So it looks like singer Mary J. Blige got ticked off at her husband Kendu Isaacs at her record release party back on Christmas Eve.  Apparently he was chatting up another woman, so Blige did what any reasonable person would do – she slugged him in the face and bit him on the hand.  Read about it here (New York Post, 12/25/09) and here (New York Post, 12/26/09).

As I’ve said recently, remember all those old bumper stickers that read “There’s No Excuse for Domestic Violence”?  Don’t believe them.  There are plenty of excuses for DV as long as it’s a woman doing it to a man.  In Blige’s case, her husband’s talking to another woman made her jealous, so…pop!

And it’s all OK.  No one gets upset.  NOW doesn’t demand that she go to jail.  There aren’t any calls to boycott her new album.  Indeed, although the incident was caught on video and there are at least two witnesses who’ve talked to reporters, it doesn’t look like she’ll be charged with anything.  And unless the police and prosecutors start acting a lot differently than they have been the last week, that’ll start to look suspiciously like official acceptance of female-on-male domestic violence.

I would remind anyone who thinks that the fact that Isaacs wasn’t seriously injured is the reason Blige has suffered no consequences for her actions, of the piece I posted just a few days ago about Winnipeg Blue Bombers coach Mike Kelly.  He was arrested and charged with assault for allegedly injuring his girlfriend about as seriously as Blige injured Isaacs.

Into the bargain, we shouldn’t overlook the fact that Blige, and I assume other women, have learned a vital lesson from the Chris Brown/Rihanna fisticuffs of the recent past.  Witnesses say that Blige followed her punch to her husband’s face with the words “What are you gonna do, Chris Brown me?”

Translation:  “I, like Rihanna, can punch, slap, bite, etc. you, but we all know that if you retaliate, it’ll be you who goes to jail, you who are excoriated in the press, you who get thrown out of the house, you who get sued.” 

In short, the message has been delivered to all, and it is clear – female on male DV gets a free pass.  She can attack him and he can’t strike back, but neither will the police or courts do anything to punish her.  That’s an open invitation.  No excuse for DV?  You’ve got to be kidding.

But just in case it’s still not clear enough, consider the fact that the same Mary J. Blige who slugged and bit her husband in public, only a few weeks before had christened her very own DV center.  Read about it here (HipHopCrunch, 11/1/09).  That’s right, in her fearless and lonely fight against the scourge of domestic violence, she put her name on a DV center in Yonkers.  Of course it’s for women only; as usual, male victims of DV need not apply.

But the main point is this: we pretend to care about domestic violence, but we don’t.  The same woman who gave her money and her name to a DV shelter turns around and commits her own public acts of domestic violence, and no one in the huge domestic violence industry so much as raises an eyebrow.  Amazing.

Thanks to Jeremy, John and others for the heads-up.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 1st, 2010 at 3:49 pm and is filed under Domestic Violence/DV System.