Chris and Rihanna Show All's Not Fair in Love That Wars
Superstars Chris Brown and Rihanna are the poster children for domestic violence. You know the story. A lover's quarrel in 19-year-old Brown's car led to a beating so brutal that neither were able to make scheduled appearances at the Grammy Awards later that night.
Rihanna ended up with a badly bruised and swollen face, Brown with an arrest record and the two of them back together again. Apparently, Rihanna, 21, and Brown's teenage fans are willing to forgive him for his behaving badly.
Their spat gone violent might be worth all the attention it's received if it was not so common. As black nationalist H. Rap Brown observed four decades ago: Violence is as American as apple pie.
That's particularly true when it comes to home and to those who are intimately involved partners. There are nearly two million injuries in this nation each year resulting from domestic violence. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, victims of severe domestic violence--like Rihanna--annually miss 8 million days of paid work; that's the equivalent of 32,000 full-time jobs, and approximately 5.6 million days of household productivity.
And while I abhor the practice of a man beating his woman senseless--or slapping her around for that matter--I believe it's worst when a parent whips a child.
Although, like Rihanna, many abused women fail to dump their abusing lover, abused children rarely have that choice to make. In the name of love and discipline, a parent can beat a child day in and day out without rebuke as long as that child doesn't end up with welts and bruises--or in the ER. But that old school discipline that so many old school parents are so fast and proud to dish out is nothing but an act of violence.
If I pulled off my belt and decided to whip a complete stranger walking down the street, I'd go jail if not to the morgue. That reality and those rules don't apply to the most defenseless Americans--small children.
Citing "spare the rod, spoil the child," far too many Americans believe that when it comes to punishing children, that which doesn't kill them will make them stronger.
But, in reality, it's poor parenting, not spared rod, spoil the child. Our prisons are overcrowded with men who got their butts whipped as children at home and on the streets. Rather than beating up your child because you're bigger and stronger, wouldn't it be better to teach them how to behave by reasoning with them and punishing through non-violent means? Time-outs work. So do revoked privileges. Teaching by example is tops. For example, when I was a child, my father told me any curse word I heard him use I could use. Since I never heard him use one, he never heard me use one.
If you teach a child that violence is a means to get what you want, then violence becomes an early and easy option. The jails are filled with men--and boys--who got their asses whipped on regularly. Rather than learning reasoning and self-control, they learned that physical abuse is the way to control or address problems.
And, isn't it strange that parents feel free to beat up--whip--their children while they're little but stop as soon as they get big enough to make it a fair fight?
The same principle holds true for two lovers. Had Rihanna been bigger, stronger or a black belt, Chris Brown would have thought long and hard before he struck out.
Cyber Columnist Monroe Anderson is an award-winning journalist who penned op-ed columns for both the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. You can read his blog at http://www.monroeanderson.typepad.com/
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Mr. Anderson, I feel that you are confusing discipline with abuse.
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Queotic: I'm not confused at all. I'm arguing that physically punishing a child is abuse, just to a lesser degree. You're not allowed to hit your spouse with fear of a battery charge, why should you be allowed to hit someone much smaller and defenseless in the name of discipline?
Hitting is nothing more than lazy parenting. Calming your child down, talking to them rationally, using reasoning on a small child, coming up with effective forms of discipline that will have a long term effect on behavior changes, leading by example. These are hard things to do. Hitting a kid to make him behave is easy.
I am not saying this never works but, disciplining a child is not easy. Because most parents love their child it is easy to want to go easy on them. But This idea that you can reason with a 7 or 8 yr old is foolish in alot of cases. When I was a child I didnt respect my mother as much as my father cause I knew she was not going to pop me when I acted up and I was almost her size, so I brushed her off. But I didnt get completely out of control cause I knew she would tell my father and there would be hell to pay. A father is the first and last step between a child and the police. As a child gets older you can reason with them more, but kids especially boys between 6-13 laugh off things like timeout. What happens when you tell your child to do something and they say no. "Go to timeout Johnny" No! you cant make me! Now what Dr. Spock
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Dorraj: You don't give a boy between 6-13 a timeout. After you explain to him why you think what he did was wrong, you don't allow him to watch his favorite TV show for that night. You don't let him see his buddies the next Saturday. You don't buy him the hot new computer game as soon as it comes out. That's how things work in the real world. If you don't perform on your job the way your boss wants you to, he doesn't have you whipped, he makes sure you don't get that raise or promotion or he makes you do the job over.
The jails are filled with men--and boys--who got their asses whipped on regularly.
No they are filled with boys with no father around. If spanking a child is bad why are kids worse and in jail more today than before when father were around and did spank their kids more. You are confusing those who abuse their kids with those who discipline their children. Also the tougher the environment the child grows up in, the more importance it is for the father to have control of their child. I am sorry but you could not have gave worse advice. The problem especially in black communities is not that fathers or parents are beating their kids too much. It is that they are not in the child's life. Go to the innercity, better yet go to jail and see how many didnt have a father around. Your whole premise is foolish, Timeout is not going to solve discipline issues that boys have.
I completely disagree with your take on spanking children. Children especially young boys need discipline. As a young black male who has never been in trouble with the law I give full credit to my father who had no problem pulling out the belt when I got out of line. He didnt beat me unconscious but I knew if I got out of line my father would get me. You have no idea how much trouble that kept me out of. That is one of the main reason why young black males are so bad today. No fear of consequences. A child is not mature enough to reason with. No disrespect but your reasoning is so flawed. You are comparing violence between two adults to a parent disciplining their child. You can always tell the children who are not getting disciplined at home. Tend to be very disrespectful. But when a teacher or adult can say "I am going to tell your father" and that means something it makes their job so much easier.
Also beating up children and giving them a spanking is two different things.
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Dorraj: I never spanked my two sons. I talked to them. I gave them time outs or didn't allow them to go to a movie they'd planned to see. My belt was used solely to hold up my pants. I'd bet you a $1000 bucks that both of them are as respectful--if not moreso--to me as you as to your father.
btw, when a teacher told my sons, "I am going to tell your father," it meant more than their fearing I was going to introduce them to another bout of violence. It meant that we were going to have a long, difficult discussion and that they wouldn't be doing something they had planned to do.
Monroe-
Thanks for the article. I think this may have been better as a stand alone article on corporal punishment as opposed to tying it into Chris and Rhianna, but despite that you really did hit the nail on the head.
What you hear a lot from parents who hit their kids is that "hitting works."
The problem is that hitting works only in that it makes the child comply with the parent's wishes in the moment. It does enable the parent to control the child and get them to do what they want in that moment.
However, it doesn't teach them about responsibility, to be better people, and certainly not self control. It teaches them that people can be controlled through violence and fear, and that violence and fear are the best ways to handle a difficult situation or problem. Virtually any study done on corporal punishment shows that while it does WORK (in that the kid will do what you say if you hit him), children who are hit grow up to be more aggressive and anti social by nature.
Hitting is nothing more than lazy parenting. Calming your child down, talking to them rationally, using reasoning on a small child, coming up with effective forms of discipline that will have a long term effect on behavior changes, leading by example. These are hard things to do. Hitting a kid to make him behave is easy.
Monroe
I notice how your article ends.
"Had Rihanna been bigger, stronger or a black belt Chris would have thought long and hard before he struck her."
Are you kidding me?
And you are saying you wrote this post to teach parents.
Well that comment was enough to make me believe that you are just jumping on the band wagon and trying to get your 15 minutes of fame and make a few bucks writing an article about the current Hot story.
That end comment was unnecessary and you are a grown black man.
I would love to see grown educated black men like you come out and talk about how Chris can:
a) get counselling
b) how he can repent and seek Gods forgiveness
c) how he can start a charity for battered women
d) how he can help other young men to not repeat the same thing
e) and how he can return to his career.
I think Chris could turn out to be a positive young man who could bring light to violence and abuse in teenage relationships and then put the wheels in motion to stop it. Especially since his main fan base are teenage girls, young women in their 20's and some teenage boys.
Could you consider writing such an article please.
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Highside:
Only a fourth of my commentary mentions Chris and Rihanna. The other three-fourths is about parents beating up their children. So, as a matter of sheer volume, it is what it is.
As for 15 minutes of fame, that came before Michael Jackson was Chris and Rihanna's age and has remained on one level or another since. Google me. Read my professional bio.
At some point in the future I may write the counseling piece you'd love to see. I'll forego the God forgiveness bit because I don't believe that, like Santa Claus, there's anything watching to see if we're naughty or nice--but us.
STARSHINE13
i am with you on this one. What is the point of talking about this day after day and week after week. Lets talk about the next step.
To the writer of this post as you can see other posts on Rihanna and Chris were getting over 100 comments last month but now people are fed up of reading the Rihanna and Chris story told from different angles. Regardless if your post is about parents abusing their children and children seeing domestic violence as kids, there are a lot of people who want to help Rihanna and Chris not rehash their sad incident.
Chris will have his day in court and get a chance to explain himself.
Lets now move on and talk to teenagers about what is going on in their relationships and educate boys to not hit girls and girls to not hit boys.
Also lets figure out how Chris and RIhanna can learn and move on and get counselling and also come back and continue in their promising music careers.
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Stevie8: As I told Starshine 13, this blog is more about parents hitting their children, not boys hitting girls. If parents set a good example by not using violence to solve problems, then the likelihood that their boys will hit their girls is greatly diminished.
Ah Steve and Starshine. They are so pro violence against women that they both started profiles this month on HuffPo for the sole reason of posting about how all women either did something to deserve to get beat or are lying about being beat, or if the guy did beat her, it's no big deal and he should be immediately forgiven because this is a normal mistake anyone can make.
It takes a real sick person to be so pro violence against women they actually start profiles for the sole reason of putting forth this position.
Also there is about a 99.999% chance that steve and star are the same perosn, as can be seen in their posting habits and how one ALWAYS rushes to the defense of the other, and their profiles were created at the same time and always post on the same stories.
Keene, don't move back with your folks. Please...m
That said, I couldn't agree more with your post, and yours, Ms. Anderson. Nothing worse for a helpless child than being brutalized by their own parents. All that teaches the child is that violence is the solution to conflict. As for Chris and Rhianna, let their story continue to be written about, NOT forgotten or swept under the rug. Enough with the excusing of Chris' behavior, and the same with Rhianna's. Let them let learn, really learn from this experience, and start on a new path of awareness, and finding a healthy way of dealing with anger and frustration. Easier said than done, but it CAN be done. Yes, it will take work and self discipline. That's what it takes to solve any problem.
If I had those options I would. Not ONE person I know has offered me to stay with them. Years ago, when I was in a tight money situation I was prepared to go to a shelter. Now that I am older, I am worn down. It's been a constant struggle. I pray ALOT, meditate to calm the nerves so that I can be receptive to new ideas. Thanks for your concern.
Was having a hard time sleeping w/ memories of my father giving my sister and I the belt. Little girls, sleeping in the same room &we would talk. If we didn't stop he'd sneak up stairs, loom in the doorway &give us the strap. I've had therapy. Issues w/ HIS father, I won't go into here. When I was 12 -13 ,got drunk, dad found out, drop kicked me up the stairs.The last time he went berserk on me, I was in the kitchen w/my sister &mother,they were arguing. I was 16. My father threw me on the floor, sat on me, hit me, chased me down the basement, up turned a pool table at me.
I approached him several months ago, told him I was having a hard time sleeping w/ those memories.W
Done everything in my power to heal . Am faced w/ the prospect of having to move back in w/ them soon due to this economy. I'm 55 yrs. old & in many ways still very young. Wish me luck.
Monroe Anderson,
This story is 7 weeks old, it is enough already.
You are writing about a TEENAGE boy who needs help, counselling and Gods forgiveness, not more writers, journalists, talk show hosts, gossip magazines and bloggers trying to make money off this tragic incident.
Instead of writing more articles about Domestic violence (note this is not domestic violence because they are not married or living together) why can you not write something about how Chris and Rihanna can heal, learn from this, grow, get help and advice and go on to have healthy relationships and bright careers.
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Starshine13:
You are wrong on at least two counts. First of all, it is a domestic violence case. You don't have to be married or living together to make it a domestic. It just has to be violence between two individuals with an intimate relationship.
Also, my post is REALLY about domestic violence in the sense of parents beating their children. If a child isn't introduced to violence in the home, then he's unlikely to think it's okay to participate in violence in his car.
Besides that, Chris was old enough to do some seriously physical damage to Rihanna so 19 years old is no excuse. Abusers don't stop as they get older, they get meaner.
Finally, the case is in the legal system. It hasn't even been ruled on yet, so to label it old news would be the equivalent of talking about the Great Recession as old news because it began nearly a year ago.
Starshine13,
Amen, I agree.
Can we please move on from the stories of abuse and domestic violence and torturing teenage Chris and move on to the therapy and prayers.
How can we help young men like Chris and young women like Rihanna?
I am holding a meeting with teenage girls and boys in my local community centre, we will debate about teenage violence (female to male, male to female, female to female and male to male) and then have a little party of sorts.
It would be good to read more articles and blogs on how we help and heal these young people instead of spending weeks repeating the same thing and torturing Chris.
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Hereistand: One way we can help and heal young people is to teach their parents not to "whip" their children. Violence begets violence.
STARSHINE13
i am with you on this one. What is the point of talking about this day after day and week after week. Lets talk about the next step.
To the writer of this post as you can see other posts on Rihanna and Chris were getting over 100 comments last month but now people are fed up of reading the Rihanna and Chris story told from different angles. Regardless if your post is about parents abusing their children and children seeing domestic violence as kids, there are a lot of people who want to help Rihanna and Chris not rehash their sad incident.
Chris will have his day in court and get a chance to explain himself.
Lets now move on and talk to teenagers about what is going on in their relationships and educate boys to not hit girls and girls to not hit boys.
Also lets figure out how Chris and RIhanna can learn and move on and get counselling and also come back and continue in their promising music careers.
Wow.
"This story is 7 weeks old. Enough already"
So I checked out Starshine's profile. They became a member in March and have ONLY commented on Chris Brown stories defending him. So they say "I'm sick of this story" yet obviously it is the ONLY news story that interests him, enough so that he's made over 50 comments in the last couple weeks on ONLY Chris Brown stories.
It's one thing to say "innocent until proven guilty" I can respect that and understand that. But to create a profile for the SOLE REASON of defending an acused woman beater for weeks???
All the true victims in the world, all the suffering, and the only thing that moves you is Chris Brown getting too harsh a rap?
If you think a story is hitting the news too much, don't make over 50 posts on that story and don't create a profile for the sole reason of posting on that story, smart guy.
Either you are a wife beater yourself, or you are weirdly obsessed with Chris Brown. Are you hiding in his bushes right now?
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