Rihanna and battered women

Robyn Rihanna Fenty will think I have a lot of nerve, said Leonard Pitts Jr. in The Miami Herald. Plenty of people have been telling the singer how to run her life since her boyfriend, singer Chris Brown, was accused of beating and choking her. But listen, Ms. Fenty: "If this guy did what you say he did, you need to drop him like a hot rock."

As Oprah Winfrey warned on TV, a man who beats you will do it again, said Barbara Brotman in the Chicago Tribune. Domestic violence experts say that "choking is not just another element in a brutal attack. It is a harbinger of potential murder."

Rihanna isn't the only one who may be at risk, said Jane Velez-Mitchell in CNN. Her "punch-drunk love" for Chris Brown—and her quick decision to take him back—sends young fans the "dangerous message" that his kind of behavior is okay. "If the reconciliation is real," Rihanna—"despite her incredible looks and talent"—is becoming "the poster child for battered woman's syndrome."

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