On Saturday of spring break, I got called a “real sista” for the feminist righteousness that I was schooled in: a righteousness that I have since come to second-guess. I shared a cab ride from Wegman’s with a voracious, obviously drunk, alcoholic black woman around my mother’s age. This woman, whose name I didn’t catch throughout our impromptu friendship, and I bonded over our respective family traditions and had the cab stop by Northside to buy some fifths and a tabloid (against some good-natured suggestions from the straight-edge cab driver). On the cover was Rihanna’s face and a headline proclaiming that she had taken back “No Air” crooner Chris Brown (her assailant-cum-boyfriend).

Now, we’ve all seen the photo of Rihanna’s horribly disfigured face all over the internet: black eyes, bruises, cuts forming a tragic map of domestic abuse. So I proclaimed with my prep school background in tow, “What the fuck? Rihanna could have any man she wanted. What does Chris Brown, a violent, masochistic abuser, have that she can’t get from any other man?” “Girl, you a real sista,” I heard back. It felt right: chicks before dicks, sisterhood even with a woman I will never know, girl power and second wave feminism all the way! Rosie the Riveter and all that great education I’ve had says “domestic abuse is never OK.” I read those Gannett pamphlets, I know how to play the game: in this day and age, bloody noses and shiners are always against the rules.

But the truth of it is, being anti-domestic violence is easy when you come from a liberal bubble full of upper-middle class white and Asian families. I went to all-girls’ middle school (ignorance and empowerment all bundled together!) where we were taught how put ourselves first and quote de Beauvoir. I’ve learned that it’s easy to be vigorously outspoken against a domestic violence when I play that paradoxical game: to be frequently liberal means being narrow-minded about conservative or less “progressive” mindsets. That “Girl, you a real sista” praise was highly undeserved. I have never been hit or beaten, never had to make tough choices between love and forgiving some bruises, between having a man to support me or being on the street or being part of a culture that sees casual “dating violence” (as dubbed by the Times) as the norm. A myriad other situations come to mind in which I have never struggled. I don’t believe that any of these situations are justifications for violence, but let me tell you: it’s easy to be a sista when the men you date are courteous and considerate even at their angriest.

The New York Times article, titled “Dating Violence Case Shows Many Teenage Girls Stand By Their Man,” profiled high-schoolers in the Bronx: the majority of these girls blamed Rihanna for the beating and supported Chris Brown’s situation. These girls, who are close to being women — if Rihanna at 21 (born in my year!) is a woman — have placed the blame on her in a variety of ways: “It’s her fault that she was so jealous,” or “She probably made him mad [...] You know, like, bring it on?” or “I don’t think he’ll hit her like that again,” the Times reported girls as saying. Many of the girls see domestic violence as part of everyday life; their girl friends are slapped by their respective boyfriends and some parents hit one another. It’s a different world in lower income communities than the Ivy League — domestic abuse is more commonly excused, tolerated and sometimes even sanctioned.

What responsibility do artists have to the work they release in the world? All work is political, we know, but it’s easier to throw down first than take responsibility later. From extremely personal water-paintings of landscapes to “yellow” journalism, the second we touch pen to paper or brush to canvas our work is representative of ourselves. Rihanna and Chris Brown, though themselves not proponents of the most depraved rap, are still considered as part of the black hip-hop world, notable for aggressive alpha males who deal in power, wealth and women, and bootilicious ladies who can choose between success as a sexbot (Beyonce, Nicole Scherzinger) or ghettolicious toughness (Ciara, Lady Soverign). Would country fans have responded in the same way as Chris Brown’s — “Faith Hill, she was totally asking for it”? Toughness for women is frequently defined as being like men (Ciara’s “Like A Boy,” Beyonce’s “If I Were A Boy”), and the only unique signature women in hip-hop have for their own strength is sex appeal — otherwise, guns, rims and rubberband stacks are all appropriated from the boys’ world.

On my own hypocrisy: the responsibility of art goes beyond those who produce it. Rihanna is now living in the world she glamorized, hand in hand with her patron, rap icon Jay-Z (no, I’m not saying that the domestic violence that she suffered was karma from singing Top 40 singles). However, I feel guilt as a hypocritical consumer. On weekdays, I consider myself an Ivy League-educated, high-minded woman with a background in feminism fully and firmly against domestic violence: I’m a “real sista.” But on weekends, I listen and love those same chart toppers that glamorize the objectification of women: I flirt with that bartender, who buys me drinks to drink (we drunk ’em), and do my best not to give it up, wanna give it up. The world that those Chris Brown fans idealize is one that is supported by my own willingness to bump and grind to “Pimpin’ All Over the World.” It’s easy to be righteous when ignoring the fact that domestic abuse is highly linked to race, identity and classism — unfortunately it is. I no longer believe in my own ability to say, “Why the fuck would she go back to him?”