Voices Against Violence (2002), the number one killer of African American women between the ages of 15 and 34 is homicide at the hands of a current or past intimate partner.

Therefore, based on these statistics provided by the American Bar Association, we can turn a blind eye on what seems to be a private matter between a celebrity boyfriend and girlfriend couple, but the reality is that we are turning our backs, once again, on African American female adolescents. In my professional opinion, both Rihanna and Brown are both victims in this media driven economy that keeps pushing the envelope at the expense of young Black boys and girls. By all definitions, in psychological and biological determinants (and socially), Rihanna and Brown both are adolescents. Biologically and psychologically speaking, being that they are somewhere between the ages of 18 and 21, hormonally and psychologically they are still in the midst of late adolescence. Yet, by the general public propping them up on a pedestel, it is easy to forget that many U.S. middle class White youth would be enrolled in high school or college at this age, with teachers, dorm monitors or professional counselors supervising or intervening in every misstep.

However, on the night of the alleged attack, Brown and Rihanna were out to 2 o'clock in the morning, driving around in a sports vehicle, unescorted. In other words, they can stay out late to party, fight, and freak (sorry), but they can't drink?! Thank goodness, we still have laws that believe that adolescents are not able to understand the long and short-term consequences of there actions; therefore, we have laws that attempt to prevent underage drinking. Hopefully, everyone sees the irony in my previous comment. We are allowing the media elites to pimp our youth. In this case, the outcome could have easily been death, for presumably Brown choked his girlfriend until she blacked out. Brown, coming from a childhood home of domestic violence is also a victim of not only corporate objectification of urban Black male youth, but also of the residual effects of domestic violence in the home. On the other hand, Rihanna is the obvious victim is this situation. We have objectified her to the point that I don't even know her last name, which is why in this piece I have opted to drop Brown's first name. Does Barbie have a last name? No, she is a doll.

When I was growing up, my male relatives would break Barbie's arms and legs, hang her from bed posts, and try to destroy her. I prefered to cut her hair or have her do impossible acrobatic moves. She wasn't real, she was plastic. As a young African American woman, Rihanna is portrayed as plastic, as well. Commericials sell her lips, sell cheek bones, and magazines sell her hair and nails, while hip-hop videos provide quick glances of her rear end and sleek legs. We rarely have the opportunity to get a glimpse at the human side of Rihanna ?????. Like Barbie, it was easy for Brown,or some other young man for that matter, to feel as if he possessed her and could bend and break her body parts into pieces. Even more shameful, reportedly, Rihanna's own father said he would support her decision to reunite with his daughter's abuser. Since those released comments to the media, Ms. Rihanna has reportedly been seen in professional and social situations with the abuser. This is not unusual, for many young women do not understand the possible consequences (e.g. death or years of escalating violence) of returning to their abuser. 

Nonetheless, did Ms. Rihanna's dad simply hand her back over to her abuser? It seems everybody is worried about the career of the abuser and Ms. Rihanna, instead of their physical and psychological well-being. Sadly, if someone like Ms. Rihanna can be physically and psychologically attacked by an intimate partner the likes of Chris Brown, how many young women do we think are actually suffering right now at the hands of a current partner or ex-partner privately? Even more, what is the message that Rihanna, Brown, and Rihanna's father just sent to so many girls with less financial resources, media coverage, and self-esteem? Where is the Black urban feminist movement when we need it? How long are we going to allow the media corporate elite to continue to pimp our youth?    

References

Patricia Tjaden & Nancy Thoennes, U.S. Dep't of Just., NCJ 181867, Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence, at iii (2000), available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/181867.htm

Patricia Tjaden & Nancy Thoennes, U.S. Dep't of Just., NCJ 183781, Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, at iv (2000), available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/183781.htm

Callie Marie Rennison, U.S. Dep't of Just., NCJ 197838, Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief: Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, at 1 (2003), available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/ipv01.pdf

Africana Voices Against Violence, Tufts University, Statistics, 2002, www.ase.tufts.edu/womenscenter/peace/africana/newsite/statistics.htm