The New Bobby and Whitney

(I wrote this for another blog, and wanted to post it on my blog. I love it when you call me Jay…)

Unless you’ve been under a rock for the last week you’ve certainly heard about the Rihanna/Chris Brown situation that has transpired. And while 95% of the people who claim to know what happened don’t have a clue, we’ve all taken an educated guess that Chris Brown laid his hands on Rihanna. This isn’t the first time that Chris Brown has had some problems with his aggression. At a party in Europe last year he had to be restrained after he got into a scuffle with some club goers. Also, there were rumors that he became violent and aggressive with a model in South Africa when she refused to have sex with him. However, this is not the first time that Rihanna hasn’t been caught up in some drama. Whether it has been her alleged affair with Jay-Z, or her “diva” tendencies. Immediately when this story broke we immediately jumped to the most outlandish assumptions, such as, Rihanna flipped out on Chris Brown about some chick texting him, and he in turn got mad at her, and just starting beating on her. Or, Chris Brown got the “herp,” from Rihanna and then commenced to beat her ass. I mean really people?!

Here’s why I’m mad:

I’m mad because all of our preconditions of this domestic violence come from their celebrity status. We are really only concerned about Chris Brown’s physical/verbal abuse now because it’s in the news. It’s the hot new gossip. We are at our computers trying to find the next scoop on what really happened inside that car. We are anticipating every comment from Chris or Rihanna on what really happened, or an official statement. We are more concerned with cancelled tour dates, Chris Brown’s real location and what Jay-Z will do in retaliation, than anything else. Let’s be real people, we’re talking about Rihanna and Chris Brown, we are NOT talking about domestic violence.

What’s real is that while we’ve been caught up in this domestic violence scandal, the real face of domestic violence continues to be out there and stays completely hidden from the public eye. The average victims of domestic violence aren’t platinum selling recording artists, models, or actors, nope; they live right on the end of your block. In the last week what could have happened would have been a new dedication to ending domestic violence or at least attempting to help those out there who are suffering, but instead we’ve been glued to our TV sets and every blog site we can find to get new details about Chris Brown and Rihanna.

So yeah, how about people spend some time being real stewards of change, instead of into the latest celebrity gossip. How about we do not perpetuate guilty until proven innocent. (I swear to beans, do not let the report come out that Chris Brown was trying to defend himself from her and was merely shaking the “ish” out Rih-Rih, which Chris Rock said was clearly “fair game.”) How about we go online and find out some ways that we can really help fight domestic violence. How about we stop saying, “Yes we can,” or “Yes we did,” and start saying, “Yes we are.”