Please excuse my rant...

I have been so frustrated over the last two weeks about all of the response to the whole Chris Brown/Rihanna thing. I really am not one to follow celebrity gossip on a regular basis, but of course this caught my attention because of my background with domestic violence. The part that has infuriated me is how so many of the people that ‘comment’ on the different articles are referring to Rihanna as a snitch. The most appalling post was something about how ‘Rihanna should learn her place and stop snitching’. Are you kidding me…calling the police when someone attacks you makes you a snitch! Apparently so according to many posts…here is the most disgusting part about this, it’s an epidemic. The whole Stop Snitching thing is a campaign designed to silence witnesses and let criminals get away without justice being served. Here’s a little blurb from Wiki…

Stop Snitchin' refers to a controversial campaign in the USA to convince criminal informants to stop "snitching," or informing, to law enforcement. Some public officials and others say that it is a campaign used by criminals to frighten people with information from reporting their activities to the police.
It became mainstream in the hip hop community as many rappers express support for this method. It specifically refers to a Baltimore-based home-made DVD that threatened violence against would-be informants.

And even more appalling…

There’s a t-shirt.

So, I’m about to get off my soap box, but I thought I would share this story. I have been aware of the whole Stop Snitching ‘campaign’ for a few years. A family that stayed at ACCESS awhile back was from a larger city and the oldest child had his very own quit your snitchin' shirt. It was explained that where they were from you keep your mouth shut when you see something happen. It just makes my skin crawl that t-shirts and videos are being used to perpetuate a culture of violence. It makes me even angrier that a young woman is accused of this when she calls the police for help. It scares me to think about all the people out there who are too afraid to say anything about the terrible crimes that are perpetrated in their homes and neighborhoods. Silence in this case is NOT Golden.