I just came across an article this morning with the headline “Chris Brown Doesn't Deserve Forgiveness For Beating Rihanna.” Marlow Stern, the author of the article, describes Brown’s physical assault of Rihanna while taking issue with the Grammy Awards’ public celebration and embrace of him. The thesis of the article is that Brown has not been publicly remorseful enough for his vile actions. On the contrary, he appears to be defiant and acting as though he is the aggrieved party. The article also addresses the rumors of Rihanna having rekindled a relationship with Brown. Their alleged reconciliation is explained as fitting the pattern of other high profile examples of relationship violence.

This is not a post about the dynamics of relationship violence. I have spent many years of my life working in domestic and sexual assault organizations so I know a little about these issues. The issues are complicated, fraught with emotion, deeply personal and also public. This is also not a post about “forgiveness” which is deeply personal and should not be demanded from those who are victimized.

Instead, I want to focus on a quote from the article by a victim’s advocate named Michelle Garcia:

“I don’t think Chris Brown has done enough to take responsibility for his actions. What have we seen to see that he truly regrets his behavior or to actively raise awareness about violence against women?”

Those of us who are proponents of restorative or transformative justice wrestle with this question in one form or another every single day. Whenever I speak to someone about the value and promise of restorative or transformative justice, I am confronted with the question: “what if the person causing harm doesn’t want to accept responsibility for his/her actions?” And the truth is that there is no good answer. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t continue to struggle with the question though.

My life is divided by an invisible line – BSA (before sexual assault) and ASA (after sexual assault). I have lived many more years in the ASA period than I had in my BSA period. There was a time in my life when I wasn’t sure if I would be able to write that. People have said this before me and it is true: sexual assault is soul-murdering. It was no different for me. I spent 10 years after my assault mending my soul. It was a process characterized by tentative steps forward and violent steps back.

While my experience hasn’t given me unlimited wisdom, I do know this to be true: so many of us who are survivors seek “accountability” from a system that simply cannot deliver. The criminal legal system mandated that Chris Brown be put on “probation” and that he attend the dreaded and always terrible “anger management” classes. As we have been able to see through his temper tantrums online and in person, Chris Brown doesn’t seem to have his “anger” under control. In fact, those of us who are survivors of domestic and/or sexual violence know that these are not about anger. These actions are about displaying power and asserting control.

So the public is left unsatisfied and seething because they believe that Chris Brown should be contrite. Many want to see “evidence” that he has “changed” or “learned his lesson.” But the current system cannot deliver and that leaves all of us worse off.

I long for some non-hysterical dialogue about how we are going to develop structures in our communities to hold people accountable for the harm that they cause others. I would like some in-depth conversation about how we are going to hold the institutions responsible for state violence accountable in our society. I am desperate for people to focus less on Chris Brown and more on their own role in fostering a culture that makes Brown believe that it is acceptable for him to beat another person. Chris Brown is not an island onto himself. He doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Chris Brown is unfortunately us.

So each of us has a stake in figuring out how we are going to build a system that truly addresses harm and is accountable. If we make sure to keep survivors and marginalized populations at the center of our analysis, I think that there is good chance that the new system that we build will be better than the one we have.