Today's Musings

My titles are awfully boring aren't they? Well, it's not the title that counts but the content, right? Today's observations:

- I'm going to put my two cents in on Rihanna/Chris Brown incident. Everyone else has vocalized their opinions, why not I?
So this seemingly clean-cut young man has a dark side, a dark side which he unleashed on his girlfriend, the attractive young Rihanna. Reports say he punched her in the face repetitively, threatened her life, etc.. Reports also say that her blood was splattered all over the car's interior, where the assault took place. Gruesome, the very stuff of a Lifetime Original Movie.
You'd think after being attacked like that, Rihanna would obtain a restraining order and start anew. But nooo, what does our young heroine do? She takes him back.
Getting out of an abusive relationship is not easy. It takes courage and for some women, it means leaving everything behind, their homes, their possessions etc., in order to save their lives. You have to make a fresh start, and that takes money. It would be fairly easy for Rihanna to start over right? She has the money for therapy to get over the trauma. Rihanna does not have the complications that usually keep women in abusive relationships.
Her decision to stay with her abuser, may appear to some, as heroic. "Stand By Your Man", right? "He hits me because he loves me", RIGHT? That kind of bullshit.
What's more courageous, is to escape your tyrannical mate, to stand up for yourself.
By going back to her abuser, Rihanna is teaching her young female fans that domestic violence is tolerable, even acceptable.
Sure, it's her life and she can do what she wants. But she's a public figure and her actions affect her fans. Preteen and teenage girls are vulnerable and not always the brightest of creatures, they emulate their role models (such as Rihanna), because that's what they're taught to do, that's what their brains are programmed to do.
So how can we prevent our girls from becoming as stupid as Ms. Rihanna? Parents should talk to their children about domestic violence. They should be upfront and blunt about the subject. The youth of America need to be aware of what is and what is not healthy in a relationship. They need to know whether an unhealthy relationship can be rehabilitated or if it should be put out of its misery.
Now, what about Chris Brown? Reports say, the young man watched his mother get beaten by his stepfather, that he himself was mistreated by the man.
So a childhood like that can take him in two directions. A) Chris learns that violence toward women is acceptable, that the appropriate way to express your anger is through violence, or B) Chris decides to become nothing like his stepfather, and treat women with respect.
Now, it seemed at first, that Chris had taken option B, right? His fans liked his non-threatening nature, as did their parents. He didn't swear, he didn't sing about violence or graphic sex.
Then, this happened. He beat up his girlfriend. Now, what drives a man to that? Mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse, a family history of abuse. Or just being an asshole.
I don't know what drove him to beat Rihanna. All I know is that for someone who had spoken out against his mother's domestic abuse, Chris Brown should have known better. If he didn't like it happening to his mama, what made him think it was alright for him to inflict that upon a woman he loved?
More importantly, can he be rehabilitated? Will his career recover? Only time will tell.