Weekly Words

A Letter to Chris Brown

Dear Chris Brown,
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I know you will probably never get this letter, but my need to write it far exceeds my need for you to receive it. I am not writing as a stellar paradigm of Love nor as a supreme example of how a man should treat a woman. I am writing because I too, like most everyone, am deeply flawed. Still, I believe in our worst moments we need community and not exile. You are facing a period in your life where the possibility of you vices overshadowing your virtues, at least in the public’s eye, seems more real than ever. However you are not alone! All of us struggle with the tension between the best in us and the worst in us. The truth is we are all afraid that someday the path the best in us can deliver will be detoured by what the worst in us can destroy. So I write not to look down on you, but simply just to share brother to brother.

I am writing because I am afraid. I am fearful that you might buy in even more to the sexism and misogyny that plagues and permeates our world. Patriarchy has a way of always turning the critical questions on the woman whenever there is a problem in a heterosexual romantic relationship. This is why there have been both men and women who seemed to be more concerned about what Rihanna did instead of what had been done to her. Though I know it is almost impossible to completely cleanse the stain of sexism out of our thinking and acting, I do hope that you will at least peak behind the curtain of patriarchy long enough to see the problem with rationalizing why or how a woman can “provoke” a man to beating her. When the last control is physical control, we’ve lost control! When men feel out of control, sometimes we get it back however we can. Yet, here is where the problem lies: the idea that we should “control” our women is based on them being objects and not human. In the end, we have to hope our call on another’s life can influence them enough to treat us the way we long to be treated. If not, we have to control ourselves enough, amidst the hurt of this realization, to let it go.

I am also writing because I am hurt. I am hurt by all the people who have given up on you. To be sure, I too believe that Rihanna made the wrong move by coming back to you and the relationship so soon. If she was not going to break it off forever, she should have, at a minimum, waited until you had proven over time your commitment to working on and changing your behavior. Nevertheless, it pains me to hear Oprah Winfrey, a sister I dearly admire, and others adamantly declare: “he will hit you again.” I understand where they are coming from, and I know the probability of recurrence shown by statistics. Yet, as a Christian I believe in one idea that those who deny your ameliorative capacities are not appealing to – conversion. I believe in a God who Loves us at our worst, and challenges us to Love each other the same way. I know what it feels like for someone to give up on you. So I am writing to tell you in love, that though I think you were inexcusably wrong, I am praying for your conversion. Not the conversion that is reduced to platitudes of what Jesus did on a hill far away, but rather a mental, spiritual, and physical redirection of our life and understanding. Without conversion, you won’t have the power to overcome the forces of abuse, patriarchy, and misogyny that influence domestic violence. So, may God’s Love be with you, and may you forever take the challenge to live in Love.

Humbly in Christ’s Love,
Pastor B.A. Jackson