Filed under: Celebrity News
We demand a great deal out of modern day celebrities. Perhaps too much. After all, in exchange for purchasing their over-priced concert tickets, albums and the never-ending stream of magazines with their Photoshopped mugs staring blankly back at us, they've already sacrificed so much. NOT!
There is clearly no correlation between being able to lip-synch while gyrating and wisdom. So I'm all for celebrities declaring that they don't want to be role models. They shouldn't be. After all, this week we capped off a string of reports of celebrities behaving badly. We've witnessed the tawdry exploits of Fantasia Barrino, Keri Hilson's desperate attempt to remain relevant by whipping her lady bits all over the Internet and most recently, Robyn Rihanna Fenty's public statements on intimate partner violence via the microblogging site Twitter.
I believe we should all claim our voices. I'm all for black women owning their true selves and whatnot. But I really wish some celebrities would think twice before expressing themselves.
This week Rihanna chose to respond to a fan who is tired of hearing about Rihanna being brutally attacked by ex-boyfriend and recording artist Chris Brown. Because after all, there apparently is an expiration date on people wanting to hear about you being punched, kicked and bitten. It must be soooooo exhausting for Rihanna's fans to be confronted with the painful realities faced by far too many Bblack women in this country.
Which is why said fan of Rihanna's tweeted her suggesting that Rihanna stop talking about the "incident" and move on. By "incident" the "fan" means the beating meted out by Brown which resulted in Rihanna's face becoming a bloody pulp. The following exchange took place between Rihanna and a fan on Twitter:
greenangeleyez1: I luv u bt it's time u stopped talking about the situation with chris in interviews. How r people gonna move on?
Rihanna quickly responded
AGREED! People won't stop askin abt it! Its f*ckin annoying! Nobody wants to relive that, but some ppl can't respect that!
"I get it, they wanna raise awareness to young girls," "But it ends up just makin me look bitter, pitiful, spiteful and angry!"
HELLO! hopefully this is the last time....
(via Necole Bitchie)
No , hopefully this isn't the last time. Are black women are running around encouraging other black women to be silent about violence against black women?
I get the fact that Rihanna didn't ask for her life to be defined by the violent actions of Chris Brown. Being attacked wasn't her fault. I think its horrible that the LAPD leaked the photos of Rihanna's battered face to the press. It was a gross violation of her privacy. I also understand that Rihanna never volunteered nor should she be required to be a spokesperson for domestic violence.
However petulant tweeting and caviler attitude towards "raising awareness to young girls" is the height of celebrity selfishness. It's one thing for Rihanna to believe this. It's another thing for her to tweet those sentiments to young girls. Celebrities can't have it both ways. They want to influence young children to buy their albums, perfume and magazines, but then want to act as if they don't have any duty to wield that influence in a responsible manner.
Ask Tonya Hunter's family if they'd like to hear her sound "bitter" and "angry" about intimate partner violence. I am sure they'd like Tonya to have the chance to "move on." But, they won't because domestic violence ended her life. And sadly, black women are more at risk of being killed by an intimate partner than other groups:
According to a 2008 study of 2006 data by the national nonprofit organization Violence Policy Center, black women are killed at a rate nearly three times higher than that of white women. In the study, which identified 1,818 women by race who were murdered by men, 1,208 of the victims were white and 551 were black. (The Root)Rihanna's fans ought to send up a LOUD prayer of gratitude for the fact that when Chris Brown was bashing her in the head he didn't cause a serious head injury or worse -- her death. And instead of whining about the perception that discussing a brutal physical assault makes a victim sound bitter and angry, Rihanna should challenge why that perception exists. Or why we demand that crime victims "move on" for our convenience -- and the issues behind someone like Rihanna being so flippant about her own abuse.
Rihanna: next time someone asks you a question you don't want to answer, please pull a Beyonce and smile while remaining SILENT. Or better yet, have your people tell the reporters that you will NOT discuss the matter further. After all, it's much better to raise awareness about your next album release than it is to highlight when possible that far too many black women in this country don't get the opportunity to "move on" after their attack. Or I have a better idea.
You could embrace your job as a leader for black girls, whether you want all the responsibilities of the role or not, and speak up in a way that can prevent further cases of abuse. If you could be a hero to more black women, you might even see your album sales increase.
Think about that.