As more and more information comes out about the Chris Brown/Rihanna case, situation, whatever you want to call it, it seems that media outlets and individuals have begun to take sides. Most of us have been told from a young age that little boys should never hit girls, the reasoning being that boys are bigger and could hurt them, essentially the fight isn’t fair. Well, unbeknownst to me and a lot of people, I’m sure, is that a lot of little boys never get this message. Their mother or an aunt or a grandmother gets smacked around on a regular basis. Their moms and dads go at it like cats and dogs and its normal. In some spaces there is a culture of abuse that is rarely seen. They call it “domestic” violence for a reason. It occurs in the home and is kept close to the chest like other family secrets like incest and alcoholism and for people who are not familiar with this sort of thing it’s easy to blame one party or another, but abuse is nuanced and ugly like a broken bone that doesn’t heal right it’s almost impossible to be raise in it and come out the other end without some damage.
Brown has been recorded as saying that he’s seen his mother be beaten, Rihanna hasn’t been speaking so we don’t know if that’s the case for her. What does that do to a child? Even, when you know it’s wrong, how do you learn to manage anger? Do you ever learn? What about a little girl who grows up in the same situation? Does she know what love really looks like? Does she crave the love “high” that comes after a good beating? What we’re talking about is power dynamics. This goes far deeper than who’s at fault. I am more concerned about the chatter surrounding this situation on radios, televisions, and kitchen tables than the parties involved. God bless them, but this is something they will work out on their own time. No amount of government intervention will slow his fist or make her realize that love doesn’t have to hurt.
A recent study revealed that one in three boys believes it’s ok to hit a girl and one in seven believe it was ok to make a girl have sex with you if she was flirting. These are the views of the young men in our world. How far a cry is it from this to the mass rapings and mutilation that occurs on a daily basis in the DRC? I really don’t think its very far. It stems from a lack of empathy for women and their feelings. I recently listened to an interview of a former soldier in central Africa who had participated in a gang rape of a young girl in his village. He later repented of his sins and became and advocate for women. He said that after he was done he never thought of her. He figured she just went on with her life until he went to apologize to her (something he was advised not to do by his pastor and friends) and she informed him that her life had been ruined from that point on. She had trouble finding a husband, blamed herself for the incident and lived in shame for years while he just went on about his business.
We don’t talk about power dynamics in relationships enough in this country and definitely not enough in the black community. What we talk about is the surface ideas of who works or not, how much money one person makes over another, or interracial dynamics. We never talk about what’s under those discussions why one person or another is seeking to dominate or manipulate. Are the mommy wars really about working mothers or is it just a little about the need for some men to be the sole provider, to feel as if he controls his home and the people in it? If someone makes more money than another can they control their lifestyle, movements, essentially their means of survival? Why do men, women, we as humans want to control and some to the extent of complete domination through beatings and abuse? I think there needs to be a larger spiritual discussion about the lack of love in our friendships and relationships. The lack of Godly respect for one another that supports these actions. I want to hear that on the Michael Baisden Show, not the blanket, dismissive retort “A man should never hit a woman.”
