(Newser)
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Chris Brown is performing tonight at the Grammys, three years after beating Rihanna the night before the very same awards show, and Sasha Pasulka thinks it's disgraceful. The story is being covered as if it's "an exiled prince’s return to a former glory," when in fact it's actually "an enormous 'f**k you' to every woman who has been, is, or will be on the receiving end of domestic violence," she writes on Hello Giggles. Worse, even during the immediate aftermath of Rihanna's beating, Hollywood failed to roundly condemn Brown. Instead, it "teetered on the brink of defending" him. The public response "was a full-blown tearing-down of female self-worth, an assault on any progress women have made in this country in the past 200 years."
In the years since, Brown's popularity has showed no signs of waning; Billboard even named him Artist of the Year last year. Then, when Brown's Grammys performance was announced, the executive producer actually said that "we were the victim of what happened" when Brown hit Rihanna. "The Grammys think that they were the victim of Chris Brown hitting Rihanna in the face," Pasulka writes. "The Grammys. Think. That they. Were the victim. Of Chris Brown. Hitting. Rihanna. In the face." Yes, people deserve second chances, but this is ridiculous. By allowing Brown back on the show so soon, we're telling women, "We will easily forgive a person who victimizes you. We are able to look beyond the fact that you were treated as less than human, that a bigger, stronger person decided to resolve a conflict with you through violence. We know it happened, but it’s just not that big of a deal to us." The whole essay is worth a read.
