Sending prayers to someone who is going through some sh*t is a good sentiment. And I get it, I really do. Chris Brown has certainly endured a level of media scrutiny that other famous men with similarly abusive behaviors have not been subjected to. Bruno Mars, another R&B singer of similar caliber, is offering his support to someone in his community who is once again in a bad way, though this is a much more complicated and unclear situation (Ray J isn’t having any of it, for the record.)
Prayin for ya @chrisbrown we need ya.
— Bruno Mars (@BrunoMars) August 31, 2016
But, what happens when you center the person who has enacted violence against someone is you erase the experience of the victim, the person who ended up hurt in a situation. Centering the person who committed the crime over the person who experienced the crime is a problem, particularly when it is a crime that allegedly involves violence against women, one of the longest standing and massive issues not only in our culture at large, but also specifically in Brown’s past behavior. So, a number of people obviously showed up in Bruno Mars’ mentions to remind him of that fact:
Drag queen Pandora Boxx put it the most succinctly:
I'm praying for violence against women to end. But ya know… https://t.co/bBZYB7PpI0
— Pandora Boxx (@ThePandoraBoxx) August 31, 2016
Another example that points out how his framing is flawed:
https://twitter.com/K_IngalaSmith/status/770878318182883328
Perez Hilton weighed in via GIF:
— Perez (@ThePerezHilton) August 31, 2016
Lots of people spoke through GIFs:
— Rand Duren (@RandDuren) August 31, 2016
https://twitter.com/colorfuljaniel/status/770846873284476928
— 🌸🌼ReginaPhalange☀️💐 (@BangxBitchx) August 31, 2016
https://twitter.com/marabakes/status/770845835156459520
— veronica✨ tampa 4/15 (@xtswifts13) August 31, 2016
Others felt even more strongly:
https://twitter.com/KirbysLeftEye/status/770843086347833344
https://twitter.com/_comatose1/status/770844220257103876
https://twitter.com/PapiAnaconda/status/770841961410465792
Yet, like clockwork, even in the midst of a storm of opinions, Twitter is still able to fulfill its primary goal — creating a platform for fans to calling celebrities dad:
https://twitter.com/MagicRoyalty/status/770841929525239808
Priorities, you know?