People are getting too into their feelings about this situation. they’ve taken it on as if it was a family member of their own and the truth is that we know nothing about either of these people and we know even less about what happened in that car. people are taking sides as if it’s a battle to be won and the fact still remains that both of them will continue to make music and have their careers.

we all know that chris’ album is going to go platinum because of the publicity alone, so people who claim his career is over should check the charts and see that he’s still climbing to the top. Rihanna will make it because feminists & battered women believe that she needs their support. But that ‘what if it was your sister or mother’ excuse will only go so far if someone doesn’t hurry up and get her a vocal coach.

a year from now no one will care about any of this

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how about a sincere apology first, chris?

i give props to rihanna for speaking out.

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How is he accepting any accountability for his actions? He thinks it is all about him and his ego. Newsflash: It isn’t!

He’s sorry for what he did? How about, I’m sorry for what I did TO YOU RHIANNA”.

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Good.

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And I am SO DAMNED SICK of this ‘young, hip urban (i.e. ‘black’)’ mentality that shows ‘support’ by re-inscribing and re-affirming all of the worst stereotypes about young black people, then cries ‘foul’ when some interloper–or whatever–has the gall to ‘air the dirty laundry’. You know what? Why don’t you just wash the freaking laundry, huh? And how exactly does operating under the gross misapprehension that ‘praying on it’ will magically transform the facts and disavow a perpetrator of all culpability? Proclamations of faith as an escape hatch are so disgusting. Where is all of this prayer when you’re justifying the most abhorrent of behaviours? Jesus has become a P.R. Firm and it seems so disingenuous.

If you support the kind of thinking that allows this to happen, you are more than complicit in the systematic dismantling of anything resembling progress for women, for other blacks, and for free-thinking people who don’t revert into reptilian base carnality whenever the ‘wind looks at you weird’, or what-have-you.

When you make all of your decisions based on ethnocentric self-interest, you’re not helping us, and that attitude does not speak for me. I speak for me. How can people see that a ‘community’ (because there’s only one type of black person, whatever, not the point) has anything going for it other than being a plodding, unthinking, undifferentiated monolith when the real issues are being obscured by our men and women flinging invective and bile at each other? Hiding behind the community when caught with your pants down, how novel. At this point the only thing that is being ‘given back’ to the community is a myriad of embarrassments: um, keep them.

This the same thing that bothered me so much about the Emma Thompson, Roman Polanski fiasco. Rather than actually use her brain, she acted along party lines, freely admitting that she had no real knowledge of the facts. Then she changes her mind, not because she smartened up, but because of a new wave of peer pressure and an attempt to save face. Hell, Emma! Are you seven years old?!? No one’s blameless, I could fill a warehouse with my faults, and I found that story about her son to be exceedingly beautiful. But this? At least she’s doing the right thing, I’ll vouch for that.

Crime is crime, and contractual obligations will drain your account SUBSTANTIALLY if not honoured. These interviews were bound to happen. At any rate, he is the one who committed the crime, and he was the one who bucked common decency (even more), by turning her ordeal into a fairground attraction. Why should she be the one who is contrite? Why is the one who should seeking absolution? From what? What’s next? ‘Oh, well that girl who got raped deserved it because she was wearing tight jeans, and those are kind of hard to remove anyway, right?’ NO!

Well, he may have had her mind in a vice for a time, but not mine, and not of the intelligent people who refuse to be agents of destruction. I hope that he gets it together and some day looks back on his actions and statements and realizes he was being a petty, self-involved, ignorant fool. Don’t we have to put up with enough garbage? What manner of agency is this? This goes beyond ‘Judge not…’, because this isn’t just an instance of infantile squabbling. There are lives on the line, including his. And if anyone who claims to be a fan of his thinks that the best way to help him is by watching him jet-ski into perdition, then this will just turn into a battle of attrition between ideologies.

Sometimes help hurts, and real self-improvement is rarely fun, but I don’t believe that it is in the spirit of grace to claim that ‘not judging’ is somehow preferable to holding him accountable for his actions, and presenting a situation in which he–of his own volition–is forced to evolve or die, metaphorically speaking. He’s young, there’s still time. Do we want him to be in a position where he can realize his potential and become the man he’s meant to be, a functioning member of society, the one who breaks the cycle of abuse and develops a viable personality? Or should the powers that be let him sputter and flame out like the prissy little island of detached entitlement that he is now? I really do think that this widespread revulsion is good for him, not just because it means that we will not a party to this kind of madness, but because the work that he does not earn the trust and respect of those who cross him will be the work of real man who was humbled, illuminated and dogged in his pursuit of the best version of himself. If he wins it…

Cut the braggadoccio, cut the sexism, cut out any word that ends with ‘phobia’, address the ongoing schism between black men and women, and don’t give the naysayers fodder. If this blue sky is meant to be red, don’t complain to me about it, grab a paintbrush, and do the work. Seriously, how is this sending a positive message to ANYONE? If you want a high-quality companion, you have to be one first. I have to say, I’m veering sharply into the ‘quit playing house and do your homework’ territory. I’ve been physically, psychologically abused, not by a boyfriend, but I know the feeling of isolation, the fear, the misguided guilt and the self-loathing that accompanies it. One day, after putting for the effort to heal, you realize that the only way that a person can make you feel bad for being who you are is if you give them permission to do so. The cycle of abuse has a sick, punishing hold, even for erstwhile survivors and every step of your life is viewed through the lens of personal experience. I don’t know what abusers feel. I don’t know if they understand or feel guilt. I don’t know what kind of pain resides within them, and I don’t know why they do a lot of what they do. But I know that that doesn’t matter, not when you throw yourself to them with all you’ve got, knowing that they are not suitable stewards. But that takes time to learn and parse.

These are the years to learn how to be an adult, not to debase yourself in a distorted pantomime.

Moral: Stop beating people up, fools!

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