What changed on the day the Ray Rice video went public?

Great Debates
1

I don’t think this is a Game Room question, more about public perception, the nature of evidence, and logic. But Mods, feel free to move if this landed in the wrong place.

Let me get this out of the way first: IMO Ray Rice committed a disgusting, reprehensible act, something inexcusably brutal and definitely criminal. Also, the NFL fouled it up royally with their woefully deficient 2-game penalty, even if we made the most generous possible assumptions about what actually occurred inside that elevator.

But what actually changed on the day the video came out that turned this into the storm it has become? What new thing did we learn? I can’t follow the reactions logically, and maybe that’s because it isn’t logical–it’s a visceral, uncontrollable reaction to something so disgracefully bad. Or maybe I’m missing something.

Here’s the debate (assuming I’m not excluding some middle): There are two possible reactions to the video.

A: It produced essentially “new” information (not just “new” in the sense that we hadn’t seen it, so obviously it was new). This information confirmed what was only speculation before, or perhaps it revealed something that hadn’t even been considered by some. But in any event, it was shocking, new information. My question: If this is true, why did this not place the NFL’s prior handling of the act in a more favorable light? (Relatively speaking, that is.) It was new information (theoretically, at least on that day) for them, too.

B: It confirmed what we already really knew; there was really no “new” information. If this was the case, why did the rage boil over on that day? Why wasn’t there just as much anger the day before the video was released? What changed?

Now, I realize that the other wrinkle is the notion the NFL may have seen the video, despite their denials. But that didn’t seem to fuel the rage that first day. And I’d argue, if they did, as a practical matter, it doesn’t change their handling of it (it does make them Nixonian, though–when will people learn, the cover-up kills you?). The commissioner is on record as saying he got the first ruling wrong.

What am I missing? Again, I am NOT excusing Rice or the NFL. I’m trying to make sense of the reaction. Goodell fouled up the first ruling–he had already admitted he got it wrong. If that was an error in judgment that required his to resign, a reasonable opinion, that error existed the day before the video was revealed. I don’t recall a huge uproar that included a demand for his resignation–until the video came out.

What changed when we saw the video?

2

I do not follow either football nor wife beaters, but my first guess is that the great unwashed have gotten bored with Ferguson and needed another focus for their Two Minute Hate.

3

Well, IMO the “hate” being expressed (I’d probably call it outrage) is righteous. My confusion is that it seems a non sequitur in its timing. Again, maybe I’m looking for logic in an issue that is fueled mainly by basic human emotion.

4

I think before, people knew that Rice had smacked his wife around and figured he deserved punishment, but when the video came out, you could actually see him doing it and how horrible it looked. So, even though Rice’s actions hadn’t changed, the action of him hitting his wife became more horrible in people’s eyes, because they could actually see it.

5

You find it confusing that the world is filled to overflowing with issues that deserve “our” outrage, and that what people actually get outraged by is to a large extent media driven?

6

Fiancee beater says Wikipedia. She later upgraded to wife-status. If she wants to stay with a fiancee/wife-beater then that’s her problem, hardly a national interest. Presumable she weighted the cons and pros and came to a conclusion. Besides American Football sucks and everybody involved and watching are goofs.

7

I may have been to free with a literary reference.

The “Two Minute Hate” is from 1984, being a method used by Big Brother to channel the discontent of the proles into acceptable and controllable channels. If the populace is kept outraged about one (relatively trivial) person or event, they will not have any emotional energy left to be angry over issues which actually affect them.

8

The NFL is filled with cement heads. They think slow and act slower and almost always do the wrong thing first.

That’s why they always get 4 tries to getting something right.

9

Right, because before the video appeared, people could assume she just got lightheaded and passed out, or had a spell cast on her by demons, and Rice dragged her out of the elevator to get help and thus deserved praise, not censure.

10

Have you ever heard of the term “make up call?” That’s when a ref misses something on the field that should have been a penalty and/or it’s too late to call it. Then the next time there is anything even remotely against the rules he blows the whistle and calls a foul/penalty. This is a make-up call. The NFL got blasted for going easy on Rice initially, the new video just gave them an opportunity to do the right thing.

11

Two things, in my mind:

  1. Before the video, it would be possible for people looking to excuse his behavior to think that maybe it wasn’t that brutal. I could imagine a situation where they were arguing, she slapped him, he defended himself or swatted back, but she slipped and banged her head on something (such as the railing that she did bang her head on). Once the video came out, it was clear that she hadn’t done much and he really wailed (whaled?) on her.

  2. People have a more visceral response to seeing that violence, rather than thinking about it in the abstract. That is, hearing about him punching his fiancee doesn’t have the same emotional impact as seeing him punch her.

12

I think Naita has summed it up well.

The frenzy just starts to feed itself. It’s actually kind of fascinating to watch.

But sometimes we just have to be slapped in the face to make the changes we should have made all along. That’s wording it badly, I know.

13

Apparently the better the quality of the video, the more severe the punishment.

:shrugs:

It doesn’t make sense, but the thinking of the mob never does.

Regards,
Shodan

14

Goodell got an opportunity to say there was newly discovered evidence, so he could go back and increase the penalty from the original two game suspension (that he was rightly panned for.)

I don’t understand why the video has influenced public opinion significantly. We’ve gotten a lot of bad reporting that suggests nobody really knew what happened until now, so people who weren’t following the story are now added to the outrage pile.

Everyone who had paid attention already knew Rice knocked out his wife in an elevator.

15

The whole point of showing the video in 24 hour media feeding frenzy mode was to influence public opinion. Public opinion on these topics is mainly what the TV tells the public their opinion should be. Anyway, that’s what the TV told me to think.

16

Lost in all this are the most culpable parties: the New Jersey prosecutors who let Ray Rice off in the first place.

It’s not the NFL’s job to punish criminal behavior- it’s the legal system’s job to do that. The idiots in the Atlantic County D.A.'s office let Ray Rice off the hook!

Roger Goodell didn’t give Ray Rice much of a punishment, but that two game suspension was a harsher punishment than the prosecutors gave him.

Roger Goodell MAY have seen the video. But the police and the prosecutors DEFINITELY saw it, and still turned Rice loose, requiring only that he seek sensitivity training. It’s absurd that the NFL is taking heat that should be turned on the prosecutors.

17

Remember, too, that we just saw Beyoncé’s sister smacking away at Jay-Z in an elevator, so there’s immediate precedent for thinking that maybe something other than the obvious was going on.

And then your second point kicks in – seeing him actually pound her to the ground is impossible to discount.

I wonder about that too. I’ve heard it said that without her cooperation, prosecution would have been really difficult, which tracks conventional wisdom. In light of the video, however, I have to wonder whether this case might have been much easier than the norm.

Substitute “evidence” for “video” and it becomes clearer, I think.

18

Agreed with RitterSport that before there could have been some confusion as to whether the fiance was hitting Rice and he retaliated too hard - after all, she came out afterwards and apologized for her part, which after the video looks like… walking up to Rice…

Well he was indicted for aggravated assault by the Grand Jury, but being a first time offender, they dropped to court sponsored counseling. It’s not rare that stuff like that happens, IIRC.

19

Well, once the video proved he’d hit her in an elevator, it was no longer possible to pretend she’d fallen down the stairs.

20

I think it’s a little naive to say that everyone already knew what happened.

The fact is that there are lots of people who do not assume, when they hear that a man hit a woman – even if they hear that he “knocked her out” – that the man did what you can see Ray Rice doing on that video. There’s a cultural bias toward assuming, for lack of a better phrase, that it wasn’t that bad. I’m not referring to hardcore MRAs or anything, because they wouldn’t be the ones changing their opinions. But there are lots of people whose general sense is that domestic violence accusations are often exaggerated, such that when they hear that Ray Rice knocked his girlfriend out cold in an elevator, they probably don’t really imagine him just hauling off and punching the shit out of her, end of story. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that this is a cultural bias that exists more among NFL fans than among, say, Girls watchers.

But those people are also reasonable observers of the world around them. When they see Ray Rice actually hauling off and punching the shit out of her, they are outraged right along with the people who did imagine that was what happened.