Open Letter to Ken Ehrlich, Executive Producer of the Grammy's.

Dear Ken,
It wasn’t until this morning that I learned of your horrible decision-making skills. It seems Chris Brown was asked to perform at the Grammy’s last night.

I understand you are running a business. I undertand that there are plenty of other high-profile people who have used drugs, abused partners, committed manslaughter, stolen things, abused animals that go on to be given “second chances” by those that will be able to make money from allowing them to continue along their career path. I understand it is part of the business. I don’t condone it, I don’t believe it is right, I still think that it is an awful part of a business. It is, however, a business that makes no apologies for serving the lowest common denominator. I watch movies and TV shows and I listen to music; I selectively engage in this material.

Here is what your horrible decision-making skills allowed you to do: sink below the lowest common denominator.

Rihanna's face after being beaten by Chris Brown. But Ehlich thinks the Grammy's were the victim.

“Explaining the decision to allow Brown back on the show, Ehrlich told ABC News Radio, “I think people deserve a second chance, you know. If you’ll note, he has not been on the Grammys for the past few years and it may have taken us a while to kind of get over the fact that we were the victim of what happened.” – ABC News

Who the hell do you think you are? You and the Grammy’s were the victims of his beating Rihanna? You were the victime when Brown used violence to demonstrate his power and control over another person? Brown beat someone he supposedly loved and someone who felt they could trust him – but you and the Grammy’s were the victim? That is the most ridiculous, offensive, self-involved thing I have heard in a long time.

We can, for a nano-second ignore that you have basically told abusers that they will be given the equivalent of a “time-out” when they beat their partners. We can also forget for a nano-second that you have held yourself up as yet another example of society’s willingness to say that women who are abused should accept their partner will always have that power.

To say that you were the victim of a crime in which a woman was beaten by her boyfriend to the point that she had to go to the hosiptal demonstrates such an enormous lack of connection to reality. The reality that:

• One in every four women will be abused in their lifetime.
• Every 9 seconds, a woman is battered in the U.S.
• When women leave an abusive relationship, it is the most dangerous time for them. Of all the women murdered in the U.S., about one-third were killed by an intimate partner.

I would think that perhaps this would have been seen as an opportunity to take a stand for what is right. The actual victim of the crime is also in the music industry and Chris Brown is cetainly not someone with enough talent to be missed if he were left out of programming. (Psst! I know you know this, act like it: No one is indespensible… especially not an abusive man who beats his girlfriend.)

Sadly, once again, I am left dissapointed by those in a positoin to take a stand for what is right, instead you chose to stand on the side of sensationalization and money. Frankly, if I were in a decision-making role with the Grammy’s, I’d let it be known that you failed. Allowing him to perform suggests the Grammy’s endorses Chris Brown as a representative of the best in the business.

But your comment that the Grammy’s were the victim in all this is appalling. Ken, you owe all women who have been abused an apology. At a minimum you owe Chris Brown’s actual victim (you know, the one who was actually punched in the face?) an apology.

With diminished respect,
Narissa

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