Once again, our twitters and blogs are exploding with chatter around Chris Brown’s latest antics.  In the past, I would have watched in a stubborn silence, refusing to even mention Chris Brown or Rihanna Fenty in my timelines, status updates or here on Afrolicious. Never again.

I want to link you up to two open letters.  One, from activist and writer Kevin Powell titled “An Open Letter to Chris Brown” and another from… Gabe of Video Gum titled “An Open Letter to Good Morning America.” Both are getting a lot of retweets and reblogs and reposts, yet are very different in tone, intent and audience.  We are fast society but, please, read as much of both of them as you can.

As someone whose personal creed is to operate from a place of radical love (unconditional, unapologetic, action-driven), I resonate deeply with Kevin Powell’s open letter. I can only imagine who Chris Brown would have been today if he had talked to Kevin Powell months ago. No matter. This is his present. This is him today.

Radical love looks at a violent person and says, “You are broken. You need to heal.” Radical love doesn’t refrain from punishment; rather, it’s punishments are laced with lethal doses of love – lethal enough to kill demons that haunt us from the past in order that we might move forward.  Radical love does not invite someone back to the show for ratings; instead, it envelopes them in a place of safety and creates a space for healing.  Radical love is not foolish; it’s eternal and wise beyond our mere humanness.

I know our society doesn’t understand this. If it did, it wouldn’t be so radical.  What Kevin Powell wrote is powerful and radical. It stopped me in the middle of my work and forced me to pay attention. And I realized that even Chris Brown needs my radical love.

Something else became clear to me. As Brown and Black people, we need systems in place that will encircle broken young men and women and shield them from these hawks and vultures until they are healed. But, lacking a Brown Agenda, we write open letters. We pray. We plan. We spread love. We move. We act. We do.

~aod