Rage at Kneecap but not Chris Brown is Scotland's national shame

The National

2 days ago

I can't actually fathom the cognitive dissonance involved in paying hard-earned money to bolster the ego of a violent serial abuser or unironically tagging 'breezy bowl' on your Instagram story without even a hint of shame just because he released a few good songs more than a decade ago.
Our society is seriously unwell.
Brown is not the victim of a smear campaign. He's not 'misunderstood'. He's not a reformed man making a comeback, nor is he a 'bad boy' for the therapy-avoidant to pine after; he is a violent thug with a long, well-documented and disturbing history of violence – primarily against women.
We all saw the pictures of Rihanna back in 2009, beaten so badly she was almost unrecognisable. He punched her, bit her, strangled her and left her on the side of the road. The only thing that spared 19-year-old Brown from prison at the time was the plea deal he agreed to.
That in itself should have been the end of him, he should never have worked in the music industry for another day in his life – but it wasn't. He did that to Rihanna – one of the most famous, powerful women in the entire world – and his career survived. It was only the beginning of a campaign of abuse that now spans the last 16 years.
He smashed a window at Good Morning America when asked about the Rihanna incident. He physically attacked rapper Frank Ocean over a parking space. He was kicked out of rehab – a facility he was in by way of court order for anger management purposes – for throwing a rock through his own mum's car window.
In 2016, he was arrested for pulling a gun on a woman after just months earlier being accused of beating a separate woman and taking her phone. In 2017, his ex-partner, Karrueche Tran, filed a restraining order detailing how he had physically beat her, threatened to kill her and went on to stalk her for years after they had parted ways.
He has been sued multiple times for assault. A campaign of abuse spanning fans, employees, personal relationships – this isn't a smear campaign, it's a pattern.
READ MORE: Arrests after brawl erupts at Chris Brown's Glasgow gig
In 2018, he was sued for a violent sexual assault and settled the case privately. More recently, a 2022 lawsuit accused him of drugging and raping a woman on a yacht in Miami and in 2023 he was sued once again for allegedly hitting a man with a tequila bottle until he became unconscious – he was only just granted conditional bail for this incident in the last couple of weeks.
This isn't reform, this is a pattern and it is one of a violent abuser who uses his power and resources to evade the consequences.
And it's the fault, at least in small part, to the people who queued up to listen to him sing Forever because they couldn't resist the nostalgia.
I grew up in the Chris Brown era. At one time I would have called myself a fan – I loved his early music. But since when did a few good songs supersede our fundamental morals? Or is it just that they're so flimsy we can pause them when the allure of nostalgia comes knocking and re-employ them afterwards? If it's the latter, then those morals never existed in the first place.
Chris Brown is currently touring in the UK, while out on conditional bail (Image: PA) The fact that the majority of the crowd was women makes this even harder to swallow. Our subordination to misogyny and our refusal to deny it power is damaging to no one but our own gender. In fact, it depends on our subordination to thrive – and thriving it is.
Brown's career should have ended in 2009. Failing that, it should have ended almost every year since with each passing allegation. Instead, he's selling out our national stadium, and that of other countries, to a baying audience of adoring fans as though the people he hurt don't matter.
And what of the message this sends to survivors?
If your abuser is famous enough, rich enough, talented enough, then your pain doesn't matter? If abuse can be excused for the rich and famous, it can be excused for the everyday person too.
This isn't just about Brown. It's about a wider culture that rewards powerful men for being predators, and teaches young men that violating women and exuding rage will serve you well in life.
Every time you stream one of Brown's songs, or buy tickets for his embarrassment of a tour or even share it on your social media, you're telling survivors, particularly those in your own life, that their abuse is forgettable and forgivable. It's not.
READ MORE: David Pratt: In a dangerous era journalism needs to show some backbone again
Brown won't notice you were at Hampden. He doesn't know your name, and he doesn't care that you like his music.
But the women in your life who have survived abuse or lived in fear of a man like him do. They will see your inability to label it a dealbreaker, and what they will take from it is that you don't think abuse of this kind is important enough to merit real consequences. You won't even sacrifice a night of noughties music to stand up to it. That at the end of the day, their pain is a footnote to your entertainment.
I'm also not saying that people can't change. I believe in rehabilitation. I believe in redemption. But Brown has never truly shown an interest in either.
Not once has he owned up to the full extent of what he's perpetrated. Instead, he's doubled down, victim-blamed and continued to emulate violence and chaos time and time again. This is who he is, whether he's talented or not doesn't matter.
'Breezy Bowl' was a national embarrassment. Scotland prides itself internationally on being progressive and feminist, yet we rolled out the red carpet for a man of his nature and with his history. And not even a month after our First Minister said that Kneecap shouldn't perform at TRNSMT.
So, we draw the line at anti-genocide campaigns but not at campaigns of violent, misogynistic abuse? We need to give our heads a wobble.
I don't think it's possible to separate the art from the artist. The artist is the art, whether we like it or not. It might not always be a comfortable realisation, but realistically, not being able to dance to a song you liked 15 years ago is hardly a sacrifice in the face of what Brown's victims have endured.
If we want to be the kind of country we say we are, we need to do far better than this.