I miss your stupid face

pbh3:

Courtesy of SomeEcards!

theangrytherapist:

#58 Don’t Use a Straw

Unless you’re drinking a milkshake with your daughter.

- Angry

WTH is up with men and drinking from the straw, seriously??? Like who cares?? I certainly don’t. I drink from the straw because cold drink hurts my teeth and I don’t want to get sugar on them… What’s wrong with that?? I’m sure you men have the same needs too! Ugh, men!

Before you let out a groan “What??? ANOTHER article about Chris Brown performing at The Grammys???” please read what Louis Pitzman has to say about that below.

“”Get over it.” Get over it. Chris Brown is over it. Rihanna is over it, apparently. Why are we still talking about it?
 
Because it still matters. Because it will always matter. We are under no obligation to forgive and forget — and frankly, the idea that any person can violently abuse someone else and maintain a thriving career in the entertainment industry is embarrassing. (See also: Charlie Sheen.) The Grammys have their own business reasons for booking Brown, but as Pasulka points out, we certainly don’t have to accept it.  

We — the grown-up influencers in this country, the people with platforms and with educations and with power— are allowing a clear message to be sent to 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.
 

What positive message could Chris Brown performing at tonight’s Grammys possibly send? And don’t give me any bullshit about redemption — exactly how has he redeemed himself since 2009? If Brown were willing to devote some of his time to spreading the word about domestic violence and explaining what led him to beat up his girlfriend, perhaps I’d be less disturbed by seeing him onstage.
 
But Brown’s message — along with that of his loyal supporters and plenty of contrary-for-the-sake-of-it internet commenters — is that it’s time to move on. To which I second Pasulka’s stance: nope.”
                                              __________________________

I was debating whether or not I should even talk about this…Mostly because it hits too close to home, and too personal for me to really talk about it without choking up…So here I am, saving you the trouble (of hearing my incoherent, and sad rambling about my own personal horrific experiences with my abusive ex-boyfriend) …by posting Sasha Pasulka’s article since she says it so much better than I could ever say myself.

What also appalled me is that people were more mad at Michael Vick on dogfighting, and Vick actually showed contrition, went to jail for 19 months, apologized for what he did, got bankrupted, rehabilitated his life, renounced dogfighting and became a spokesman for the Humane Society. So what’s the message? What happens to women is frankly matter a lot less than what happen to our 4-leg friends?

My only 2 cents for all the guys out there… This includes my best friend, who almost break my heart when he said he could see how some girls could really provoke a guy to hitting her:( I was never more disappointed in my life. The victim blaming is the DIRTIEST trick in the history of domestic violence, and the most damaging classic excuse for anyone to justify hitting or raping others. 

I am completely against domestic violence of any kind. Whether it comes from a man or a woman it is completely wrong. But to all the men out there…here’s also the deal, NO words, NO gestures, NO matter how much a person insult you/your family/your friends will EVER JUSTIFY you as a STRONGER, and BIGGER person to raise your hand to hit them…

Because it is SO EASY to raise your hand and hit someone who is weaker, who won’t be able to defense themselves on strength alone. Because it is SO EASY that it should be SO HARD for anyone to ever cross that line. It’s like kicking a puppy as hard as you can in the gut, how could you even do it? How could that be SO HARD for anyone as a human being to NOT understand? 

How hard could it be to just NOT take it, and WALK AWAY??? 

HITTING ANYONE OVER WORDS SHOWS A SERIOUS LACK OF SELF CONTROL AND MORALS.

ALL violence is evidence of weakness. 

Weak minded men hit. 

Weak minded countries hit. 

Weak minded parents model hitting to their kids.  

I’ve been following the Yeardley Love trial for weeks and have been reminded of how serious and dire domestic violence is. Women DIE at the hands of their partners and the fact is, we don’t take it seriously enough.  

Within A MONTH…in NEW YORK ONLY there was a woman that was beaten to death by her own brother , another was bludgeoned to death in Queens by her husband, and another girl was killed by her boyfriend because she tried to break up with him. Haven’t we seen enough of this already? Not only it’s heartbreaking, it also terrifies me to realize how close I was to becoming one of them.

Domestic violence is similar to rape in that there is so much victim blame.

No one ever deserves to be hit or be raped. Period. NO ONE EVER DESERVES THIS!

                                             ____________________

I’M NOT OKAY WITH CHRIS BROWN PERFORMING AT THE GRAMMYS AND I’M NOT SURE WHY YOU ARE. 
by Sasha Pasulka

I’m sick and tired of people acting like it’s no big deal that Chris Brown will be performing at the Grammys.

I’m frustrated that the mainstream media is covering this story like it’s any comeback story, like an exiled prince’s return to a former glory, like this is another political timeline — as though some rich and powerful old white men in the music business have not just issued an enormous ‘f**k you’ to every woman who has been, is or will be on the receiving end of domestic violence.

We should be furious.

Why aren’t we?

A Long, Long Time Ago, or Three Years Ago, But Who’s Counting?

For those of you who are currently listening to ‘Look at Me Now’ and wondering what the big deal is, a quick recap: The night before the Grammys in 2009, Chris Brown got angry at his girlfriend, Rihanna, and he took it out on her face [and EVERY WHERE else, read the horrific details in the police report on what he did to her if you can actually brave through it - my note] . She went to the hospital and then to the LAPD, where this photo  was taken and promptly leaked to TMZ. (The LAPD issued a stern statement on the leak, threatening penalties “up to and including termination”. TMZ reportedly paid $62,500 for the photo.)

Both Rihanna and Brown had been scheduled to perform at the Grammys the following evening. Neither did.

Instead, Chris Brown turned himself into the LAPD at 7 pm, was booked on suspicion of criminal threats and was released on $50,000 bail.

Then the Internet exploded.

I was a full-time entertainment writer at the time, so I had a front-row seat to the action. This is what I expected: I expected a string of celebrities to comment on how horrific this situation was, how sad and angry they were for Rihanna, how domestic violence is unacceptable in any context, how as a nation we need to condemn this and condemn it loudly.

Instead, Hollywood went silent and, when they did speak, they teetered on the brink of defending Chris Brown.

Carrie Underwood: “I don’t think anybody actually knows what happened. I have no advice.”

Lindsay Lohan: “I have no comment on that. That’s not my relationship. I think they’re both great people.”

Nia Long: “I know both of them well. They’re young, and all we can do is pray for them at this point.”

Mary J. Blige: “They’re both young and beautiful people, and that’s it.”

Jay-Z, one of Rihanna’s mentors, spoke up: “You have to have compassion for others. Just imagine it being your sister or mom and then think about how we should talk about that. I just think we should all support her.”

In a sane world, Jay-Z’s statement would sound insane. Why would he have to remind his fans to support Rihanna after what happened is that she got hit in the face?

Jay-Z issued that statement because the Internet was, in early February 2009, engaged in a very serious conversation about whether or not all of this was Rihanna’s fault. In fact, large segments of the Internet had devoted themselves to making Rihanna the scapegoat for any woman who ever had the gall to do something worth getting hit, and then the cloying self-esteem to go to the cops about it. Bloggers and their commentators flocked to Chris Brown’s defense in droves. It 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, and the mainstream media ignored it.

It horrified me. It still does.

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.”

The message we sent to young women was unmistakable: You are powerless. You are worthless. You will be a victim, and that will be okay with us.

The Fall-out, and the Lack Thereof

In August 2009, Brown was sentenced to five years probation and 180 hours of community service after pleading guilty to felony assault.

In December 2009, he released his third studio album. It sold over 100,000 copies in its first week and debuted at #7 on the Billboard charts.

On June 8, 2010, Brown was forced to cancel his tour dates in the UK when the British Home Office refused to grant him a work visa on the grounds of “being guilty of a serious criminal offence”. Less than three weeks later, he performed ‘Man in the Mirror’ at the BET Awards’ tribute to Michael Jackson.

His fourth studio album, released in March of last year, debuted at #1.

In December 2011, Billboard crowned him their artist of the year.

And, this week, Grammy producers confirmed  that Chris Brown will be performing on Sunday’s show.

“We’re glad to have him back,” said executive producer Ken Ehrlich. “I think people deserve a second chance, you know. If you’ll note, he has not been on the Grammys for the past few years and it may have taken us a while to kind of get over the fact that we were the victim of what happened.”

Read that quote again. Think hard about what is being said. Here is what this quote says to any woman who’s ever been abused:

• By blacklisting Chris Brown from the Grammys for a “few” years (actually, a grand total of TWO Grammy Awards), the Grammys have gone above and beyond expectations for the social exile of an adult man who hit his girlfriend so hard she went to the hospital, and honestly it was really, really hard for them to show even that much support for victims of domestic violence worldwide.
• It was rather thoughtless of Rihanna to go and get herself hit in the face by her boyfriend, because it’s put such a burden on the Grammys. Maybe if she hadn’t made such a big fuss out of it, things could have been easier for everyone.
• The Grammys think that they were the victim of Chris Brown hitting Rihanna in the face.
• The Grammys. Think. That they. Were the victim. Of Chris Brown. Hitting. Rihanna. In the face.
  

Hitting People Is Wrong, Y’All

I agree that people deserve a second chance. It’s great that we live in a country with a justice system that allows offenders to reclaim themselves and their lives after their sentence. I’m happy about that, and I hope Brown is a changed man at the end of his sentence. (The US justice system has Chris Brown on probation through 2014. It was nice of the Grammys to let him off a couple years early for high record sales good behavior.)

And my suspicion is that Rihanna has no interest in being a poster child for victims of domestic violence. She probably wishes this would all disappear, and I don’t blame her for a minute. She didn’t ask for this – for any of it – and she’s under no obligation to speak out about it.

But someone has to. Because what is happening here is unmistakable. It is, in my eyes, so unmistakable that I wonder if I’m wrong, if I’m missing something huge, because I cannot believe more voices aren’t railing against this.

We – the grown-up influencers in this country, the people with platforms and with educations and with power — are allowing a clear message to be sent to 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.

We were so mad when the Komen Foundation pulled its funding for breast cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood. “This is not fair,” we shouted. “This is not fair to women, and this is not fair to the women who don’t have a voice, and we will not allow it.” We shouted it so loudly that Komen reversed its decision in three days. We forced the resignation of one of their top executives.

Planned Parenthood, no doubt, has a well-funded and fine-tuned PR machine, adept at galvanizing a population against a perceived injustice. They outmaneuvered Komen easily.

Does domestic violence have a less sophisticated PR machine than Chris Brown does?

Because to me, this situation isn’t all that different. Accepting that Chris Brown gets to perform at the Grammys because some people bought his album is no different from accepting that women without health insurance don’t get to be screened for breast cancer because some VP at Komen is anti-abortion. It may happen, but that doesn’t mean we should tacitly accept it. What if Chris Brown had hit your sister that night? Or your daughter? (What if Chris Brown had hit Taylor Swift that night?)

We’re accepting the message that women just aren’t that important, that their health and their safety and their self-respect is only important until it stops being convenient for everyone. We should be angry about this, and we should be angry publicly about this.

So I want to say this to anyone who is listening: This is not okay with me. A man hitting a woman in anger is unacceptable and is not easily forgotten or forgiven. A man who hits a woman in anger deserves to be reported to the authorities and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, regardless of who might be inconvenienced in the process. A man who hits a woman in anger may eventually be permitted to go on with his own life, but he is not permitted back in my life, even if it’s been three whole years.