Chris Brown Is a Terrible Test Case for Australia's Attitude Towards Violence Against Women

Chris Brown may yet tour Australia—he has 28 days to appeal against the ruling barring him from the country—which leads us into the Australian thinkpiece equivalent of hip-hop's East Coast vs West Coast war. On one side are those claiming that R&B singer Chris Brown shouldn't be allowed in because of his history of domestic violence. On the other are those claiming that singling out Brown is racist because the rule is unevenly applied. If you're struggling to figure out which argument you should manacle yourself to, don't worry about it. There are so many varying degrees to Brown's particular situation, it's probably the worst litmus test we could use for how we deal with these cases.

Domestic violence is currently, and deservingly, a headline issue in Australia. After years of inaction, the country is starting to do something about it, finally tackling an endemic problem that has seen 66 women killed this year alone. Although the amount of money set aside to combat the problem is arguably not enough, the fact that the issue is now so prominent means we're on the right track.

But this thing with Chris Brown highlights Australia's massively inconsistent approach to the issue. As we try to get a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, news has emerged that one of two women raped on Nauru is pregnant, and has no reason to believe she will receive access to abortion services, or will even be let out of the prison. It's hard for the government to make a moral case against Brown given its own hypocritical and complicit track record in violence against women.

For his part, the 26-year-old singer wants to own the controversy, tweeting the following:

Brown can appeal the government's rejection if his argument is convincing enough, and he sounds confident it will be with his "turn my past into an advantage" proposal. But does his plan stand up to scrutiny? When high schools want to steer their students away from drugs, they don't wheel out Hunter S Thompson: there's always a recovering addict telling you what rock bottom looks like. Scared Straight doesn't bus students off to a church meeting. Brown's banking on his history being flipped into a cautionary tale and this is where his argument kinda falls flat.

It's a tactic designed more for appearance than practicality. After all, Scared Straight—the program that has at-risk teens go to prisons and meet offenders so they can see just how bad their lives will get if they don't pull it together—relies on a sense of self-preservation. Kids see what their futures could look like and, ideally, correct course immediately. One can only imagine how Brown will frame his own story: "Kids, I was one of the world's most popular R&B singers, a multi-millionaire with a string of number ones. But then I beat up a woman, and was forced to go to court a couple of times and do some interviews. Now look at me, one of the world's most popular R&B singers and a multi-millionaire with a string of number ones. Do you really want to turn out like this?"

Brown's very public 2009 Contrition Tour was, of course, a PR campaign, but it's impossible to tell if it had any degree of sincerity to it because that's the whole point of PR. Any tale relating to the horrors of domestic violence would be more convincing and effective coming from, say, Rihanna, the far-more-popular R&B singer he was arrested for assaulting.

The best thing he has going for him is that GetUp! actually retracted their petition and apologized. If the advocacy groups are retreating, there's going to be little pressure placed on Dutton to maintain the ban.

In the music world, Chris Brown is the face of domestic violence. Whether the fact that he's elevated to this position above other celebrities with similar histories is due to race, the unfortunate juxtaposition of his violent lyrics, or the fact that the woman he assaulted was herself a beloved a celebrity, his name is linked to consequence-free violence-against-women. No matter what, a highly-publicized tour in the midst of a domestic violence campaign was bound to raise some eyebrows. But the banning of a black singer when so many white singers with similar histories have been waved through is also eyebrow-raising.

So ultimately, the government needs to decide which will win out: its awful track record towards women, or its awful track record towards race.

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