Rihanna and Thousands More: Ending Youth Dating Violence
May 2, 2009
by Judy Silver
|The New Agenda hosted a Violence Against Women Forum on April 18th. All of the panelist spoke about the disturbing trend in violence against our teenage girls. Please help us spread this important video.
In the weeks after hip-hop artist Chris Brown allegedly beat and strangled singer Rihanna, a stomach-turning phenomenon happened across America: acceptance. It’s been widely reported that in Boston, 46% of teens surveyed said that Rhianna was responsible for the violence, and 44% said that physical violence is a normal part of a relationship. In an article in The Village Voice, Raquel Cepeda reported:
The [blog] commenter continues, “Someone needs to sit [Rhianna’s] little tail down and tell her, ‘Yes, it’s a bad situation that you were abused, but you need to understand it’s not OK for you to think you can control and abuse a male with no consequences.’
An overwhelming majority of the kids here agree: In a class of 23 mostly Latino and African-American students, all but three girls think that Rihanna provoked the beatdown.
Wrong. Beating a girlfriend is not a normal part of a relationship and is never justified by the victims “provocation”. Yet, it’s rampant. According to the CDC, 10% of students in our country have been physically harmed by a boyfriend (or occasionally, girlfriend) in the past year. According to The National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline, for teens who have been in a “serious” relationship, the percentage who have been hit doubles to 20%.
What can we do to stop the “normalization” of violence in youth culture? What can we do to stop assault in the next generation? That was a major topic at The New Agenda’s Violence Against Women forum on April 18. Here’s the video: Please help us to spread it far and wide!
One thing that we can all do is refuse to purchase the vile, degrading, violent music that many young people are listening to. Much of the music and videos that are being watched are depicting women in horrific ways. Music is such a large and influential part of a young person’s life that we must work on ways to combat the negative influences they are encountering every day.
Tipper Gore was laughed at when she called for responsibility on the part of musicians, record companies and consumers. She was right. More people should have listened. The situation has gotten much worse.
The recent vile comments by Jamie Foxx against 16 year old Miley Cyrus were particularly disturbing and yet went unchallenged in all media. Why?
People like Jamie Foxx, the corporations that sell this trash and consumers must all be held accountable for this unfortunate situation that we find ourselves in.
Schools, churches, community groups etc. all must work together to change the attitudes.
The New Agenda can be of much help in this effort.
Here’s a news story that ties in somewhat, if not exactly, with this.
http://www.thedenverchannel.co.....etail.html
The story has it that these boys (two aged 13 and one 10) threatened to rape and kill a 12 year old girl based on her race. That the rape threat was based on her femaleness hasn’t apparently been absorbed by the reporter, the police, or the school.
We must all work to make this video go viral! I’ve mentioned the statistics about teenage violence against our girls to mothers and fathers all over and none of aware of this issue.
One in five is just shocking – could be any of our daughters!
Walking in the park yesterday, to music thumping from cruising Honda Civics; some song calling women ho’s, and “fuck that”. Children in the playground. Runners. Group of young women pushing babies in strollers. Definitely fuck that. Where’s our song about niggers?
Dare you to leave that in. Of course, calling women ho’s is perfectly sonorous. That other; would I survive?
Up here, I have rarely, maybe twice in over a decade, seen it was white men with that music pumping out of their cars. I am so sick of hip hop violence passing for “culture”. And us having to listen to it.
A letter to Rhianna:
http://lifestyle.msn.com/your-.....;gt1=32001
[...] (Written by The New Agenda associate Judy Silver.) [...]
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