A Hip-Hop Response To Chris Brown & Rihanna

For nearly an entire week, the Chris Brown/Rihanna alleged abuse incident has dominated major news media headlines. Unfortunately, these sensationalized reports did less to elucidate the national epidemic of violence against women and more to cement into our national psyche the idea that the new face of domestic abuse is young, Black and hip-hop. Instead of accepting sole responsibility for one of America's most neglected pathologies, young Americans should turn this tragedy into an opportunity.

Inthe last two election cycles, hip-hop led the way in making involvement in national elections fashionable among youth. Hip-hop political organizers could do the same in extending that influence into the arena of public policy with the goal of establishing an innovative solution to abuse that shifts the way the nation thinks about its treatment of women.

The election of President Barack Obama, with young people across race supporting him long before even the African American community's vote was solidified, marked the first political victory for this generation. Two-thirds of the 23 million young Americans 18-29 who voted in the 2008 presidential election voted for Barack Obama. These same young people taking the lead on a public policy solution to end dating violence would be an important second act.

Contrary to public opinion the hip-hop community has a long history of resisting the status quo of domestic abuse, misogyny and gender inequity. From books like Tracy Sharpley-Whiting's Pimps Up, Hos Down and films like Aishah Simmons' No! The Rape Documentary to organizations like the Center for Young Women's development and Industry Ears, Inc., there is an emerging hip-hop generation leadership that has its finger on the pulse of a change agenda for women.

Such an agenda is reflected in the nearly 5000 comments posted on Blackplanet.com responding to Chris Brown and Rihanna newsone.com updates. The overwhelming mood of these comments was that the Black community needed to separate itself from stereotypes of domestic violence. Blackplanet.com members even spontaneously created online discussion groups to address the issue.

The media's obsession with the Chris Brown/Rihanna incident, alongside a new administration that seems to take the debt it owes young voters seriously offers young political organizers a rare opportunity for this generation to take the lead on dating and domestic abuse.

Although hip-hop didn't create America's gender problem, it's mainstream dominant representations certainly helped reinforce it. Today's young Americans--especially those in the Chris Brown and Rihanna age group and the legions of even younger fans who idolize them--have come of age consuming a steady diet of these images. Few would argue that they are healthier or wiser as a result.

At the same time, there are very few places in our culture where we require young men to learn appropriate behavior for engaging their female counterparts, especially when relationships turn sour. (Rhode Island and Virginia law for high school instruction on dating are rare exceptions.) This advancing the status quo, alongside our failure as a society to entrench a workable solution into the fabric of our culture, is a deadly combination.

A recent report from the Bureau of Justice found that 1 in 3 girls in the US is a victim of physical, emotional or verbal abuse from a dating partner. 13 percent of teen girls say they were physically hurt or hit and 40 percent of teenage girls 14-17 year olds say they know someone their age that has been hit by a boyfriend. And a 2003 nationwide survey from the Center for Disease control of 15,000 9-12 grade high school students found that nearly 9 percent experienced physical dating violence, with rates among Black females (14 percent) nearly twice their white counterparts (7 percent). The rate for Latino females was 9.3 percent.

Now is not the time for young people inspired during the last election cycle to fall back into complacency. Instead this energy should be channeled into the creation of a concrete national agenda committed to ending domestic violence.

This certainly will require an institutional approach. In the same way that sex education worked it's way into our schools, we need a similar curriculum from the earliest grades upward to change the ways Americans think about dating violence, domestic abuse and gender equity. At a bare minimum, this curriculum must teach boys that physical and emotional violence toward their girlfriends or any boys or men toward woman is never an option.

Such a move would have several benefits: it would help create the major societal shift needed to curtail violence against women; it would allow hip-hop to reveal to the world that it has a moral center; and it would solidify a new movement for a new generation. All are important steps on the road to transforming America into a county that reflects, more accurately than our media representations, the generation currently preparing to inherit it.

This post originally appeared on newsone.blackplanet.com.

Bakari Kitwana is the co-author of the forthcoming Hip-Hop Activism in the Obama Era (Third World Press, 2009) and a visiting scholar at Columbia College's Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media.

Comments

[starshine13]

If you are going to write a post on Hip Hop, Why don't you write a post on the king of Hip Hop Jay Z.

Jay Z (Rihanna's mentor) smacked 2 women around, One of the incidents was caught on camera and is on You Tube now.

Why is no one writing about that? Everyones too scared to write about Jay Z but it's ok to torture a 19 year old kid.

Go on you tube and search for: Jay-z Hit's a Female He is a hypocrite.

[Casey Gane-McCalla - Huffpost Blogger]

the video is from Backstage, a documenatary on Jay Z, he was just pushing her head playfully its clear in the movie

[stevie8]

Sorry my man, but that's B.S.

Admit it that you are too afraid to write about the 'King of Hip Hop' but you can torture a boy for weeks without giving him a chance to come out and defend himself.

[stevie8]

I have read Rihanna's statement several times and there are too many holes in it. As a black man who has been in Chris Browns position, my girlfriend has now admitted that she lied.

The courts are now taking legal action against her. The last few weeks have been a NIGHTMARE.

The police take down a womans statement exactly how she says it, they do not question it. My girlfriends statement looked similar to Rihanna's statement and it looked very suspicious.

I was ridiculed in my community and hated by women and men alike.
I cannot imagine what Chris is going through because he is famous the whole world knows what happened.
If Rihanna was not famous the media attention would be minimal.

I cannot believe she is out partying, why has she not released any statement?

And Why is her father saying she will not talk to him (he is talking to tabloid magazines).

I hope the truth comes out because I was in Chris's shoes too.

[TheBlackCat]

Did your girlfriend have her face bashed in when the police found her?

If not, you are not dealing with analagous situations and should not compare them.

I have a best friend who was falsely accused of rape. He isn't now pro rapist because he assumes every other woman is lying too.

You need to deal with your obvious anger and resentment towards women. Just because one lied about you abusing her doesn't mean all abused women are liars.

I pray to God you are never on a jury.

[starshine13]

THE BLACKCAT,

Stop now please, Her face was not bashed in.

I pray you are not never on a jury because you're too melodramatic.

[jemiltd]

While I, with no question, agree that men need to be the primary and proactive part of the solution, I also think that women have some skin in the game from another perspective: we all become or manifest in our lives what we don't resolve. So if a woman did not have the father she needed, if he or other males were verbally, emotionally, psychologically, sexually and/or physically abusive, then does she not, as an "adult" look for some manifestation of that person, because she wants and needs to prove to herself that the behavior was not her fault as a child OR to reinforce the belief that she IS at fault for what happened when she had no control? I have seen too many go from one abusive relationship to another. Would love to have you respond to that and how you believe it can be resolved. I believe abuse is a generational legacy.

[BronxRobb]

There are more questions than answers on this matter, but let's start here:

1. It is never acceptable for one person to abuse another,period.

2. From our society's perspective, it is worse when a man hits a woman. Where fists/hands are concerned, a man should never hit a woman - "self defense" is no defense.

3. Domestic Viloence as a tilte is an impediment to action against it. Let's call it what it is "assuault," "battery," "intent to do bodily harm." Put in those terms, I think that the acts of violence are viewed differently, and the response to these acts are more forceful.

4. We also need to examine violence and its acceptablitiy in our society in general, in order to address this more specific problem.

[TheBlackCat]

It is wrong for a woman to slap a man. I certainly would never slap my husband and wouldn't expect him to stay with me if I did.

But slapping someone does not put them in any danger of permanent of serious injury. Beating someone to a pulp is NOT self defense for a slap, because beating someone DOES put them in danger of permanent and serious injury, while slapping does not.

I took martial arts for 7 years, and they key aspect they hammered home to us is APPROPRIATE PHYSICAL RESPONSE. They made it very clear that if someone started a fight, that isn't license to just beat the living crap out of them unless our lives were truly in danger and we are unable to neutralize them with less vicious tactics like binds and calculated strikes which cause no actual physical damage. We were told that if we DID cause the person harm just because they started a fight (as opposed to us being in real danger), we would and SHOULD be held legally responsible even if the other person was the one who initiated the fight.

[Vita Brightwell]

Thank you for this article. It's time for EVERYONE to take responsibility for domestic and dating violence! It's a culture-wide issue, and most certainly not limited to any particular community, and at its core, it's about what we teach our kids about manhood. There is an amazing cross-culturally effective program that is changing lives in the Bay Area and beyond called "manalive.­" http://www.manaliveinternational.org/aboutuspage.html This program was used as a model for the California State standards for batterer intervention programs advocated by the California Council Against Domestic Violence and passed by the California legislature as Assembly Bill 226 in 1993. Get involved! Until we ALL own this issue, we're in trouble.

[Kitty40]

I am so grateful for this article. I have been trying to explain this concept to a couple of my friends. I have refused to discuss this issue casually with others because I didn't want to promote the idea that a 19 year old black male is the poster child for domestic abuse. Domestic abuse has been a huge issue in our society for a very long time and not much has been done about it as a society and I refuse to help the masses in the media use a 19 year old black male to carry this very big societal problem.

[psychmaj323]

This isn't music or race specific

[ltva]

Putting the blame and making c brown responsible for the entire incident does nothing to hinder domestic abuse. With the attitudes and aggressiveness of todays females more focus needs to be put in that area. We have long quoted to our sons and males in our lives that they are never to hit a woman not thinking that there would come a time when they would have to defend themselves from those females. Maybe woman should start being held accountable. Just because they often come out on the losing end of a fight does not mean that they did not start the fight. All people have a right to defend themselves. If you hit me expect to get hit back.

[starshine13]

First of, Chris Brown is not a Hip Hop artist, he sings R&B love songs.

And there are women abusing men everyday too.

Can we report fair and balanced news and talk about Rihanna admitting that she abused Chris.

Why are women and girls becoming more and more violent towards men?

[kaaramel]

"Why are women and girls becoming more and more violent towards men?"

Because men and boys have always been more violent towards women and girls than vice versa and now more women and girls realize that they can serve it too?