“I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”
— James Baldwin
I think about this quote often when I think about what it means to love a place, a community or an institution enough to demand better from it.
This weekend, U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett appeared onstage at AT&T Stadium in Arlington during the R&B Tour alongside State Rep. Venton Jones, where the two participated in honoring Chris Brown and Usher with official recognitions celebrating their contributions to music.
Crockett presented Brown with a Congressional Record recognition and described the moment as an expression of “Black joy.” She told the crowd, “We are here because of Chris Brown,” and called Brown “a real one.”
Let me be clear: Congresswoman Crockett has every right to enjoy Chris Brown’s music. She can attend his concerts, listen to his albums and decide for herself how she reconciles his art with his conduct.
But she did not walk onto that stage solely as a private citizen.
She walked onto it as a sitting member of Congress.
That distinction matters.
When an elected official presents a congressional recognition to someone, the gesture carries a different weight than a fan holding up a concert sign. It invokes the authority and symbolism of public office. And for constituents who voted for that officeholder—including me—that creates an unavoidable question:
What exactly are we saying when we use the machinery and symbolism of government to celebrate a person with a documented history of violence?
Chris Brown pleaded guilty in 2009 to felony assault involving Rihanna. More recently, he pleaded guilty in the United Kingdom to affray stemming from a 2023 nightclub incident and is awaiting sentencing.
None of that erases Brown’s musical accomplishments. But neither should his musical accomplishments erase the violence.
That is where I struggle with this recognition.
And I struggle with it particularly as a Black woman.
Because this year, we have been reminded again and again that the distance between domestic violence and death is sometimes tragically short.
In April, Dr. Cerina Fairfax, a dentist, mother and small-business owner in Virginia, was allegedly killed by her estranged husband, former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax.
Around the same period, Nancy Metayer Bowen, the vice mayor of Coral Springs, Florida, was fatally shot in what authorities investigated as a domestic-violence case; her husband was arrested and charged with murder.
And in Shreveport, Louisiana, Shaneiqua Elkins was shot and wounded in an attack authorities described as a domestic incident. Her husband, Shamar Elkins, fatally shot eight children—including seven of their own—before dying following a police pursuit
These women are not Chris Brown’s victims, and I would never pretend otherwise. But their stories illuminate the larger continuum of intimate-partner violence: the threats, the abuse, the normalization, the excuses, the separation, the escalation—and, sometimes, the irreversible ending.
That continuum is why the cultural response to violence matters.
Because intimate-partner violence does not begin with a homicide. And it does not become worthy of concern only after a woman is dead.
As Tayo Bero wrote earlier this year, “Intimate partner violence thrives because of the ways the rest of the Black community … closes ranks to protect and sanitize the image of violent men.”
That sentence stayed with me.
Because what does it mean to say we are protecting Black joy if, in the process, we ask Black women to swallow their discomfort with the very men whose violence has harmed women?
What does it mean to celebrate Black excellence if accountability becomes the price Black women are expected to pay for that celebration?
And what does it say to survivors when the response to a man’s documented violence is not merely forgiveness or silence, but an official honor?
That is the part I cannot reconcile.
And Then There Is the Question of the Stage
Venton Jones was also onstage that night. His participation was presented as part of the recognition, and afterward he characterized the appearance as part of how to “mobilize voters.”
But if we are going to invoke voters, then let’s talk about voters.
We are weeks away from a consequential election. Tens of thousands of people were gathered in one stadium. A sitting member of Congress and a Texas state representative had an unusually large and captive audience in front of them.
And yet the political opportunity seemed to stop at the photo opportunity.
There was no clear exhortation from the stage for that enormous audience to register, participate or vote.
That is especially difficult to understand when Jones himself later described the appearance as voter mobilization.
And before anyone tells me that putting Venton Jones on that stage was about helping down-ballot candidates, let’s be honest about what “help” means. Jones represents a heavily Democratic district and ran unopposed for reelection in 2024. He won 85% of the vote in his 2022 general election.
If this is what political mobilization looks like, then I am helping a whale swim.
There were 30,000 people in that stadium.
If you are going to use the power of elected office to command the attention of that many Texans, why not use even 30 seconds of it to remind them that their voices matter at the ballot box?
Why not tell them to vote?
Why not tell them that the same democracy that gives entertainers a platform gives ordinary people a voice?
Instead, the most prominent political symbolism of the evening was a congressional honor for a musician with a documented history of violence.
Why This Is Personal
As a sexual-assault survivor, my tolerance for domestic violence is nonexistent—and my tolerance for the ways we rationalize, minimize or sanitize it is even lower.
I know that violence is not an abstract political issue. It changes how a person understands safety, trust, power and love.
So yes, this is personal for me.
But it is also bigger than me.
I have voted for Jasmine Crockett multiple times. I supported her when she represented House District 100. I supported her for Congress. I supported her in the Democratic Senate primary. I was a believer.
That is precisely why I feel entitled to say this: last night, I felt let down by someone I once felt proud to call my representative.
Criticism is not betrayal.
It is one of the privileges—and responsibilities—of citizenship.
James Baldwin understood that loving America meant refusing to surrender it to its contradictions. The same should be true of our communities, our institutions and the people we elect to represent us.
I don’t expect my elected officials to share every one of my opinions. I don’t even expect them to share my taste in music.
But I do expect them to understand that the office they hold is bigger than their personal preferences.
When a member of Congress takes the stage, presents a congressional honor and speaks before tens of thousands of people, that moment belongs to more than the person holding the microphone.
It belongs, in some small measure, to the people who put them there.
Congresswoman, I think you’re flying a little too close to the sun—and in doing so, you may be leaving some of the people who believed in you behind.
I am one of them.
Editor’s Note: Following the writing of this commentary, Texas State Rep. Venton Jones issued a statement on September 15 addressing his participation in the recognition and apologizing for his involvement. This commentary reflects the information available to the author at the time it was written.
