Open Letter to Chris Brown
by Kevin Powell
March 23rd, 2011
Dear Chris:
I really did not want to write this open letter, and would have preferred to
speak to you in person, in private. Indeed, ever since the domestic violence
incident with Rihanna two years ago there have been attempts, by some of the
women currently or formerly in your circle, women who love and care deeply
about you, to bring you and I together, as they felt my own life story, my
own life experiences, might be of some help in your journey. For whatever
reasons, that never happened. By pure coincidence, I wound up in a Harlem
recording studio with you about three months ago, as I was meeting up with
R&B singer Olivia and her manager. You were hosting a listening session for
your album-in-progress and the room was filled with gushing supporters, with
a very large security guard outside the studio door. I was allowed in, as I
assume you knew my name, and my long relationship to the music industry. I
greeted you and said I would love to have a talk with you, but I am not even
sure you heard a single word I said above the loud music. I gave your
security person my card when I left, asked him to ask you to phone me, but
you never did, for whatever reasons. And that is fine.
But I have thought of you long and hard as I’ve watched you, from a
distance, as you dealt with the charges of physical violence against your
then-girlfriend Rihanna, as you were being pummeled by the media and
abandoned by many fans, admirers, and endorsers, and ridiculed on the social
networks. You were 19 when the altercation with Rihanna occurred, and you
are only 21 now. Yes, you’ve achieved both international fame and success in
a way most people your age, or any age, could never imagine. But you also
are at a very serious crossroads because of the dishonor of your persona
derived from your beating Rihanna. There is no way to get around this,
Chris. You must deal with it, as a man, now and forever. For our past can
both be a prison we are locked in permanently or it can be the key to our
freedom if we glean the lessons from it, and deal with it directly. All the
external pressures and forces will be there, Chris, but no one can free us
but ourselves. And it must start in our minds and in our souls.
That is why I was very saddened to hear about your recent appearance on
ABC’s “Good Morning America,” to promote your new cd “F.A.M.E.” The
interview was embarrassing, to say the least, you slouched through the
entire episode, and you were so clearly defensive as Robin Roberts, the
interviewer, threw you what I thought were very easy questions about the
Rihanna saga. I get that you want to move past it. But that is not going to
happen, Chris, until people see real humility, real redemption, and real
changes in how you conduct yourself both publicly and privately. Whether the
interview and what happened at ABC studios were a publicity stunt to push
your album sales is not the point (as has been suggested in some online
blogs). It has been spread across the internet, and throughout the world,
that you ripped off your shirt following that interview, got in the face of
one of the show’s producers in a threatening manner, and that somehow the
window in your dressing room was smashed with a chair. And then there are
the photos of you, shirtless, walking outside the ABC studios looking, well,
pissed off, immediately after. Finally, you tweeted, somewhere in the midst
of that morning, Chris, “I’m so over people bring this past s**t up!! Yet we
praise Charlie Sheen and other celebs for [their] bullsh**t.”
Yes, that tweet was taken down very quickly, but not before it was spread
near and far also, Chris. And it was a tweet written with raw honesty and,
for sure, raw emotion. Very clear to me, as it is to so many of us watching
your life unfold in public, that you are deeply wounded, that you are hurt
by what you have experienced the past two years. That you’ve never actually
healed from what you witnessed as a child, either, of your mother being
beaten savagely by your stepfather, and how that must’ve made you feel, in
your bones. You’ve said in interviews, long before the Rihanna incident
happened, that it made you scared, timid, and that you wet the bed because
of the wild, untamed emotions that swirled in your being. I am certain you
felt powerless, just as powerless as I felt as a boy when my mother, who I
love dearly and have forgiven these many years later, viciously beat me,
physically and emotionally, in an effort to discipline me, to prepare me, a
Black man-child, for what she, a rural South Carolina-born and bred
working-class woman, perceived to be a crude and racist world.
But the fact is, Chris, we cannot afford to teach children, directly or
indirectly, that violence and anger in any form are the solutions for our
frustrations, disagreements, or pain, and not expect that violence and anger
to penetrate the psyche of that child. To be with that child as he, you, me,
and countless other American males in our nation, grow from boy to teenager
to early adulthood. Ultimately it will come out in some channel, either
inwardly on themselves in the manner of serious self-repression,
self-loathing, and fear. Or outwardly in the shape of blind rage and
violence, against themselves, against others, including women and girls.
You see, Chris, I know much about you because I was you in previous chapters
of my life. I am presently in my 40s, a practitioner of yoga, and someone
who has spent much of the past 20 years in therapy and counseling sessions.
I shudder to think who I would be today had I not made a commitment to
constant self-reflection and healing. Yes, like most human beings I do get
angry at times, but it is in a very different kind of way, I think long and
hard about my words and actions, and if I do make a mistake and offend
someone in some way verbally or emotionally, I apologize as quickly as I
can. And I am proud to say I have not been involved in a violent incident in
many years, that I am about love, peace, and nonviolence now, and this is my
path for the rest of my life. I am not willing to go backwards, nor am I
going to permit anyone or any scenario to take me backwards, either.
But, Chris, it was not always like this for me. The hurt and pain I felt as
a child led to arguments and fights in my grade and high schools: arguments
with teachers and principals and physical fights with my classmates. This in
spite of the fact I possessed, very early on, the same kind of talents you
had coming up. Mine is writing and yours is music. And because we both had
gifts that people recognized, the more problematic sides of our personas
were often overlooked, or ignored completely. In reality, Chris, I attended
four grade schools and three high schools partly because my single mother
and I (I am an only child) were very poor, and forced to move a lot; and
partly because of my behavioral issues at various schools. Many adults could
not understand it because I was routinely a straight-A student breezing
through everything from math and science to English.
Yet I was no different than countless American children terrorized by their
environments, with no true outlets to understand, and heal, what we were
experiencing. That is why, Chris, I eventually was kicked out of Rutgers
University, why I got into arguments with my cast mates on the first season
of MTV’s “The Real World,” and why I often had beef with my co-workers, as a
twenty something hot shot writer at Quincy Jones’ Vibe magazine. And why I
was eventually fired from Vibe, Chris, in spite of writing more cover
stories than any other writer in the magazine’s history. There was always a
darkness in my life, Chris, a heavy sadness, born of years of wounds piled
one on top of the other. And I did not begin to grasp this until a fateful
day in July 1991 when I pushed my girlfriend at the time into a bathroom
door in the middle of an argument. As I have written in other spaces, Chris,
when she ran from the apartment, barefoot, it was only then that I
recognized the magnitude of what I had done. Just like you I had to deal
with public embarrassment and court and a restraining order. But the big
difference, Chris, is that a community of people, both women and men, saw
potential in me, the boy struggling to be a man, in the early 1990s, and
rather than shun me or push me aside or write me off completely, they
instead opted to help me.
The first step was returning to therapy, as I had done briefly in 1988 after
being suspended from Rutgers for threatening a female student. The next step
was my struggling to take ownership for every aspect of my life, and not
just that bathroom door incident. That meant, Chris, I had to go very far
into my own soul, and return, time and again, to being that little boy who
had been violated and abused, and meet him, on his terms. I assure you,
Chris, it was extremely difficult to do that, and I put off many issues for
months, even years, unwilling or unable to look myself in the mirror. Add to
that the sudden celebrity of my life on MTV and at Vibe, and I found myself
around many other people who were living escapist lives, who were not
bothering to deal with their demons, either. That, Chris, is a recipe for
disaster, for a life stuck in a state of arrested development. The worst
thing we could ever do is only be in circles of people who are wallowing in
their own miseries, too, yet covering it up with fame, money, material
things, sex, drugs, alcohol, and an addiction to acting out because that is
much easier than actually growing up.
As a matter of fact, as I watched your “Good Morning America” interview, and
read the accounts of what happened after, I thought a good deal about the
late Tupac Shakur, who I interviewed more than any other journalist when he
was alive. Tupac was, Chris, without question, equally the most brilliant
and the most frustrating interview subject I’d ever encountered. Brilliant
because his abilities as an actor (imagine what he could have been had he
lived) were towering, and his writing skills instantly connected him with
the man-child in so many American males, especially those of us who grew up
as he did, without a consistent and available father figure or mentor, and
with some form of turmoil in our lives. But, Chris, I could see the writing
on the wall from the very beginning, of Tupac’s downfall, because he
willingly participated in it, encouraged it, openly advertised it every
single time he rhymed about dying, or spoke about a short shelf life in one
of his interviews. I do believe each and every one of us human beings is
given a certain amount of time on this planet. I for one feel very blessed
to be here as long as I have been, especially given my past destructive
paths. But I also believe, Chris, that so many of us participate in what I
call self-sabotage, or slow suicide. That is, because we do not have the
emotional and spiritual tools to process the many angles of our lives, we
instead resort to predictable behavior that may feel empowering or
liberating on the surface, but is actually damaging to us, and doing even
more harm to us.
For an instance when I looked at the photo of you, shirtless, with the shiny
tattoos across your chest, I saw myself, I saw Tupac Shakur, I saw all us
American Black boys who so badly want to be free, who so badly want to be
understood, who feel life unfair for labeling us “angry,” “difficult,”
“violent,” “abusive,” “criminals,” or “cocky” or “arrogant.” Yes, Chris
Brown, in spite of Barack Obama being president of the United States,
America still very much has a very serious problem with race and racism,
which means it still has a very serious problem with Black males who act out
or behave badly, who speak their minds, who assert themselves in some way or
another. I know that is what you are reacting to, Chris. And you are not
wrong in tweeting that Charlie Sheen is catching a break in a way that you
are not. I am very clear that Charlie Sheen’s father is Latino and his
mother is White. But Charlie Sheen operates in a space of White male
privilege because of his White skin and his access to White power, and thus
he is given a pass for his violent, abusive, mean-spirited, and
drug-addicted outbursts in a way you or I never will, Chris. Charlie Sheen,
as insane as it appears, is even celebrated in many circles because of how
American male (read, White male) privilege can exist while ignoring the
concerns of those he has harmed, including women. That is why, Chris, I
rarely discuss in public the chapter of my life that is MTV’s “The Real
World.” In spite of who I am as a whole human being, my numerous interests
and skill sets, the one thing that was played up were the arguments I had
with my White cast mates. So I was labeled, for years and years, Chris, as
“the angry Black man,” something that troubled me as deeply as you were
bothered on “Good Morning America” by the Rihanna questions. And how certain
media folks, including Joy Behar on “The View,” must bother you calling you
a “thug,” in spite of the obvious racial overtones of such a loaded word. If
you are a thug, then what is Charlie Sheen, or Mel Gibson, or John Mayer, or
Jude Law, or any other famous White male who has engaged in bad behavior the
past few years? Why are they often forgiven, given a pass, allowed to clean
themselves up and to redeem themselves in a way Black males simply cannot,
Chris? It is because, to paraphrase Tupac, we were given this world, we did
not make it. And it is because of power, Chris, plain and simple. Whoever
has the power to put forth images and words, to put forth definitions, to
determine what is right and what is wrong, can just as easily label you a
star one day and a thug and a has-been the very next day. Or make you, a
Black male, the poster child, for every single bad behavior that exists in
America. Just ask Black males as diverse as Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant, Mike
Tyson, O.J. Simpson, or Kanye West. No apologies being made by me for these
men or their actions, but the chatter, always, in Black male circles is how
we are treated when we do wrong as opposed to how our White brothers are
treated when they do wrong. Call it racial or cultural paranoia if you’d
like. We Black brothers call it a ridiculously oppressive double standard.
And that is because America has historically had a very complicated and
twisted relationship with Black men, ranging from slavery to the first
heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson to Malcolm X and Dr. King both, and
including men like Louis Armstrong, Chuck Berry, Michael Jackson, Prince,
and, yes, Barack Obama. Sometimes we feel incredible love and affection, and
sometimes we feel as if we are unwanted, armed, and dangerous. It is a
schizophrenic existence, to say the least, and it is akin to how the
character Bigger Thomas, in Richard Wright’s classic but controversial novel
“Native Son,” saw his life reduced to the metaphor of a cornered black rat.
Thus so many of us spend our entire lives, as Black males, navigating this
tricky terrain, so few of us with the proper emotional and spiritual tools
to balance our coolness with a righteous defiance that, well, will not get
us killed, literally and figuratively, by each other or the police, or by
the American mass media culture.
I am telling you the truth, Chris Brown, man-to-man, Black man to Black man,
because you need to hear it, straight up, no chaser. If you really believe
that because you are famous and successful that the same rules apply to you,
you are deceiving yourself. Like many, I love people, regardless of race,
gender, class, sexual orientation, disability, religion, any of that, and I
believe deeply in the humanity and equality of us all. But until we have a
nation, and a world, where the media places the same energy and excitement
in documenting a Black man who is engaging in, say, mentoring work, as it
does in a Black man smashing a window at a television station, then we are
sadly fooling ourselves, Chris, that things are fair and equal in this
universe. They are not. And sometimes it will be big things, like what you
just experienced, Chris, at “Good Morning America,” and sometimes it will be
quieter moments, far off the radar, where we Black men have to think on the
fly about who we are, what we represent, how others perceive us or may want
to perceive us, how we say things to people, particularly our White sisters
and brothers, for fear or worry of being misunderstood and being pegged as
“problematic” or a “troublemaker,” and magically navigate best we can to
assert our humanity, our dignity, our leadership, our visions and ideas and
dreams, and, yes, our definitions of manhood rooted in our very unique
cultural journeys. Complete insanity, this emotional and spiritual juggling
act, no question, and our harsh reality in this world, my friend.
So what you have to understand, Chris, and what I had to grapple with for
years, is there is no escaping your past, especially if we engage in angry
or violent behavior. If we do not confront it, probe and understand it, heal
and learn from it, and use what we’ve learned to teach others to go a
different way, then it dogs us forever, Chris, and we unwittingly become the
entertainment, nonstop, for others. And that simply does not have to be the
case for you, Chris. You are too much of a genius to allow this to destroy
you, but your self-destruction is exactly what many of us are witnessing. I
have no idea who is around you at this point, or what kind of men,
specifically, are advising you, but the worst possible thing you could do is
act as if what happened with Rihanna was no big deal. It was and is a major
deal because women and girls, in America, and on this earth, are beaten,
stabbed, shot, murdered, raped, molested, every single day. Because of your
fame you have become, unfortunately, a poster child for this destructive
behavior in spite of your proclaiming just a few years before, in a magazine
interview, you would never do to a woman what had happened to your mother.
What I gathered, very quickly, Chris, after I pushed that girlfriend back in
1991, was that I could not hide from my demons or myself. That is why I
wrote an essay in Essence magazine in September 1992 entitled “The Sexist in
Me.” That is why I made it a point to listen to women and girls in my
travels, in my community, even within my family, tell stories of how they
had been violated or abused by one man or another. And that is why, Chris,
nearly twenty years later, so much of my work as a leader, as an activist,
as a public speaker, is dedicated to ending violence against women and
girls. In other words, I took what was a very negative and hurtful
experience, for that girlfriend, and for myself, and transformed it into a
life of teaching other males how to deal with their hurts without hurting
others, particularly women and girls.
Tupac Shakur, Chris, never got to turn the corner, as you well know, because
he was gunned down at age 25. I do not know if he actually raped or sexually
assaulted the woman in that hotel room as he was charged. But one thing he
did admit to me, Chris, in that famous Rikers Island interview, was that he
could have stopped his male friends from coming into his hotel room and
sexually exploiting his female companion that night. And he did not. You,
Chris Brown, cannot turn back the hands of time to February 2009. We have
seen the photos of Rihanna’s battered and bruised face. Yes, you’ve
apologized, yes, you’ve done your time in court and your hours of community
service, and yes, and you have been tried and convicted in the court of
public opinion. But it is really up to you, Chris, to decide in these tense
moments, as you approach your 22nd birthday on May 5th, if you want to be a
boy forever locked in the time capsule of your own battered and bruised
life, or if you want to be the man so many of us are rooting for you to be,
one who will take responsibility for all his actions, who will sit up in
interviews and answer all questions, even the uncomfortable ones. And the
kind of man who will admit, once and for all, publicly, privately, however
you must do it, that you need help, that you need love, that you need to
love yourself in a very different kind of way, that you no longer will hide
behind an album release, music videos, dyed hair, tattoos, or even your
twitter account, Chris Brown. That you will make a life-long commitment to
counseling, to therapy, to healing, to alternative definitions of manhood
rooted in nonviolence, love, and peace, that you will become a loud and
consistent voice against all forms of violence against women and girls,
wherever you go, as I do, for the rest of your life. All eyes are on you
because you’ve brought the world to your doorstep, my friend. The question
alas, Chris, is do you want to go forward or not? And if yes to going
forward, then you must know it means going to the deepest and darkest parts
of your past to heal what ails you, once and for all, for the good of
yourself, and for the good of those who are watching you very closely and
who may learn something from what you do. Or what you do not do. The choice
is yours, Chris Brown. The choice is yours—
Godspeed,
Kevin Powell
Kevin Powell is an activist,
public speaker, and award-winning author or editor of 10 books, including
Open Letters to America
(essays) and No Sleep Till Brooklyn
(poetry). Kevin lives in Brooklyn, New York. Email him at
kevin@kevinpowell.net or follow
him on Twitter @kevin_powell
