With so much progress made toward sex and sexual equity — both legal and cultural — because the dawn of the #MeToo movement in overdue 2017, I was disappointed last week to see promoter Live Nation touting convicted domestic-violence felon Chris Brown because the headliner for KS 107.5’s annual Summer Jam concert.

Isn ’t even the right word. Enraged? Smacking my forehead just like a loose shutter in a hurricane? Sad for all of the women I know or have you ever met? People could be better.

The Aug. 25 concert at the Pepsi Center is still another date on Brown’s Indigoat Tour, which was rolled out nationally a week to promote his new record. The parties involved had to coordinate prior to revealing the late-summer occasion, and the majority of them seemingly decided the bad publicity would be worth the benefit. They include Denver radio channel KS 107.5, which will be owned by Entercom Communications, the Denver division of nationwide promoter Live Nation, the Pepsi Center (possessed by Kroenke Sports & Entertainment) and Brown’s record label, RCA.

As of press time, none of them have responded to my requests for comment on the propriety of reserving Brown, or the thinking that went in to it.

It’s not that theyrsquo;re solely accountable for his career. The fans who have forgiven himthe individuals who stayed quiet during his misdeeds and the businesses that were only too pleased to collect the revenue of his work all continue to play a part in supporting him.

However, my immediate consideration last week was that Brown has to be thrilled to find a significant venue, promoter and radio channel throwing their collective burden his way with the best spot at what will be Colorado’s biggest R&B and hip-hop series of the year.

Does Brown keep getting away with this?  Other powerful men who have been recently convicted and/or repeatedly accused of sex and sexual assault, such as R. Kelly, Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby, have seen their own reputations professionally destroyed and their legal fees skyrocketed. What ’so distinct about Brown? Can it be his bad-boy character — cartoonish and vile though it now seems — and that it predated the #MeToo age?  The above guys saw their crimes aired publicly over the past couple decades, while Brown has been coasting (albeit bumpily) on closeness and apologies for over a decade.

Time doesn’t even heal all woundsbut it will blunt memories of their gore. Brown is currently persona non grata with anyone even slightly progressive about girls ’s faith, given his background of incidents — proven and alleged — and his 2009 guilty plea at the brutal assault of singer and then-girlfriend Rihanna. And he remains in power from the culture. With platinum earnings, Grammys and a legion of ride-or-die fans (see his 30-million-plus Twitter followers) that the 30-year-old’s career isn’t even evaporating. He attracts attention and money wherever he moves, if it’s a nightclub, a performance stage or a soundstage.

But he also reminds us how much we have to move as a society in allowing open, unabashed abusers to continue entertaining us taking our money, even after we know just what type of people they are.

And it’s all about money.  Nearly 40 other venues across the U.S. have determined it’s OK to reserve Brown for his most recent tour — rather than because everybody who works for them endorses his violent, misogynistic behavior. This is an enormous and complex procedure, and after the wheels get turning any one person dangers becoming crushed trying to stop them.

If Brown had earnestly apologized to Rihanna (instead of only studying a prepared statement), possessed up entirely into his misdeeds, or changed his troubling behavior — as a few actors have attempted (believe Lance Armstrong or even Mel Gibson) — he might have found a real path to public forgiveness.  He’s also dealt with dependence and gone into rehab, which will be understandably gut-wrenching for anyone. However he’s also been provided help, repeatedly, and lasted devoting himself with new, equally terrible behavior whilst enjoying access to resources and support that the vast majority of us will never have.

As recently as 2017, version and former girlfriend Karrueche Tran successfully obtained a restraining order against Brown later she threatened to kill her. In January of the year, Brown was arrested after a 24-year-old woman accused him and two others of aggravated rape at a Paris hotel room, a case that’s still continuing. Brown was released with no charges following the incident and is depriving the woman for defamation (though he failed to show up for a formal meeting with lawyers in France a month, in accordance with The Associated Press).

Brown’s no record has observed him banned from the majority of the planet ’s big English-speaking markets — such as the U.K., Australia and New Zealand — and because abusing Rihanna at 2009, he’s been farther accused of fraud, hit, added cases of felony battery and maybe even a police standoff.

I’m not here in order to litigate Brown’s public character or offer hard evidence for or against his reputation; it’s pretty apparent at this point what sort of man he is. Instead, I’theres expressing disappointment that leading music-industry and concert-exhibition machines are still supporting his career and putting money into his pocket following his nearly unbroken series of illegal, improper and perverted people controversies.

Since Denver’s Comedy Works realized last year with admitted sexual predator Louis C.K., the action of refusing to book a big-name gift on principle can net more publicity and goodwill than succumbing to the lure of greater revenue from a contentious figure — even one that has been rightly lauded previously due to their creative talents.

It could be true that troubled souls are common in show business. But women, and particularly women of colour, deserve to be taken seriously once they examine violence and sexual assault from them. Believing of Brown as “distressed ” also in need of assistance doesn’t do justice to the people he’s hurt and exploited, often indefinitely, while he continues to tour the world and collaborate with top-tier musicians.

Brown’s lasted career — and even worse, his own vaunted spot on KS 107.5’s biggest concert of the year, with the help of Live Nation, the Pepsi Center and RCA — would be a stain on Denver’s summer calendar.

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