Apparently he said something about how women shouldn’t provoke men in a fight. I remember watching this and I really didn’t see anything he said that was really out of line. I could be wrong. I’m curious on what others may think of what he said.
I wasn’t really paying attention when I saw the clip either so maybe it is worse than how I feel.
In a nutshell I think the public overreacted to someone who was making a point, but people took it out of context and threw it to the extreme and painted him as the bad guy.
1 week suspension due to controversy is fine with me
Nothing
It’s Stephen A Smith - the ESPN equivalent of Howard Stern. He’s a shock-jock on TV.
He occasionally has an actual cogent observation to make, but I would guess it’s usually something he read from somewhere else or it got fed to him by an intern/analyst.
Just so we know where I’m coming from, I think Stephen A. Smith is a joke; second only to Skip Bayliss, as the idiot in the village of ESPN. The two of them together have a TV show for one thing, to create controversy and manufacture conflicting opinions that often have little to no basis in reality. They’re annoying talking heads who are paid to say stupid things. So nothing he says should come as a surprise.
Here’s his apology:
“On Friday, speaking right here on ‘First Take’ on the subject of domestic violence, I made what can only amount to the most egregious error of my career,” Smith said in a taped segment that opened the program on Monday morning. “While elaborating on thoughts concerning the NFL’s ruling versus Ray Rice following a domestic dispute with his then-fiancee, I ventured beyond the scope of our discussion by alluding to a woman’s role in such heinous matters, going so far as to use the word “provoke” in my diatribe. My words came across that it is somehow a woman’s fault. This was not my intent. It is not what I’m trying to say. Yet the failure to clearly articulate something different lies squarely on my shoulders. To say what I actually said was foolish is an understatement. To say I was wrong is obvious. To apologize to say I’m sorry, doesn’t do the matter it’s proper justice, to be quite honest. But I do sincerely apologize.”
They were discussing Ray Rice’s 2 game suspension for (allegedly, I guess, though there’s video) knocking out his wife in an elevator, and Steven A. started with the “I’d never hit a woman, but you know, she best not be asking for it either!” argument and continued digging from there. It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever heard anyone say about domestic abuse, but it was incredibly insensitive and the kind of thing that we really need to get past to have any substantial discussion on the topic. Which you’re not going to get on First Take with Smith and Bayless, but still. Assuming you’ve made the shock-jock pact with the devil in the first place, a week’s suspension is probably about right.
The bigger injustice is that it distracted from what we should all be doing, which is piling on the NFL for how light they came down on Rice.
Yeah, it’s hilarious that Steven A.'s suspension is much bigger than Rices. What he said was dumb as hell and did deserve a suspension though.
It’s not, though. Rice’s suspension is effectively 2 weeks, or at minimum 8 days.
How long do you think the suspension should have been?
Brick- My opinion is 5-8 games.
Yeah, but that “apology” was probably written by a PR flack at ESPN, because Smith actually doubled down on his accusations on a looooong Twitter response:
“what about addressing women on how they can help prevent the obvious wrong being done upon them?”
I think one week is too short. He should have been fired. And this isn’t his first foray into “blame the victim”. When Chad Johnson beat up his wife, Smith said “There are plenty of instances where provocation comes into consideration, instigation comes into consideration, and I will be on the record right here on national television and say that I am sick and tired of men constantly being vilified and accused of things and we stop there. I’m saying, “Can we go a step further?” Since we want to dig all deeper into Chad Johnson, can we dig in deep to her?”.
In other words , he had a vacation scheduled.
Still he’s a shock jock. His job is to say outrageous things and keep his name out there.
Assuming the facts and guilt as widely reported? 4 games minimum, I’d probably prefer 6 or 8. Domestic abuse, and really this kind of dumbass assault in general, is serious stuff. Note that I lived in Baltimore for four years and if the Ravens are playing anyone but the Pats, I’m probably rooting for them.
Oh. Not a poster at the SDMB. Carry on, then.
Confining yourself only to the actual words said there, not your interpretation or extrapolation of them, what part of that amounts to “blaming the victim?” I’m seeing a suggestion that sometimes there may be mitigating circumstances.
What mitigating circumstances could there be that would explain physical assault?
Smith brings up provocation and instigation. Is there provocation or instigation that would make a knock-out punch a reasonable reaction? And how is saying “Lots of times, victims do something that makes being assaulted more likely, and I’m sick and tired of men being blamed for their actions in response to that when we should be looking into what the woman did to create the situation” - not victim blaming?
I’m sure you are aware that when people talk about victim-blaming they aren’t really talking about claims that it was 100% the fault of the victim, but the phenomenon where we deflect blame away from the person doing the fucked-up thing by suggesting that the other person bore some unspecified burden of responsibility while very specifically not saying that you aren’t blaming the person doing the fucked-up thing. And I’m sure you’re aware that the concern isn’t so much that one particular person who may have acted unreasonably needs to get off scot free for any degree of responsibility because she was assaulted, but that the net result of that phenomenon is that we end up not taking the actual assaults as seriously, because we’re in the habit of partially mitigating them.
So, I mean, isn’t “Yeah, yeah, he was wrong, but what about…” like exactly what victim-blaming looks like these days, because you can’t get away with saying, on national television, “he should have smacked that bitch” and expect to continue to receive fat stacks of cash for saying stupid shit on national television? You can’t not blame the actual person committing the crime, but you can focus instead on blaming other people, too.
So. Chad Johnson grabs his wife and head butts her during an argument over a box of condoms he bought. Screamin’ A suggests that provocation or instigation came into play, and we (the sports media) shouldn’t stop at vilifying Chad Johnson, but we should dig in deep into the victim. That’s not spreading the blame to the victim?
This is unfair to Howard Stern, who is an intelligent guy and a perceptive interviewer. I’m not a big fan, but he’s at least capable of being interesting. Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless are not, which is why ESPN puts them on one show and has them shout at each other as much as possible. Their only talents are shouting inanities. And you have to figure that at least half the time, they’re each playing devil’s advocate so they have something to argue about. Stern can probably be sincere when he wants to.
Here’s a link to a transcript of the comments that got Smith in trouble. (I see at least one mistake, he says/they wrote employ when he means implore.) It’s not the first time he’s said stuff like this. Here he is defending himself on Twitter after the show and before his ‘sincere apology.’
Smith’s actual statement is almost word salad because it’s so full of asides and pre-apologies. He knows he’s about to say something people don’t like, so he’s trying to defuse that in advance. I don’t think he succeeds because the ultimate point is still ‘domestic violence is wrong, but women need to be careful not to provoke it.’ Why bother saying this at all? Is anyone tuning into Stephen A. Smith for relationship advice? We don’t know why Ray Rice attacked his fiancee other than the fact that he’s a dick. Admitting we don’t know that background of their situation… really, so what? Maybe they had a horrible argument and maybe he went crazy. Since we don’t know, why speculate in a way that passes the buck to the victim? Rice did the damage and was charged with the crime. Smith went way beyond the facts in an attempt to be “insightful” or provocative or something, and he got burned. Dumb guy says something dumb, cue outrage. Surprise!
Again, stick to the actual words he said. He did not say “explain,” he said those things “come into consideration.” Prosecutors and judges very typically look into things like provocation when when to prosecute, what to prosecute for, and what the sentence should be. It’s one of the things that can separates first and second degree murder.
No.
The quote I responded to was:
.
Are you asserting that no victim of anything anywhere is ever responsible for anything that contributed to their victimization and/or which would mitigate the degree of punishment you feel is due to the perpetrator?
If your answer is yes, then I think our perceptions of human behavior are so dramatically at variance as to make pursuing discussion unfruitful.
If you answer is no, then how would someone possibly express a desire that that contribution and/or mitigation be taken into consideration without being guilty of “victim-blaming” as you define it above? Please be as specific as possible. Clearly, prefacing those comments with repeated declarations that such considerations do not excuse or lessen the guilt of the perpetrator isn’t enough. What would be?