Black women’s bodies, voyeurism and Rihanna

I really wish I hadn’t seen the pictures that were leaked of Rihanna after the supposed assault by boyfriend Chris Brown. I am not going to post them here, because I think they are too triggering. Needless to say, they show someone who was brutally attacked.
As I said the last time I wrote about this, it is rare that the media gives light to violence against women of color. From the jump, this story hinged from an angle of victim-blaming, from blaming Rihanna for “giving Brown herpes” to “cheating on him with Jay-Z.” The narrative was clear; sometimes it is OK to beat a woman.
In releasing the pictures two things have happened. First, Rihanna’s privacy has been violated in a very harmful way. We have no business seeing the extent of the harm done to her and this is a serious issue, not something we should be laughing at and making spectacle of. The video of her picture is in the top ten most watched videos on youtube. Our culture of voyeurism and the desire to be in people’s lives never lets us down.
Secondly, releasing her pictures gave a validity to her story that she didn’t have the right to prior to belief that she deserved to get hit. The picture has sent shockwaves around the internet and people changed their tune, some calling for Chris Brown to go to jail for a long time. What is unfortunate is that it took a picture that violated Rihanna’s rights for the greater public to believe the perpetrator should be locked up. It is a sad world that we live in, when a woman is not taken at face value. And then her body must be consumed for the world to see in order to believe her story. The message is clear, women and especially black women, have no right to privacy, their image is for our consumption and story-telling.
In writing this, I actually didn’t read what other people are saying, so please feel free to leave other links in comments. I am so deeply disturbed by this story and concerned for the impact it will have on not only what we consider the rights of women that have been victims of violence, but also the culture of victim-blaming. Can’t we show our young women a better world than that?
Update: Don’t forget to check out Jessica’s quick video on why it is bullshit that TMZ published the picture and Jay Smooth’s interview with Elizabeth Mendez.