I’m Not Okay with Chris Brown Performing at the Grammys and I’m Not Sure Why You Are →

Later in February, a photo of Brown riding a jet ski in Miami hit the Internet, and singer Usher was caught on video commenting on it: “I’m a little disappointed in this photo,” Usher says in the video. “After the other photo [of Rihanna’s bruised face]? C’mon, Chris. Have a little bit of remorse, man. The man’s on jet skis? Like, just relaxing in Miami?”

The backlash was so severe that Usher was later forced to publicly apologize.

“I apologize on behalf of myself and my friends if anyone was offended,” he said. “The intentions were not to pass judgment and we meant no harm. I respect and wish the best for all parties involved.”

Yeah, go read this link immediately.

There’s a weird thing going on here. It’s something we do in our culture that I have observed mostly in regard to football, but it’s the exact same principle at work here: We are so hungry for redemption stories, and so primed to find reasons within the narrative to offer redemption, that we equate “success” with “atonement.”

In football, this plays out with the idea that a guy like Ben Roethlisberger could have “redeemed” himself after a pair of credible rape accusations by winning the Super Bowl last year; the way that Mike Vick became endorsement-friendly because he had a great 2010 season. Because in the movie version of these events, the injustice that these people who we are not ready to forgive could go on to win — that good things could happen to bad people — is unfathomable. And because we want the narratives in real life to follow those we require from our stories, we have to assume that Roethlisberger winning the Super Bowl would prove that he’d done something, found some inner peace and transformed his life, to succeed.

Or, to bring it back to Chris Brown: The fact that his music is hot means that he can’t be that bad, right? The idea that this dude would beat up his girlfriend, be totally unrepentant about it, act like he’s the victim for people being mad at him, make the best record of his career, and be embraced by the mainstream once again — that has to mean that he’s redeemed himself. Because if not, then we’re all kind of shitty for playing “Look At Me Now” on repeat; and where does the magic to do great things come from, if not some inner reserves of strength that we find because we’ve learned from our mistakes?

So Chris Brown has earned forgiveness because he sold a shitload of records and got Busta Rhymes and Lil Wayne to drop some of the best verses in their storied careers on a hot single. “Success” — at the ballot box, in the ratings, on the charts, on the court or the gridiron, wherever — is valued so highly that it carries “redemption” as a freebie.

So, I got a lot of hate mail yesterday. →

It’s weird — I don’t usually get hate mail. Negative comments? Those I get like crazy. I’ve had pseudonymous people on the Internet publicly declare that I am stupid/retarded/fat/gay/black?/racist/etc in response to things that I’ve written loads of times, but this is the first time that a bunch of people independently took it upon themselves to email me to let me know how much of those above things I am.

In any case: This was a response to this week’s Down And Distance column for CultureMap, which talked about Ben Roethlisberger. The emails, naturally, were from Steelers fans who felt like I was picking on their guy unfairly, since it’s been over a year since the last time he was accused of raping anybody.

I will admit that it’s not the freshest of topics, but that’s why I wanted to re-visit it. Because while I am certainly aware that 20 months are an eternity in football-time, I bet it doesn’t seem like several lifetimes ago to the young woman in Milledgeville, Georgia who offered horrifying details to the police (who, hah, posed for pictures with the QB when they got there) about what Roethlisberger did after he had her cornered. That’s part of the point.

The other part of it is that the dude gets to just go and play football now, 20 months later, after a Super Bowl appearance and a few stressful weeks with a publicist have rehabilitated his image. And we will watch, and when we do, we should remember who we’re watching, and what role our enthusiasm for watching played in the fact that he avoided prosecution.

But the article isn’t some you shouldn’t root for the Steelers guilt trip. And that’s why I’m so surprised by the angry emails. Because I know how it is. You were a Steelers fan long before Ben Roethlisberger joined the team. There is an emotional connection to the black and yellow colors and the uniform that is very real and very significant, and I don’t think that people should feel like they have to give that up in order to be a good person — that is not productive. It doesn’t work that way. And ultimately, it’s got nothing really to do with the Steelers. They’re just the team that drafted Roethlisberger. Whatever team he ended up on, they’d be the bad guys. It’s a thing that all of us who care about football share responsibility for.

So I also didn’t propose that we should stop caring about football, because the problem isn’t football, either. Ben Roethlisberger could have played baseball, and people would have argued that the women were lying; the police would still have posed for pictures and called the one in Georgia a drunk fucking bitch; the investigation still would have been dropped because she still wouldn’t have wanted her name in the news. That’d be true if he played baseball, or played in a killer band, or starred in movies, or ran for office. The culture that values Famous, Important Dudes more than the women that they may have raped, is bigger than football.

So what I proposed in the article that got me a couple dozen hate emails was really just a gesture, inspired by the #10ForTebow thing a couple weeks ago: put your money where your mouth is, and prove that you care about the women who may have been raped by the people that our participation in this culture has helped empower. If you want to watch Ben Roethlisberger play football — whether he’s throwing touchdowns and you’re thrilled, or interceptions and you’re rooting against him for whatever reasons — then every time he scores, or tosses a pick, donate $10 to RAINN. Pay for your interest in what he’s doing on the field by offering support to the women who nobody’s cheering for. It doesn’t solve the problem, but at least it says that they’re not forgotten.

And apparently that sentiment is still so upsetting to dudes — not a single letter or comment from a lady! — that they felt the need to fill my inbox with shit about how much I suck for suggesting it.