I think some of what you’re calling “blame the victim” is rooted in distrust of a paradigm that (insultingly) paints Ms. Rice as only a victim, and Mr. Rice as *only *a violent thug.
At least as often as not, domestic violence is an embedded part of a relationship dynamic to which both parties contribute. I watch that video and I see two people with anger/aggressiveness issues, not just one. It’s unclear, but ISTM she initiates the violence, which he then escalates. It’s definitely clear that after he hits her first time, she gets up and moves toward him, which is when he delivers the blow that knocked her out. IANAP, but my understanding is that that is a pretty common dynamic in violent relationships. Escalation leads to escalation, and both people find themselves doing things they really don’t want to be doing, but they feel powerless to stop it.
Judging by the statements she has made, it sounds like they are working on their relationship and understanding the roots of the anger, and that’s great. In the meantime, though the reductionistic woman=victim, man=brute narrative that dominates the media smells like bullshit to a lot of people.
I don’t share the outrage over the woman’s acknowledgement that she participated in the exchange. By all indications she did, although she obviously got the worse of the exchange. But she did hit him and (from what I’ve read) spit on him. That counts as having a part in it, in my book.
In general, IMO a lot of people have a difficult time viewing the world as any more complex than simple black-and-white, villians and heroes, victims and criminals. And this leads to the insistance on viewing all victims of spousal/partner abuse as helpless victims of evil brutes (and also adds to the puzzlement over the fact that many choose to stay with the abusers, and the need to attribute it to supposed victim complexes and other dubious motivations).
Things are not so simple, IRL.
ETA: pretty much what furt just snuck in.
Re the hotel security, it’s possible they thought she was passed out from being drunk.
This is a good question. Ben was punished pretty hard for something that was just alleged. No charges, no video, no witnesses, no fine. But Goodell and the NFL came down hard on him. Why? What did they have? How could Goodell be so heavy-handed on Roethlisberger, but be so lenient on Rice?
I wondered about this when the 2 games were announced. I just assumed (wrongly, I know now) that whatever happened in that elevator wasn’t THAT bad. I have also assumed that the NFL had some evidence on Roethlisberger that made his suspension fair. But was it? Maybe it was too light. But given what we know and what happened on the legal front, it does appear that Ben’s punishment was out of line with Goodell’s idea of justice.
But if Ben actually DID what was alleged, and he was convicted in court (or there was a video tape showing what happened), he would have and should have had the same thing happen to him that Rice just did, and rightfully so.
Back to this topic…, the NFL really looks bad… I don’t know if Goodell survives this.
The NFL is arrogant, so my guess is the owners won’t punt him, and I would bet my life that Goodell won’t resign. But i think this is going to be a rough ride for him, and he may not survive it.
Do you think all of this would apply if you knocked her out cold in a hotel elevator, if the video of the incident found its way onto the internet, and if your name and your employer’s name were part of the story?
I understand that the publicity surrounding this incident was so great precisely because it was an NFL star, but videos showing bad behavior by non-famous people make it online all the time, and they often have similar consequences. The CEO of a company that provides concession services to stadiums and other venues was recently fired for abusing a dog in an elevator. A woman was fired from her job because she dressed for Halloween as a Boston marathon victim.
Until it beomes news and embarrasses the employer. If Rice had just kept his fists to himself in public, and waited until he got home to pummel his wife, he’d probably still be playing football right now.
You are absolutely correct. Getting fired from your job, however, is not a criminal punishment.
Of course it is. It may not be a great one, and it certainly isn’t an airtight “get out of jail free” card, but it’s the obvious first question you ask. It’s absurd to see no difference between someone who gets hit hitting back, and someone coldcocking complete strangers on the street.
Sad as it is, that is totally untrue. Some football fans would still call her a golddigger and they would still hate her for damaging the career of someone they like.
Whether or not “things are not so simple”, it’s reasonable to pass a moral judgment that Rice behaved in an indefensible way based on what we’ve seen. Further, she didn’t spit on him, from my viewing – he spit on her, possibly twice.
There are thousands of battered women who beg the cops not to arrest their husbands, who refuse to testify at the trial, who see both themselves and their husbands as victims when he gets arrested or convicted, and who make post hoc rationalizations about how they are made for each other.
I feel very sorry for those women, just like i feel sorry for Janay Rice. I don’t doubt that she is accurately describing her feelings on the matter in that post. But the fact that she is willing to defend him is, in my opinion, not really relevant when judging his actions, and not really relevant to whether or not he should be playing football.
Despite the fact that i’ve attempted to rebut RickJay’s argument above, i can see where he’s coming from regarding the separation between criminal activity and employment. I’ve always believed, for example, the people who have committed crimes in the past deserve a second chance when they’ve done their time. And if the NFL, the owners, and the players weren’t constantly holding themselves up as role models, i might be able to buy the notion that a wife-beater should still be allowed to work and collect a paycheck. But they do set themselves up as role models; they are a big, self-promoting PR machine that constantly talks up their own value to the community. Hell, Rice himself was getting positive publicity not too long ago for his efforts in an anti-bullying campaign! At the time it was plastered all over the Ravens website, and was also noted on NFL.com.
I have never, ever looked to celebrities in order to calibrate my moral compass. I think that the world of sports and entertainment probably contains about as many bullies and assholes and jerkoffs as society in general, possibly exacerbated by the sense of entitlement that sometimes comes with wealth and fame. But when the world of sports and entertainment sell themselves to us as role models, it seems to me that refusing to employ those who physically abuse their domestic partners is about the least they can do.
By the way, the Ravens website now has a banner at the top:
Also, remember a number of years ago, the lady on the NY Metro North commuter train who verbally berated one of the railroad employees. She worked for a Wall Street firm. That video went viral and they fired her.
I specifically remember this one because I thought the punishment was rather harsh.
I concur. I understand that there’s a better, higher definition, video that the hotel showed to the AP that hasn’t been released to the public yet (with audio). MAYBE that shows she spit on him. However for the video that’s out there now, I’m not sure how ANYONE could say Janay had an equal part in the violence. They entered the elevator and she stood innocently by the door when he walked up and either spit at her, or said something. She waved him off and he clocked her the first time. She then approached him as he backed up, and he knocked her out. She was yelling when she approached him, nobody can say she was going to hit him.
Yesterday, when the NFL said that it hadn’t seen the elevator video before, my first thought was, “BULLSHIT!”
But if this story is accurate, that might actually be true, but for an even more cynical reason.
The NFL were not provided with the elevator video by the police, but the story alleges that the NFL never even requested a copy of the video from the casino itself. As TMZ notes, it seems possible that Goodell didn’t actually WANT to see the video, in case it showed something indefensible.
My comments were about the reaction to her acknowledgement that she had a part in the incident.
I don’t know. I saw a very blurry version of it blocked by some popups and couldn’t figure out much of what was going on. I’m going by what I heard on the radio driving in to work this morning (CBS 880 in NYC).
The casino recently went out of business, so it’s possible they simply couldn’t find anyone to ask. The CBA may also limit what they can request from a player’s criminal defense attorney, too.
This seems very unlikely to me. If Goodell thought there was a video out there that could potentially change the story, he would be a complete fool to just refuse to look at it and assume it would just disappear.
My best guess would be that he didn’t think it would make a difference anyway. As someone noted earlier, the video didn’t really show anything fundamentally different than what was already known prior to its release, and the only impact seems to be that people are reacting to actually seeing something they only knew about previously. It’s possible that Goodell didn’t appreciate this distinction.
Feel sorry for them all you want. Donate to a battered women’s home. Great for you.
But the implication that it’s impossible for a woman to do wrong and that this is some black-and-white issue with her wearing the white hat and him wearing the black is naive.
I keep thinking back to the Elin/Tiger situation and the Jay-Z/Solange elevator fight. I don’t remember a lick of outrage there. The hypocrisy just oozes.
Ray Rice is guilty here, there’s no doubt. He deserves to be punished, but more importantly both him and her need to be reformed.
The more troubling fact is that this is a private issue that the public is weighing in on. They have no idea what the relationship dynamics are. These people need therapy, separate or apart, not jail and they certainly don’t need judgment from the peanut gallery.
No, it isn’t. You can argue self defense, but self defense is “I used force in the face of reasonable fear of imminent harm.” That’s not the same thing as “she started it.”