"Ain't Nobody's Business if I Do" Rihanna, Bush, Me and The Culture of Abuse

I was driving back from a weekend visit to my infant twin grand-daughters yesterday when I played a CD of one of my favorite old Bessie Smith standards, "Ain't nobody's business if I do." The blues usually warms me with its sad-joyful rendering of the human condition; its appeal to love and sexuality and sorrow; its awareness of our frailties and its shout out against loss. This time as I listened to the lyrics carefully I was chilled to the bone. I quote Bessie singing:

"There, I'd rather my man was hittin' me

Then to jump right up and quittin' me...

"Ain't nobody's business if I do"

"I swear I won't call no copper

If I'm beat up by my poppa

Ain't nobody's business if I do"

Poor Bessie's lyrics stand historically behind today's pop star Rihanna and her reluctance to press charges against her violent abuser, part of a long culture of abuse - one which protects the abuser with the abused person's delusional belief that he's really a good guy, "things just got out of hand, and I must have provoked him with something I said or did." And yes, "He really loves me and if only I learn to behave nicer it won't happen again." Our shelters are full of such women who barely escaped with their lives. Our morgues are filled with those who didn't. And some of our old blues songs provide the anthems for their lives.

The African American community knows about that culture of abuse (see Alice Walker's The Color Purple) - a tradition that had it's roots in the brutality of slavery - but as a Caucasian (whatever the hell that means) I too have seen it among friends and family. It is easy to look at the horribly battered photograph of the beaten Rihanna and cluck our tongues in sympathy because for all her wealth, talent, and beauty, the woman doesn't get it. At this moment Rihanna may feel that it is not our business and it's her choice to forgive her assailant. Perhaps she came to feel like Bessie, that "I'd rather my man was hittin' me than to jump up and quittin' me...Ain't nobody's business if I do.' Not so. Rihanna, it is our business if you do.

Society has the right; yes, the obligation to prosecute and punish a violent person who has inflicted harm upon another, not only for the woman or man brutalized - but because society cannot survive with such behavior going unpunished. It shakes the foundation of our social contract which is to offer protection to all of us whether or not we want such protection. Once he or she has been criminally abused it is no longer the victim's choice to forgive and walk away. Bessie Smith, much as I love you, and I do, you got it all wrong in that song.

The remarkable nature of abuse is that it often escapes the personal and can so easily metastasize and become the political affecting the fortunes of a nation, indeed the fortunes of the world. For the past eight years Americans were abused by George Walker Bush, his malign Vice President, his obliging staff, the Republican Congress, and the tag along Dems. While this was happening the country lived in a state of denial. One might find W's abusive origins in that haughty, superior mother of his with her wasp-like sting and that chilly, CIA remote, presidentially ambitious father. Enough said. I'm not one of those who wallow in psychological causes which too easily become excuses for bad behavior. I'm for focusing on the effects. The effect for all of us was the ruin that W brought down upon our country and a civilization after eight years in office.

Like Rihanna's boyfriend, Bush smiled, chortled, beguiling the press and the people behind a mask of amiability. By compulsively lying, getting us into an unprovoked war, and abusing our trust after 9/11, Bush trampled our constitution by introducing torture into our culture, and the abuse escalated, as abuse, unchecked often does. Along the way Bush aided in abusing the average man and woman by deregulating our banks and markets and thereby grievously redistributing the wealth of the country to the top few, okay forgive me if this laundry list of crimes is too familiar but lest we forget he politicized a justice department meant to protect us, he allowed his religious beliefs to limit scientific research, his ignorance of science helped to trash the fragile environment, and yet he was forgiven by an abused country which gave him a second chance - another four years to finish the job. After all, he's such a nice guy; underneath it all he really loves us, right? Well, he finished the job. Now this country is reeling in pain; battered, bruised, scared, and finally facing the facts of the abusive Bush/America relationship. His actions during his eight years in office were acts of violence against the very people he had sworn to protect. Part of the cover-up was the refusal of his administration to let us see the photographs of the coffins of the young men and women who had died in his misbegotten war.

Our denial has brought some terrible consequences. Rising unemployment; crushing financial crises, home foreclosures, and a loss of confidence in the everyday values we have lived by for so long: that hard work would be rewarded, that our financial institutions were honest and sound, and that the good stuff would trickle down to us if we were only patient and respectful - all of which came along with forgiving that abuser.

Here's some good news. We can all learn from yesterday. Rihanna can recover and figure it out. And more important, so can the country. Very soon we will stop chattering about the Octomom and we won't give a damn about the next winner of American Idol, we will be so concerned about our own endangered economic lives, and well we should be. With any luck we will give President Obama the chance to start us towards recovery by ridding the Congress of some of the serial enablers who helped W bring us so low, those who hope, along with Rush Limbaugh, for Obama and thus America to fail.

Me? I've stopped listening to the evening news as often as I once did. There's just so much doom and gloom that I can take in a week. And I've also stopped looking at those ridiculous ads in the New York Times - some of which appeared this very week as unemployment figures escalated; the thousand dollar shirts and multi-million dollar mansions, a stick in the eye to a world of hardship and growing despair. Give us a break. The surprising financial success of the movies in these hard times shows that we need entertainment more than ever - but there's a difference between entertainment and a world of excess. Yes, we will recover but the good news can only begin with accountability for those in the Bush administration who helped to bring us so low. Sorry, President Obama, we can't look ahead or move ahead without looking back. Like the abuser of Rihanna there must be accountability for public as well as private crimes. Public crimes become private ones trickling down to our everyday lives, just as private crimes are the public's business if such crimes are ever to be stopped, and if our daughters and grand-daughters are to be made safe.

Like a lot of people I'm taking my bad news in smaller doses these days, hoping for the best, knowing we will survive the worst, and living a Monday-Friday pundit free life, rereading some treasured books, and trying to take a long view of today. As the magnificent but lyrically challenged Bessie Smith said, "Ain't nobody's business if I do."

Comments

[Noregard]

continued...
It was, as it is today, a statement from a big artis that cross all good middle class moral to demand respect even for the ones who live lives not out of the ordinary (and the lyrics are harsh in stating that point.) It is clearly the big-city-d­runkard-bo­heme who responds to her small town baptist vicar. A gospel from a super individualist that demand respect even in the face of her own degradation. All this seem pretty far from the case of Rihanna and a very bad excuse to make a political statement.
So we are all abuse victims are we? A weird way of looking at democracy. Maybe you should listen to Bessie Smith again to learn something about taking responsibility for your own life.
We, the American people, choose George W. Bush as our president and today we must face the consequences. Not as victims refusing to listen to the news, but as individuals responsible for our own lives, for the ones we care for and eventually for our society. You are using Rihanna to make our own victimizing political statement, as she has been used by the tabloid and Oprah Winfrey for their own ends. But honestly – It ain't nobody's business - except for the people close to her.
Next time try to challenge your own writings.

[Noregard]

Mr. Sherman Yellen
I am afraid that it is you who got it all wrong. It is not that I disagree with your political views concerning the Bush administration. But to argue against what you don't like in political life, from a free association between your reading of the tabloid press and your reading of one of the greatestAmerican artists, reveals a complete lack of understanding of both democracy and art
The private life of one of our entertainment stars, has very little to do with the song. Abused as much by the industry, Oprah Winfrey and the tabloid press, who makes a living by revealing all the sad events of her life, as she is by her brutal boyfriend, she has very little saying in how she is portrayed. That makes it easy for you to use her, patronizingly, as an example of a certain sentiment of victimization that should run amongst African Americans.
When a descendant of the African slaves stood up publicly in the racist society that was hers and sang: “If I go to church on Sunday - Sing the shimmy down on Monday - Ain't nobody's business if I do”, it was not an defeatist statement on behalf of her race or her gender.
Continued...

[Dimp88]

All of the advice being given to Rihanna to no longer love Chris Brown is typical of the advice that comes from those that love no one but them self. And, Oprah’s assurance to Rihanna that “Love Doesn’t Hurt” was to be expected from a woman that knows that the only person she is allowing herself to love (herself) is never going to hurt her.

It’s saddening that Oprah’s past painful experiences with procuring a relationship of love with the men she felt she loved, has caused her love of self to overcompensate and no longer allow her to risk the pain involved with being self sacrificing enough to love another flawed and imperfect human being, be that human being one’s parent, one’s sibling, one’s sex partner, or one’s child.

But out of love for only self, Oprah and every other self-loving only person are giving advice to only Rihanna, advice which is essence to treat Chris Brown like one the many materialistic things Oprah once loved, bought, and simply gave away to someone else. It’s indeed saddening for establishing examples of "true love" that so many people are like Oprah, and seem think that having someone that loves you is as painless as is having money or materialistic things, which one can love today and simply get rid of the next day through a donation, a sale, or a toss in the trash.

[conniedogs]

D A MN !!!!!! That was good!

[kaaramel]

Are you being ironic or sarcastic?

[tploomis]

This is completely wrong. Rihanna's problem is not enough self love so that she settles for somebody that thinks love means doing as he says. Sure love is painful at times, but it should never involve putting up with abuse. In Oprah's case, you think her problem is too much focus on loving herself. I think her basic problem stems from not really loving herself. A focus on loving herself is an appropriate focus for her. Loving others can only happen after you love yourself. You seem to think some sort of shortcut to love and happiness is possible if you excuse outrageous behavior (hitting) on the part of the person you supposedly love. Chris Brown doesn't love her, despite what he might think. He wants her to be a different person than she is, and he tries to get her to be that different person by hitting. That's not love--- that's loving some idealized fantasy of a person and being upset when that person isn't the fantasy he created in his head.

[moodygirl]

Dim...what a load of drivel. There is absolutely nothing wrong with loving and respecting oneself while striving to become a better person. When someone abuses you it is absolutely important for you survival that you do not let this continue and that the abuser must face the legal and moral consequences.

[kaaramel]

Here's where I stand:
Self-preservation cannot exist where unconditional love exists.
It's okay to forgive and protect, but it's not ok to forgive and forget.
Christians believe that Jesus is the Christ who sacrificed himself for humans but we also believe that no one had the power to kill him and he also had the power to resurrect himself.
Do you or Rihanna have the power to resurrect yourselves?
Therefore leave unconditional love to the omnipotent God, if you believe in Him.
"Be wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove" - Matt. 10:16

I feel sorry for you.

[db08]

wow...I gues you know more about Oprah than the rest of the world including Oprah and those she gives to generously materials goods that they need to survive and also emotionally that they need, also, to survive. But, Oprah can take care of herself against people like Dimp88.

However, I am not so sure about Dimp88 who somehow thinks that letting someone beat you is accepting a flawed human being and that it is an example of true love. I have been with my husband for 40 years and we both are flawed and have had our moments and hours and even months. I cannot even imagine that our true love would involve violence. If it did, out of love we would leave until we were well again so as to not to do harm to the one you love. Accepting someone into your life who is beating you is true madness. Putting Oprah down as flawed does not change that madness.

[brandnewstuff]

That is a counterculture problem to accept domestci abuse and SHOULD be the right of the female to then take that Male to court and OUT all his dirty business and Lose face in the community for the crimes he is guilty of and when such acts of Courage occur-- other that have a daughter, sister or grandchild should be proud- You know the face of Violence and most white men DO NOT FACE THE SAME PUNISHMENT AS A BLACK MAN-- LETS HAVE THAT ABUSE CHANGE

AS MUCH AS MY PREDATOR DESERVES TO DIE-- AN ACT OF PROSECTION WILL WORK- AND IF ERIC HOLDER IS MAN OF HIS WORDS NO MAN IS ABOVE THE LAW

THEN SO BE IT-- I DO NOT WEAR A HEEL LIFT FROM BEING LOVED

TRUTH BE TOLD A MURDER VICTIM THAT GOT OFF THE GROUND WITH A TRAIL OF FACT BEHIND HER OF WHY AND HOW MAN MADE DIRTY MONEY LIKE A PEDOHILE

[moodygirl]

I just dj'd a radio program where I used just these lyrics sung by Billie Holiday to talk about how the Chris Brown and Rhianna saga has gotten many people talking about domestic and relationship violence. Australia reports 1 in 5 adult women and teenagers are subjected to violence. In England, the Home Secretary, a woman, is planning to pass regulations that would allow the police to notify new partners in relationships of past abuses perpetrated by their new friend (like information on pedophiles who move into your neighborhood). Husbands who abuse have to take treatment if they are addicted to drugs or alcohol.

I played 'Endagered Species' by Dianne Reeves from her 'Art & Survival' CD that I wish Rihanna could hear:

I am an endangered species, but I sing no victims song, I am a woman I am an artist, and I know where my voice belongs. (Refrain)

I am a woman I exist, I shake my fist but not my hips, my skin is dark my body is strong, I sing of rebirth no victims song.

They cut out my sex they bind my feet, silence my reflex no tongue to speak, I work in the fields I work in the store, I type up the deals and I mop the floor.

My body is fertile I bring life about, drugs famine and war take them back out, my husband can beat me his right they say, and rape isn't rape you say I like it that

[HappyMarsden]

NEWSFLASH: Long (days) before you wrote this article, I used the phrase "T'aint nobody's business if I do" in my comments about Rihanna. Because on the lyrics of course (except mine was based on the superior Diana Ross version from Lady Sings the Blues....). So, not an original thought.

[elsie900]

The article doesn't claim he was the first or only one to think of it.

[HappyMarsden]

True.

[garymiceli]

If any man savagely beats a woman, or a child, or an animal, he automatically qualifies as a danger to others and as a piece of human crap. He must be dealt with accordingly.

If a woman pop star, in a role model position, admired by maybe millions of little girls, is given the rare opportunity to be an unprecedented and massively positive force against domestic violence and instead, chooses to be the poster girl for domestic violence, she automatically qualifies as an exponentially greater danger to thousands of other women.

Rihanna must examine her conscience. With fame, comes a higher responsibility to society and humanity.

If a society is presented with the rare opportunity to make a vastly positive impression upon its youth, and fails to take advantage of that opportunity - by not most vigorously prosecuting such a high profile case of domestic violence, it is failing in its sacred duty to all of us.

This is no time to pussyfoot around. The Prosecutor must show our kids that violence against women is unacceptable, period.

Where is Draco when we need him most?

[AnnfromCA]

I never heard George say once that he didn't mean to do it. That's the MO of the abuser. George Bush was always very direrct about his direction and policies.

Now, you may think those policies were wrong. I certainly did not agree with him on several issues.

But I do not view people who voted for Bush as being in "denial." I do not condescend to them, either. I just voted differently.

[Sundialsvc4]

An excellent piece, Sherman. I didn't see your point coming, at first.

"Denial," though, truly is just as endemic to our human society as the "abuse" that it breeds. It can be said that one feeds the other. GWB truly is a sociopath, and the many Members of Congress who think nothing of saying, "I hope that this (nation | government | president) fails" plainly are sociopathic too. The folks who have become so insulated on their trading-floors that they are, even now, actively trading upon this misery that has befallen us, are well beyond any level of sinfulness that Ebenezer Scrooge or even Jacob Marley contemplated.

It is very good, then, that we stop listening to "the news," and that we stop proclaiming how "the President" has suddenly switched from savior to devil. The problem lies both in our denial of what was happening (for more than twenty-five years, actually...) and our refusal to face the fact that we were, in fact, "denying it."

Governing a nation of 305 million people is hard work. So is being a citizen of such a country. Freely choosing to become the President, or a senior office-holder, or even a Congressman or a Senator is an act of courage ... if you take your job seriously and do not deny the reality of what accepting such a position now will cost you in terms of personal sacrifice.

[cylindar]

I think people need to start with curbing their psychological abuse of others.

[mcgreen]

It is horribly sad to see another young woman stay around a man who clearly has real dangerous mental problems that will continue to be life threatening for her.

It's more than sad - it's tragic because she's doing this on a national stage and is sending the message that she isn't worth better than that. She doesn't care enough about herself and her sisters out there.

[Billie]

I've also stopped watching the news at night because the tone is negative, the gloom and doom repeated over and over to the point where I consider it toxic. Many people I knew are turning it off as well. Plus I don't trust anything they say anyway. I'm so sick of hearing about MONEY MONEY MONEY

I've read three great books this week and it feels so much better than watching tv.

[mssreader]

I made this decision to disconnect the tv about 7 years ago and I too read books. Congratulations.

I don't know if it was all the stupid commercials or the sick and cheap quality of tv programs that caused me to quit but so glad I did. Don't watch the Emmy's either cause I don't know anything that's
going on tv wise and don't miss it one bit.

Might take a bit of time to detox but you'll be so much happier with books.

[tploomis]

I notice that I have been avoiding the headline articles in Huffington Post because of the disturbing national and global economic news. I have been gravitating toward the entertainment news and the comedy pieces. It's always interesting to read comments from those who think these articles are a waste of time, while other dire issues are buffeting our country. I think a little escapism is what the doctor ordered in these times. Movie viewership goes up during depressions and recessions. I guess it's human nature to want to avoid the worst news.