BlogHer - celebrities - Comments

Following Up

loriluna — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:44:37 -0600

http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/thatsreallyweek/57602/nov-2-8-domestic-...

:))

And let's not forget

loriluna — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:19:25 -0600

Her "softball" interview with Mike Tyson! Bleck!

Valid point

Denise — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:26:27 -0600

I'm with you on the "not an O fan" and I'm with you on this specific point.

If you are going to speak out on domestic violence and take a stance against it, do so without being biased. Do so without approaching the situation as a victim supporter and an abuser trasher…unless the abuser is your close friend. Don’t look at it with a different set of eyes and speak on it with a different voice just because he is a gospel singer and a close friend. That, Oprah is hypocritical.

~Denise BlogHer Community Manager
Flamingo House Happenings

Continuing to mourn...

mmm5w — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:19:59 -0500

I've never before read a blog, but now that Michael Jackson has been dead for a month and I'm still sorrowful and complexly disturbed by the spectacle and my own reactions to all of it, I was grateful to find this very thoughtful post and the excellent responses to it. I am not alone! I'm finding that mourning MJ is something that cannot be discussed with just anyone, and yesterday evening in trying to explain it to someone, found myself the butt of many snide and snarky remarks, and when I pressed on, incredulous reprimands. Oh well.

There is something I've been thinking about and it is that I don't think I'm convinced that he was a pedophile. I compare the claims he made about his appearance, that he'd only had two rhinoplasties, etc. --and how completely impossible it was to believe him--with his open admission that he had young boys in his bedroom even after the 1993 episode, and his attemps to convince that this was ok, that it was loving and innocent. In the first instance, he demonstrates an awareness that folks would find something wrong with wanting to change yourself into a white man and so he tries to deny it, however unconvincingly. In the second instance he seems to have have no awareness of how it could be viewed, he seens to think that he can make himself understood, and does not even try to deny it, but instead defends it. For heaven's sake, he holds hands with the boy on camera! And after a long trial, he was completely cleared. Someone undeniably out of touch, unimaginably removed from common opinion, political correctness & co., for oh so many reasons, but perhaps not guilty of such a dreadful inclination. If you read or listen to the speech he gave at the Oxford Union at Oxford University in 2001, at least for me, it becomes a little harder to believe that his interest in children was sinister. Of course one might cynically assume that this was PR, windowdressing, etc. but it's not a very well known bit of Jacksoniana (it's only got 14,000+ hits on YouTube, for MJ that's negligible). Find it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFDkyglJYk4

When I make these arguments to myself, I'm thinking: yikes! how much effort you're expending on this--what? Cultural figure? Headline grabber? Cult hero? And this brings me to the other thing which I think contributes to my own dis-ease with this event and its aftermath. The unknowability factor. A figure we "know" from our visceral responses to his art (which was considerable) and then this other stuff, the media and all its cynicism and distortion and absurdity. And we're trying to talk about and understand someone who is forever hidden behind these scrims of publicity and image making, some that he sought out and contributed and the rest, well, whatever it is. Most of the time I'm not bothered by the mpossibility of knowing anything about such distant figures, but death compels us toward reaching some kind of verdict, to find some sort of closure, to stop sorrowing. But we're just picking through this garbage trying to assemble a coherent picture and we most likely will never be able to. Imagine how we would think of John F. Kennedy if he had been a president in the last 2 decades? Which presentation would be true?

It's Time To Put Up Or Shut Up

Megan Smith — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 12:49:19 -0500

Hi Kristina,

As you say, it's time for Chris Brown to put up or shut up. It actually is very easy for him to show that he's truly remorseful. He needs to show it over the next couple of years with deeds.

I don't want a young man who's made a grievance mistake to pay for the rest of his life, but at the same time, what he did was very serious and I'm not willing to accept any kind of apology until he proves how sorry he really is.

Thanks for commenting.

Megan
BlogHer Contributing Editor, TV/Online Video

Megan's Minute

Thank you so much!

kristinabrooke — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 00:08:05 -0500

I rarely comment on the posts I read here on BlogHer, but I wanted to take the time to say "thank you" for writing a post that does not make excuses for him and does not chalk his behavior up to stress or immaturity or any of the million excuses that I have heard people use to defend him. His apology, in light of what he did, means nothing. It means nothing because it is done out of fear that his career will suffer. I wonder, how many of these incidents occured before the public found out? How many times did he apologize before his fan realized just what kind of person he is at the core?

I'm with you- apologies are nothing! Prove it! To Chris Brown, I say, "Don't allow your lawyers to broker a deal where you get a slap on the hand for this assualt. Repent in a way that shows that you are truly sorry for putting another woman through the torment that your own mother suffered."

I will not purchase his music or watch/buy any movie that he is in until he proves that he is truly sorry for his actions.

Kristina Brooke

Email: kristina {AT} kristinabrooke {DOT} org

Gtalk: momontherise@gmail.com

Twitter: @momontherise

You're Most Welcome

Megan Smith — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 22:41:13 -0500

You're most welcome.

Megan
BlogHer Contributing Editor, TV/Online Video

Megan's Minute

You're Obviously A Survivor

Megan Smith — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 22:39:47 -0500

What a harrowing story.

You're obviously taking steps to put yourself and your family in a healthier situation. I know it must be a struggle, but remember how far you've come and hopefully you can use that knowledge to take you where you need to be.

Thanks very much for sharing your story.

Megan
BlogHer Contributing Editor, TV/Online Video

Megan's Minute

Definitely Image-Rebuilding

Megan Smith — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 22:33:12 -0500

Hi Nordette,

Yes, this is definitely Brown's image-building campaign, but I hope he'll back up the verbal campaign with actions that truly show he's remorseful.

Megan
BlogHer Contributing Editor, TV/Online Video

Megan's Minute

Nothing much to say after

ofblossom — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:56:56 -0500

Nothing much to say after that. Thank you for this article.

-----

BET YOUR ASS WE'RE PARANOID!

surviving domestic violence

notUrtypicalGma — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 02:35:55 -0500

i am sad when i read this because for 10+ years i allowed my children to witness the violence in my life and now almost 8 years after what we call the "incidento" i still have a connection to their dad who was at first the abuser in our relationship and eventually i too became abusive. his abusive behavior was evident fairly early in our relationship but i fell into that trap of i know i am the one who will change him. his binges on meth and alcohol are always what preceded his abusive behavior, and when he was clean and sober he was a different person, but still a time bomb waiting to go off. after years of taking his abuse i learned to fight back and also to provoke, but one day i made the choice to pick up a kitchen knife and i stabbed him in the neck, severing his carotid artery. this happened in front of my middle daughter who was 5 at the time. my eleven year old and my 1 year old were in another room. i was living in denial and fear and anger at this time trying to gloss over what was really going on by functioning and making excuses for it all to friends and family. at the time i was getting ready to go back to college and study to be a kindergarten teacher. the minute i stabbed him i realized my life would never be the same. i went to jail for attempted murder, my daughters were placed with my sister in foster care, and my girls dad fought for his life. i resigned myself to the fact that i may never get out of jail and i waited for word about his prognosis. when i went to court i was made out to be this horrible monster, because they had nothing on file about his abusive behavior towards me. until i enlightened the socialworker that the case file they had was his alias. once they had the right information, they saw the history of our tumultuous relationship.

he had several surgeries and lived, i took a plea bargain, my lawyer advised me that i had a 50/50 chance with a jury because it was around christmas time that i would go to court. i plead no contest to felony domestic violence and i received five years probation and court fines and funds that were to go to the local battered womens shelter, ironically i stayed in that same shelter after i was out of jail because he kept calling me. i had a restraining order, but orders are only good if the victim follows through. it is the hardest cycle i have had to try to break and i will admit that i have not completely done so. my girls were home after 1 year and i and they went through extensive counseling and my middle daughter, and oldest recently returned to counseling. my life changed in many ways, i can't do certain jobs or volunteer either. but that has just changed the direction of my dreams. he chose not to participate in the reuunification process and instead went back to using. we stayed in contact and have had a codependent relationship, i still do not want to give up on him, but i cannot allow his manipulation to control me. he still struggles with meth addiction and finally while in prison again he has seen a psychologist, and while i will admit that i still have hope for him i have come to a point where i will not let my love for him define me. i have come too far now to turn back. sadly almost every woman i know has had some type of domestic violence situation occur in their life. i think it is more than the stat say.

do i believe that brown is sorry? i sigh when i think about it, on some level yes i do and then there is that other level that says hes only sorry he got caught. i am only sorry for the little boy that he was and having to endure all of the chaos that he did at such a tender age. that will effect anyone for a lifetime, and it is only when you get real help and work on yourself that you realize how much. we never really know what goes on behind those closed doors of that perfect little life......

Thank you, Megan

Nordette — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:49:38 -0500

Thank you for adding your personal view as an adult who was once a child living through seeing your mother abused. Didn't Chris also see this? I think I've read that his mother is a former abuse victim.

I know psychologists have an explanation for it and say men who see abuse of their mothers are more likely to be physically abusive of their significant others, but it's hard to swallow.

My concern for Rihanna is that psychologists also say a good talking to, which is what Chris seems to say he's getting, rarely stops an abusive male from hitting a woman again.

I wonder if the teens who defended Chris Brown because they only see things in terms of who hit whom first will see his apology and think differently or will they recognize it as a public relations strategy and think he was forced to do it but was still right to hit Rihanna. The thing of it is, abusers are always sorry after the deed is done.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he will start speaking on this issue as "wrong" as part of an image-rebuilding campaign.

Nordette Adams is a BlogHer CE & you can find her other stuff through Her 411.

Amen

tzt — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:44:34 -0500

It's been (sadly) kind of liberating to hear Michael Jackson's music and see his videos without the spectre of his crazy/tragic/creepy/pick your adjective persona of the last several years hanging over them.

I listened to an a capella recording of "Rock With You" that I found somewhere on the internet and was struck by the force of his voice. I watched some videos on VH1 Classic and just enjoyed the heck out of them for the first time since I was a tween.

It's brought back a lot of memories that he provided the soundtrack for, and that's the best way to mourn him that I can think of.

Tiny Mantras
http://tzt.blogspot.com

Writearm
http://www.writearm.com

Michael Jackson Overload

seakiev — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:19:51 -0500

Last night I was watching AC360 and they spent 50 minutes talking about Michael Jackson and the last ten minutes of the broadcast talking about other news such as our troops coming home from Iraq.

While I am sad that anyone has to die before their time, I’m concerned that some news organizations (like CNN) have allowed their newscasts to become dominated by all things Michael Jackson.

I’m just wondering if MJ’s life is more significant than our men and women who have died in Iraq?

Or what will matter more to our lives, finding out who the real parents of MJ’s children are, or finding out how we can cut down on healthcare costs and our dependency on foreign oil ?

A human being has died

Beth Engel — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:30:11 -0500

And that's sad, because the death of a person, any person, is always sad. But I can't attach any more significance to the death of a celebrity person than I attach to any other death.

My mame is Beth Engel. I've been running my own online business, Epic Merchandise, where I sell personalized, engraved gifts, since 2003.