Chris Brown's Return: Rape Culture at its Finest (Worst)

OK guys. Get ready for rape culture in action (and domestic violence culture in action; if that's not a term, it should be). Rape culture is a "term used to describe a culture in which rape and sexual violence are common and in which prevalent attitudes, norms, practices, and media normalize, excuse, tolerate, or even condone sexual violence. Examples of behaviors commonly associated with rape culture include victim blaming,sexual objectification, and trivializing rape." (Yes, that's from Wikipedia)


Last night, Chris Brown made his return performance to the Grammys. What does Chris Brown at the Grammys have to do with rape culture? Well, about three years ago, he beat up his girlfriend, pop star Rihanna. He beat her up so violently that she had to go to the hospital. 


After this story was leaked to the press, there was a huge media storm about it. And a large portion of that storm was discussing how Rihanna caused this to happen. A large portion of that storm was making excuses for Chris Brown, the abuser. And ever since this happened, people have been complaining that people need to pipe down and stop reminding everyone what Chris Brown did. "Let him move on!" "Get over it already!" Even someone in my own college newspaper wrote last year about how reporters should stop bringing up his past (I wrote a response to this which was never published in the paper, and so I published it here and started this blog). 


What about Rihanna? Was anyone helping her move on? Even when someone spoke up in the press about Rihanna needing support, the backlash was so great that he had to apologize for possibly offending Chris Brown. 


Now, three years later, Chris Brown has been welcomed back as a performer at the Grammys. And everyone is talking about how great it is to have him back. And those same people are completely ignoring his abusive past, and staying eerily silent on the reason he was gone in the first place. Now, I'm not saying that no one deserves a second chance. But Chris Brown has not actually been punished. He was put on probation and given community service hours. He was not in attendance at the Grammys for two years. That's nothing. What are we telling women when the men who abuse them get nothing but a slap on the wrist?


And the most twisted part? All the tweets and status updates from women saying basically the same thing, "Chris Brown's so hot I would let him beat me up any day."

This. Is. Rape. Culture. In. Action. 

When we have normalized domestic violence so much that women can casually joke about it being an easy price to pay for the man you want, we have a big problem.


Folks, we have a big problem.