Rihanna’s not stupid for going back to Chris Brown

Rumor has it that Rihanna and Chris Brown have already gotten back together. If this is indeed the case, then Brown will not face any charges because Rihanna won’t place them. There are many people who are happy to hear this news. First are Chris Brown’s fans who can say that it’s none of their business because she forgave him and thus it’s a private matter. There are those who are fans of Brown or who just hate Rihanna who will say that she realized it was her fault for “giving him an STD.” Lastly is the music industry in general because now they won’t have to pull Brown’s music. Just check out www.bet.com. As of the time of this writing, they’re still playing T-Pain & Brown’s video “Freeze” as if nothing happened. People will call Rihanna many things for her actions, but please don’t call her stupid.

The fact of the matter is that 2/3 of women who are domestically abused go back to their partners. Rihanna is among that number of women who do not realize that they risk death by staying with their partners. Are all of these women stupid as I heard some women saying this weekend? No. They are misunderstood by a society that likes to play armchair relationship expert when we don’t even have our own lives in check. It’s as if people feel they can condemn Rihanna because she has money, as if that should make her immune from abuse or at least, indecision on what to do if abused in the first place.

***Newsflash: domestic violence knows no class, race, or religion***<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />....

If you haven’t learned this by now, money is not a replacement for self esteem. You do not transcend responsibility because you are rich. Rihanna with all of her millions needs support, not condemnation. She can’t just pray her way out of this, if she’s even doing that. I believe in the Michael Baisden philosophy: pray… and pack. The truth of the matter is that something in her upbringing made her believe this is acceptable. I don’t mean her West Indian culture. I mean her specific upbringing. My prayer is that those who are eating off of her are working with her best interests at heart but I hear we’re in a recession so how likely is that? No one wants to mess with their cash flow right now so they’ll find a way to deal with a couple of slaps and window head cracks.

Rather than condemning the victim, we should take a hard look at ourselves and ask why it is that Chris Brown is still being played on the radio and television. Why is it that he won’t lose his record deal? Why is it that most of us will just leave it up to Reverend Al Sharpton or N.O.W. to have a couple of protests? Why is it that Chris Brown can come as close to killing someone as possible and pretty much get off with a slap on the wrist? We are all to blame for the current place we are in society where women are not valued unless they’re sexy and stay in their place. How do you think Rihanna feels seeing Brown still treated in society as if he did nothing seriously wrong? If there are no heavy societal repercussions, we shouldn’t expect any from her. The only difference is when she gets killed, many of us will still be sitting around saying she was stupid. And then we’ll turn on BET.

So now the fashion world is abuzz looking for little black girl models. Malia and Sasha Obama have turned the fashion world upside down, making sites like J. Crew crash just by the simple act of wearing their clothes to the Inauguration. Saks and pretty much every other company is scrambling for Malia and Sasha impersonators. In this economy, I’m happy for anyone who can find positive and legal work but let’s be clear: the fashion industry is not all of a sudden embracing blackness and diversity. It’s embracing profits.

The video below is an excerpt from a CNN segment on how Malia & Sasha lookalikes are now getting work and in high demand. One man interviewed says that the fashion industry is now starting to realize that “black is beautiful.” Let us not allow our fascination with the Obamas to cloud our vision of racism in America. The Obamas are marketable and the fashion industry is all about marketing. I remember hearing a black woman in fashion once say that the fashion world is the only industry where you can be blatantly racist and say things like: “We’re not doing black or Asian this year. That’s not in.” That’s all it is folks. This is business.

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Let’s look at a little history. Remember the model Iman from Somalia? Part of her rise to prominence was this story that she was plucked from the jungles of Africa and so many of us bought that story. Turned out she’s the daughter of a former Ambassador and speaks 5 languages. Who knew? The fashion industry knew. It’s all about marketing and what’s hot at the moment. Fast forwarding to 2009, how many more African supermodels have there been? Did Iman show that black is beautiful back then? Somehow I don’t think so.

If the fashion world is all of a sudden embracing diversity, I wonder if little Latinas, black boys, Native Americans who aren’t in traditional, and Arabs will start appearing in more advertisements. If so, I will have to write a retraction. As I said, I’m just a student of history and I know trends when I see them. For the fashion world, the Obamas are simply the flavor of the month or maybe the flavor of the next four or eight years. I would love to be wrong on this. Maybe the dialogues on race that President Obama’s ascension is forcing much of America and the globe to have will indeed prove me wrong.

Another third Monday in January has passed where we honor the legacy of the late great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We watched the “I have a dream” speech (or excerpts of it), debated whether his dream has been achieved, and the more adventurous of us participated in the National Day of Service. This MLK day obviously had a greater feel to it because it came the day before we celebrated the first African American President, Barack Obama. As beautiful as these two days were historically, I find myself somewhat disappointed at all of the “from King to Obama” rhetoric. Everyone knows that I am huge fans of both individuals, but I do feel as though the comparisons have gotten a bit out of hand and more importantly, out of context.

The major problem I have is that Dr. King was one of many leaders in a movement. President Obama was the leader of a campaign. A political campaign by default is about the individual at the end of the day for he or she is seeking office. Without Obama, there would be no presidential campaign to elect him. Would there have been a Civil Rights Movement without Dr. King? Of course. The movement was well under way before Dr. King’s involvement. Some say the movement started when black heroes came back from World War II and still had to sit in the back of the bus or even as far back as the days when we first landed on these shores. Either way, we cannot solely attribute the beginning of this movement that drew international attention (and still inspires other movements worldwide) to Rosa Parks refusal to get out of her seat or Dr. King’s great leadership. I know by this time that I may be coming off to some as a hater, but I am far from it.

My point is that I often wish that on the 3^rd Monday in January that we would have a Civil Rights Day instead of an MLK day. The messianic complex that so many of us have on this planet always causes us to create these “One man stood up” or “One woman had enough” stories that completely minimize (or erase entirely) the contributions of others. From Cezar Chavez and Nelson Mandela to Mussolini and Hitler (it works in the positive and negative sense), history, often told by others, picks a leader of a movement and that is who is celebrated or vilified. This is wrong. As it relates to Dr. King, many African Americans have unfortunately embraced this philosophy. There are many reasons that this frustrates me but I will only cite one reason here—Malcolm X. Remember him?

I get frustrated when I look at how quickly we forget people like Emmitt Till, Medgar Evers, Claudette Colvin, and the many other men and women, black and non-black, who gave their lives and heart to the movement. It is when I remember Malcolm that I get the most frustrated because President Obama admitted in his first book that Malcolm X’s message resonated with him more than any other figure of the Civil Rights Movement. This is also true for me and this is why it bothers me that we have allowed his memory to be forgotten and Dr. King’s to be pacified. I believe that Dr. King would not have risen to such prominence if Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam were not present with their self-defense mantra or Kwame Tourés militiancy or the Black Panthers. The list goes on and on. Malcolm's contributions to the movement are no less significant simply because he did not have a title like "Dr.", "Reverend", "Nobel Peace Prize Winner", or "President" before Malcolm's name.

We who either came through the Civil Rights Movement or who are students of it should not continue to allow America to forget what the true meaning of the movement was and the massive involvement of so many groups. We should not allow the country to turn Dr. King into a “Kumbaya” singer who only had a dream. He was a hardcore soldier who spoke about police brutality and was as opposed to the Vietnam War as many of us are to the war in Iraq. Though it is important to remember King’s American dream, it is also equally important to remember that he had this dream while living an American nightmare.

So let us continue to celebrate the life of Dr. King. Let us never forget the momentous inauguration of the first black President. Let us also not forget, however, that Dr. King was one of many who helped bring the first black President into existence. There can only be one president at a time, but a movement for equality, whether gay rights, Muslim rights, etc. have many leaders, As great a man as Dr. King was, our struggles in this country have been too long and too complicated to only credit one individual for a movement that existed, in my eyes, before he was born. As the African proverb goes, “until the lion tells his story, history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”

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