I know that was a loaded title but I’ll be talking about two main things in this article: the hypocrisy of people crying over Whitney Houston’s death AND then defending Chris Brown or outright celebrating him. And also why Brown is “Singled out” as he and his fans so often cry.
Nothing was crazier to me last week than having a Whitney Houston tribute at the Grammys be sandwiched between three separate Chris Brown performances. After all, he’s NOT even close to the biggest star in music today nor somebody with an accomplished body of work like Paul McCartney, why let him sing twice, let alone three times? But what really got me was the apparent lack of connection between the fact that Whitney was a well-publicized victim of domestic abuse and Brown is a well-known domestic abuser who celebrated the third anniversary of his tribulations on the Grammy stage.
People cry “Why, Whitney, why? What more could we have done?” and then the exact same people (many of them celebrities) tweet “Wow, Brown is hot @ da Grammys!” It’s as if they truly don’t get that the real cause of death for Whitney Houston is the moment she met Bobby Brown, and that Ike Turner Jr. (what I call Chris) is the exact same type of man. [Maybe there’s something in the Brown last name that denotes domestic abuse towards pop stars, something in the genetic code.] You get away from guys like Ike Turner or Mike Tyson, and go on to live happy, complete lives as Robin Givens or Tina Turner. Or you stay with them and wind up as Whitney Houston or a woman killed much sooner. That’s really the only two paths for women who are abused. There is no fairy tale ending for Rihanna and Brown, and probably not any woman with Brown, and people’s lack of awareness of this is staggering.
Which brings me to why Brown is “singled out.” By now you’ve probably heard the Brown Squad defend him–and him defend himself–by saying he’s been singled out. That several celebrities like Glenn Campbell, Charlie Sheen, Mike Tyson, etc. are just as guilty but no one is running them out of town. Well, the big difference is that Sheen/Tyson are freak show, train wreck celebrities that most people consider mentally incompetent or severely damaged. Brown is a teen sex symbol. You don’t see teenage girls waiting with baited breathe for Mike fucking Tyson to ask them to the prom. Comparing Brown to Sheen/Tyson is like comparing Justin Bieber to a Batman villain.
The most disturbing thing about Brown to me (and one great reason to single him out) are his fans. First, his female fans are seriously fucked up. I read dozens of Twitter comments from young girls saying that Brown “can beat them anytime” and that they don’t know “Why Rihanna was complaining” as if a world-class pop star really can’t expect anything better from a man than to not be murdered.
Then there are his male fans, who are even more problematic. I read several of his fans say Miranda Lambert is, I quote, “a fat redneck bitch who should shut her mouth” which to me sounds exactly like the type of language a domestic abuser would use before he “put a woman in her place.” It’s pretty rare that someone is so unlikable even their fans are unlikable, but Brown accomplishes that.
So I don’t get why anyone could defend such an asshole with a repeated history of losing his cool (even his explosive response on Twitter after the Grammys wreaked of utter dickish-ness) and zero true remorse for anything he does. And I really don’t get how someone could be oblivious enough to celebrate him and cry over Whitney. This could all be a very teachable moment about the sub currents of misogyny and male totalitarianism (no current form of music offers less female power than hip-hop) that run rampant in hip-hop culture, but it won’t be. Anyone making those points will just be told to “shut their fat racist mouths” before we get “put in our place.”