By Sara Ward
Associate Editor
I would like to kindly and respectfully disagree with some of the opinions expressed in Opinion Editor Deirdre Spilman’s Feb. 8 editorial titled “Brown deserves a chance to move forward.”
In the editorial, Spilman spoke about how Chris Brown “doesn’t deserve to have one isolated incident (his 2009 assault of then-girlfriend Rihanna) plague his reputation for the rest of his life.”
I would agree with this statement, but this act of violence was not an isolated incident. Unfortunately, after he beat his girlfriend in an argument, Brown went on to display other dangerous outbursts of anger.
Last month, singer Frank Ocean reported getting into a brawl with Brown in a parking lot in West Hollywood, according to a Feb. 11 Huffington Post article.
Ocean said Brown punched him, in addition to someone from Brown’s entourage calling him a gay slur, according to a Jan. 29 Huffington Post article. Days later, Ocean decided not to press charges.
At the Grammys, Brown remained seated during a standing ovation when Ocean accepted the award for Best Urban Contemporary Album for “channel ORANGE,” according to a Feb. 11 Huffington Post article.
Brown had been nominated in the same category, and evidently he wasn’t very pleased about Ocean winning over him.
Seriously? Not only did Brown beat someone up over a parking space, but he chose to keep a feud going by disrespecting Ocean for winning an award he clearly deserved.
Brown obviously finds it difficult to let things go which make him angry. Instead of trying to fix the bad situation with Ocean, he decided to be immature and childish.
He can’t expect the public to forget his past actions when he himself has trouble getting over certain issues. If he wants us to stop judging him by his bad actions, he should try harder to be a better person.
These events show how Brown let his anger take over again. He obviously has trouble with expressing his anger and frustration in healthy ways. If Brown can lose his cool simply because of a parking space, it’s clear he hasn’t changed at all since 2009.
However, this wasn’t Brown’s first aggressive action since beating up Rihanna.
In 2011, Brown stormed off the set of “Good Morning America” after co-anchor Robin Roberts asked him about his violent incident with Rihanna, according to a March 22, 2011 ABC News article.
He went back to his dressing room after being asked about the situation three times and ended up smashing a window. The show’s hair and makeup staff said they called security because they heard loud noises coming from Brown’s dressing room, according to the same article.
Granted, Brown would be angry about being asked about something he’s ashamed of. But honestly, his behavior after the show demonstrates how easily his temper can flare up, even two years after he got in trouble for abusing his girlfriend.
Spilman may be angry about the public’s disgust with Brown, but she shouldn’t expect people to forget about domestic violence when Brown seems to be acting the same as he did.
Domestic violence shouldn’t be taken lightly. Between 600,000 and 6 million women are victims of domestic violence each year as well as between 100,000 and 6 million men, according to the Domestic Violence Resource Center.
There are so many men and women out there whom domestic violence affects. How would it make them feel if the public didn’t take violence like that between Brown and Rihanna as seriously as it should be?
We shouldn’t easily forget about an event which ended with someone being hurt. It may seem like a bad reputation continues to follow him, but Brown should have thought about that before he decided to take the actions he did.
He wanted to become internationally famous and sing and dance for a living, so he shouldn’t be surprised when his actions, good and bad, appear all over the media.
He physically injured someone he supposedly loved. That shouldn’t be brushed under the rug.
I would have a lot more respect for Brown if he had actually made an effort to go through counseling or anger management classes. If he had actually wanted to become responsible and change for the better after his incident with Rihanna, I might have given him credit.
But evidence shows he hasn’t changed at all.
Brown may fix his ways in the future and redeem himself, but we can’t move forward until Brown decides to change. We can’t leave what’s happened in the past because at the moment, history continues to repeating itself again and again.
