Singer Chris Brown needs help, and he’s been asking for it for a long time.
Now, there must be something worse than a man putting his hands on a woman in anger, but nothing comes to mind. Barring self-defense, there is no reason whatsoever for a man to ever commit violence towards a woman, I don’t care what D’Angelo says. Most troubling, is that I seem to be hearing a lot more about young men who think it’s OK to hit women, because they have seen their parents go at it. There even seems to be some blithe acceptance of domestic violence as just what normally transpires between a man and woman. The easiest thing is to blame rap music, but I can’t think of a rap song made in the last 10 years that advocates violence against women. Not one. It worries me that we live in a world where we are hearing about young men—just entering adulthood—who think violence towards women is acceptable. It speaks to a bigger problem.
Brown talked about his abusive step-father in Giant Magazine back in the day, and too many young men like him grow up in domestic battlefields that they come to accept as normal, and don’t know how or when to detox. But I bet there's nothing like doing time in the joint to get your mind right. So I hope they throw the book at him, and I'm hopeful the alleged victim, his girlfriend Rihanna, will press full charges. Brown doesn’t deserve a pass or any pity. Rather, he owes it to himself to seek counseling, and encourage others to do so.
Not for nothing, though… I think there are two victims here.
What do you think?
Single Father, Author, Screenwriter, Award-Winning Journalist, NPR Moderator, Lecturer and College Professor. Habitual Line-Stepper