Roger Goodell and the NFL absolutely dropped the ball on the Ray Rice domestic violence situation.
Rice knocked his then girlfriend/now wife (what was she thinking? Does she have no one speaking into her life?) unconscious in a hotel elevator. He is now suspended for two games of the 2014 season.
Yes, that’s not a typo. He knocked his girlfriend unconscious in a rage and is suspended for two games.
By comparison, Terrell Pryor pulled some shenanigans to avoid an NCAA suspension and get in the NFL through the supplemental draft and got a five game suspension before he was ever in the NFL.
A guy named Robert Mathis got four games for taking some fertility drugs to help his wife conceive. Yes, four games for trying to start a family with your wife. Two games for knocking out your soon-to-be wife.
Using marijuana will you get you a whole year in the NFL, even in states where it’s legal to smoke marijuana.
So assuming the rational position that the punishment should fit the crime, and that we reward or punish based on relative significance, the NFL has declared that beating a woman unconscious is not as significant as trying to have a baby with a women you are married to. It’s not as significant as taking money and favors in college when you have no accountability or responsibility to the NFL. And it’s way less significant than smoking pot.
Why should anyone think that the NFL takes violence against women seriously?
That’s not a rhetorical question. Go ahead. Someone tell me why anyone should think the NFL takes domestic violence seriously.
I’ll be waiting.
Until then, Roger Goodell should be without a job.
The league owners should demand either a higher suspension of Rice (at least a year, perhaps two, maybe even three), or a resignation from Goodell for embarrassing them and their league in this manner.
Until one or the other happens, no one should think the NFL cares about domestic violence.
1 comment:
I'm really not surprised. The Redsox and Penn State also ignored, ignored, ignored heinous sexual crimes against children until lawsuits threatened them financially. Why would the NFL be any different? So many professional sports players have done awful crimes against women and have been given the benefit of the doubt--any sexual abuse victim in the country knows that they will be put through the ringer and have to prove that they're not lying.
It's even in our churches. The statistics on false reports and lying about abuse is 6% of all abuse reported, yet even when more than one victim comes forward, they have to bear the burden of proving that a church leader hurt them...and even worse, women have to deal with the whole "well, were you asking for it?" and hateful judgements, including from other women that maybe it wouldn't have happened if their shirt had been longer, her hair styled differently, if God hadn't cursed her with a large chest... Where are the church elders that are concerned that the accused leader has even put himself in the position where he could be accused. Why are women considered such second citizens that their word isn't take seriously? Why aren't pastors teaching men to take responsibility for their own thoughts and actions? Why does it all boil down to blaming the women? As a very curvy Christian woman, I have dealt with learning to love the body God gave me. After a lifetime of being blamed for the bad thoughts and actions of me, I'm not taking it anymore. Where are the gentlemen? Why do men like Chris Brown still get record contracts and have fans--why does he still get girlfriends?
Sadly there are too many women who believe that it's normal for the men in their lives to abuse them. They don't know to expect better.
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