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"I would be more than grateful to come to Australia to raise awareness about domestic violence.Im not the pink elephant in the room anymore"
"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"
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."The youth don't listen to parents nor do they listen to PSA's. The power that we have as Entertainers can change lives."
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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.Follow Lee on Twitter.Read on Noisey: It's Naive to Think That Revoking Chris Brown's Visa Will Stop Violence Against Women