ethiopienne:
people who are allowed to decide how rihanna should respond to abuse:
people who are not allowed to decide how rihanna should respond to abuse:
.
My issue is that she has defended him him on twitter several times. Google “Rihanna defends Chris Brown” and you’ll see tons of news articles regarding different incidents. She recorded a song with him. If she put as much effort into expressing how wrong it is to beat somebody with your fists as she does telling people how stupid they are for resenting him for it, that would be one thing.
What she does privately with Chris is her own business, but the fact that she publicly flaunts their friendship is distressing. As a pop star, part of her job is media relations, and she is sending young girls an extremely inappropriate message. Forgive your abuser for almost killing you, don’t press charges, stay friends with him, and blast people who are concerned about it.
But I guess what it really comes down to is that I am not okay with people excusing domestic violence, so I am not okay with Rihanna doing it either. People keep asking “why did this all blow over? Why does he still have a career”. This is a big part of that. I have legitimately heard multiple people use the old “RIHANNA FORGIVES HIM SO WE SHOULD TOO”. Their ongoing friendship has helped repair his career immensely.
Privately, I don’t care what sort of god awful decisions she makes, but she is a pop star with millions of fans . Publicly, she is setting a disgusting, horrid example for young survivors everywhere. Do you really think it’s okay for her to be saying and doing these things so publically when there are teens out there who are in domestic violence situations that relate to her? People who respect and look up to her. What would you say to an easily influenced girl who was being battered, and looked at Rihanna and said “Oh, she’s so strong for sticking by him, and everything turned out great! Maybe it will for me too”.
Don’t think it could happen? Would you be okay with a celebrity coming out defending another celebrity that roofied a woman? What if it wasn’t Rihanna defending her abuser? What if it was a male friend and popular recording artist? At what point is it okay to defend a violent man and essentially tell people you are “over it”? How is it sending a positive message to your fans?
I suppose by all means, you are entitled to respect Rihanna’s choices, praise her, and think that she is demonstrating maturity by her friendship with Brown. Not everyone however, should be expected to be comfortable with it.
Just understand that Rihanna’s personal response and her public one are two very different issues, and need to be treated as such.
