Forgiveness Or Stupidity? Rihanna And Chris Brown Collaborate Despite The Punches

Guess what? Chris Brown and Rihanna are back together. That's right. All that domestic violence business has been clean forgotten about as the pair feature on each other's records. That's nice isn't it? Aren't you thrilled?

Two songs featuring the singers appeared online yesterday, with Breezy appearing on the remix of Rihanna's song 'Birthday Cake,' while Ri guests on the remix of his 'Turn Up the Music.'

And while the pair retweeted each other's tracks and all seemed very pally indeed, everyone else either blindly accepts it and moves on, or asks the question: Is either of them actually going to speak about this publicly to condemn Brown's beating and explain that it isn't okay to knock seven bells out of your partner, that lessons have been learned and 'here are the reasons we're putting it all in the past'?

As we all know, Brown pleaded guilty to a felony charge for thrashing Rihanna and is currently serving five years of probation.

Now, we're in a situation where Brown has been absolved of his actions by the industry and his oddly devoted fans (hi there Team Breezy!), bagging a Grammy Award and now working with the woman he beat-down.

Rihanna, of course, is on record as saying that she no longer resented Brown and that she enjoys his music. Brown meanwhile has steadfastly refused to show any remorse for what happened, which is the reason why everyone is getting so angry about his continued presence.

Brown has previously wafted away criticisms, putting the beating down as a simple 'mishap', as well as claiming that he's the victim in all of this.

Then of course, he tweeted a big F.U. to everyone, seemingly still confused as to why anyone would feel ill toward him and showing a maturity of a toddler/pitbull terrier hybrid… oh… and then there was the report that alleged that Brown is using domestic violence as a chat-up line.

And here we are. Faced with Rihanna and Brown working together again, clearly both cynical enough to use the furore surrounding them to shift more units. With any luck, this union-without-explanation will damage their careers beyond repair.

However, you get the sinking feeling no-one actually cares enough about going some way to healing this wrong. Ostensibly, Chris Brown beat Rihanna up and neither of them seem to want to go on record and use their platform to speak out about domestic violence.

Rihanna is obviously the person who decides whether to forgive Chris Brown or not, but wouldn't it be nice if she used all this as some vague course for good? What's particularly ugly is that the pair of them could use this as a damning indictment on domestic violence while talking of the rehabilitation that has gone on, but instead, we're left with one of the most gruesome, manipulative PR campaigns to sell stodgy RnB in popular culture's history.