Chris Brown has complained about not being given a visa to enter Australia, making a point that he could do a great job of raising awareness of domestic abuse.
The singer was banned from the country after its immigration minister listened to women's minister Michaelia Cash and refused him a visa to perform. After Brown announced a tour in December, she had said: 'I can assure you that the minister for immigration and border protection will be looking at this very, very seriously.'
She added: 'People need to understand if you are going to commit domestic violence and then you want to travel around the world, there are going to be countries that say to you "You cannot come in because you are not of the character we expect in Australia."'
It's worth noting that Ozzy Osbourne, who tried to kill his wife Sharon, is allowed to Australia. Eminem, with his own dealings with domestic abuse, is also allowed into the country. Maybe this rule of banning violent men is new and that's why they've not yet banned any white men with a history of domestic violence from its shores. But right now there seems to be one rule for black men - rapper Tyler, The Creator, who incidentally once tweeted Chris Brown 'Do You Like Soup? Cause You're Acting Like It' has also been banned for his lyrics - and another for white men.
This has caused Get Up!, one of the activist groups calling for Brown's ban from Australia to state: 'We have a migration system that unfairly targets people of colour and this is a system that we inadvertently fed into. We caused angst and grief and we are unreservedly apologising for that.'
That said, Brown's c0mplaint wasn't about race and the double standards he's being held to. Instead, he spoke about how important it is that the time he beat Rihanna to a bloody mess doesn't define, um... him.
'I would be more than grateful to come to Australia to raise awareness about domestic violence. I'm not the pink elephant in the room anymore,' he wrote.
We've no idea what he meant by the pink elephant, but the way Chris has, historically, raised awareness about domestic violence, is to show the world can violently assault someone you love, continue a relationship with them, become ever-more successful in your career, winning awards and teenage fans and then feel like your simple presence in a country would give people the right message about domestic abuse.
He added: 'My life mistakes should be a wake-up call for everyone. Showing the world that mistakes don't define you. Trying to prevent spousal abuse.' Again, while we agree it's time Rihanna no longer has to bear the burden of being thought of as 'woman who got beat up' - time and time again, the only message we've got from Chris's story is that, well, so long as you can sing and dance and some people fancy you and others collaborate with you, people are all too willing to forget your history of violence.
Unfortunately, by painting himself as a victim of the incident, Brown's lost a fair few of our sympathies. The most interesting thing he said was: 'The youth don't listen to parents nor do they listen to PSA's. The power that we have as Entertainers can change lives.'
This placing of himself as a role model is precisely why his story of violence leading to success deserves a good shutdown. The same should go for any man who's hit a woman and doesn't repent effectively. The story the fans really deserve is that of Rihanna constantly rising above the bullshit, showing that she's survived.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.