Dr. Dre's apology

With the release of Straight Outta Compton, there has been a furor of criticism regarding the absence of Dr. Dre's abuse on women, specifically African-American women.  I have yet to see the movie, but I will see it at some point to make my own judgments about the movie.  I want to get into a more nuanced discussion of Dr. Dre's apology.

     I've read a response from F Gary Gray who is the director of Straight Outta Compton.  He states, "It didn't serve the narrative."  I happen to agree with him because this is something that cannot be dealt with in a shortened form.  Movies can never do justice to such a serious crime; every movie I have seen about an entertainer, falls short of it's goal to deal intricately with the flaws of the person.  It is simply not possible to satisfy the public's expectation of such a feat--this was most apparent with "What's Love Go to Do With It"--everyone has their issue about this movies factual content.  Dr Dre's abuse of women has to be dealt with separately and independent of the entertainment composition.  

     Like Dee Barnes, who is one of the women Dr. Dre abused, I believe violence against women is a larger issue than the context used to deal with the subject; many people use social media to express their opinion regarding this issue, but most fail to pen an accurate analysis of the subject--usually the subject is attached to African-American men as the poster child of domestic abuse against women--this caricature was made many months ago on the eve of the Mayweather vs Pacquiao event where Mayweather was vilified for his behavior towards women and rightly so; however, the criticism did not contain much more than simple airing of grievances towards him.  This was a great opportunity to delve into the deeper issue regarding the abuse against women, yet it ran it's usual course of framing another African-American man as the picture of domestic violence.  I believe in order to understand how to eradicate the symptom of domestic violence against women, one must understand it's root cause; you cannot fight an effective battle without knowing what you are fighting for and who you are fighting.  We must take a roller coaster ride through history and find the starting point of the current phenomenon; the first form of violence projected against African women was through the global system of white supremacy(racism) inaugurated by the three major western religions i.e. Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.  One must separate their religious and emotional attachment from these specific faiths to recognize and acknowledge these three religions used religious dogma to justify their enslavement of African people. Most African-American people don't readily associated white-supremacy(racism) as the root cause of violence against African-American women.  "If you don't understand white supremacy(racism)-what it is-everything you think you understand will only confuse you." This is a phrase created by Neely Fuller Jr which opened my understanding of what we go through here in America as it relates to our present condition as wards of the state sort of speak.  We must understand the factors connected to our oppression and begin to take ownership of our individual lives to free ourselves from victimization and live as free men, women, and children.  Our oppression isn't so much physical as it is a mental battle for the mind; freeing ourselves of the mental projections placed upon on us by our faulty thinking is a prerequisite to overcoming the obstacles in this culture.

Finally, getting back to his apology, whether it was done out of sincerity or a PR move, the apology is in the universe, air , etc.  At least Dee Barnes as accepted the apology for what it is.  Michel'le has not accepted his apology and that's fine too; she has made her own criteria for an apology to be given.  Whether or not, he privately apologizes, is a matter between him and Michel'le.