James Michael Sama just watched Ray Rice cold-cock Janay Palmer, and he’s had enough of wrist-slapping, victim-blaming, and justifying when it comes to abuse. Have you?
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Editor’s Note: This afternoon the Baltimore Ravens tweeted that Ray Rice’s contract had been terminated. They finally had enough, too.
The #Ravens have terminated RB Ray Rice’s contract this afternoon.
— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) September 8, 2014
Ray Rice is a running back for the NFL team the Baltimore Ravens. He is now married to one Janay Palmer. On February 15th, one month before they got married, Ray Rice took a swing at Janay in an elevator at the Revel Hotel and Casino on Atlantic City, knocking her out cold.
TMZ recently released a video of the incident (not for the faint of heart).
After she fell against the rail on the side of the elevator and then to the ground, Ray Rice dragged her out as the door opened, took her shoes off, and attempted to prop her upright—which of course failed.
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After she fell against the rail on the side of the elevator and then to the ground, Ray Rice dragged her out as the door opened, took her shoes off, and attempted to prop her upright—which of course failed.
Ray Rice’s punishment? A two game suspension. Not sure how severe that is? A player for the Browns, Josh Gordon, was suspended for one year … for smoking weed. This should put the NFL’s priorities into perspective.
In May, Sports-Kings.com reported: “The Ravens running back was charged with third-degree aggravated assault for the incident, but was accepted into a one-year intervention program for first-time offenders that will scrub the charge from his record and allow him to avoid a trial.”
What’s worse is that during a press conference in May, Ray Rice’s wife actually apologized for “her role in the incident,” saying she “regretted it.”
Why is this woman being shamed into publicly admitting some sort of a mistake?
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What is she regretting exactly? Getting worked up during an argument and being knocked out by a single punch from a professional athlete? Why is this woman being shamed into publicly admitting some sort of a mistake? Similar victim blaming took place when Christy Mack was hospitalized by her ex-MMA fighter ex-boyfriend, but at least he is now facing over 20 criminal charges.
As for Ray Rice and Janay? They are now married, and there are no further disciplinary actions being taken towards Ray. Why is this?
While the NFL has pledged to become stricter on its domestic violence policies, it doesn’t change the message being sent by the way they handled this incident. Knock out a woman if you want, but don’t you dare smoke any weed. See you in two games.
Some people on Facebook are even defending Ray Rice, one comment made in a discussion I was part of stated:
I agree with you domestic violence is a bad thing. I think Ray is completely sorry for what happened. He’s a, great guy. He just made a Big mistake. Lets not condemn a person for the rest of his life.
A great guy? Since when does a “great guy” throw haymakers at the woman he is supposed to be in love with? Or any woman at all?
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A great guy? Since when does a “great guy” throw haymakers at the woman he is supposed to be in love with? Or any woman at all? Or for that matter, any man, either? This is not an incident that just happens out of nowhere. Caring, loving people in healthy relationships do not suddenly get into boxing matches with their significant other. This is an example of complete denial in terms of a serious problem that cannot simply be dismissed by defending the perpetrator as a “great guy.” The very idea of people following this thought process makes me cringe.
It gets worse.
Back in July, before this video was released, plenty of people came to Ray Rice’s defense on Twitter, bringing about even more victim blaming. Here are just two examples:
Uh, penalty for what?!
Even women seemed okay with his punishment, as long as it doesn’t hurt “us” this season (you know, because these people play for the Ravens).
The light punishment clearly sent the message to the public that domestic violence deserves a slap on the wrist and no further legal action. Not to mention – why is this just about football? Where is the outrage about what happened here? Why is nobody mentioning Janay’s name?
This man still has fans?!
Don’t take away our favorite athletes from us, we don’t care what they do in their private life.
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By prioritizing games that people get paid millions of dollars to play and putting serious issues like abuse and violence under the rug, society is blatantly stating its priorities. Don’t take away our favorite athletes from us, we don’t care what they do in their private life.
We should all be outraged. Outraged at Ray Rice. Outraged at the NFL. Outraged at our peers who minimize such serious issues. And maybe even outraged at ourselves for not being more vocal about this.
The worst part is, this happens every day to women all over the world. Every day. Often times it is never heard about or spoken about, but it is devastating to millions, and we let it continue. We let it continue because of a lack of compassion. A lack of understanding. A lack of willingness to stare a problem in the face in order to solve it, and it needs to stop.
There should be no discussion needed about how serious domestic abuse is, but apparently that’s not the case. We need to stop accepting it from our “role models.”
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There should be no discussion needed about how serious domestic abuse is, but apparently that’s not the case. We need to stop accepting it from our “role models.” We need to stop accepting it from people who get paid millions of dollars a year. We need to stop accepting it from our next door neighbor who we know mistreats their spouse. We need to stop accepting it in first, second, and third world countries. And perhaps most of all, we need to stop accepting it from our partners.
Mainstream cases of domestic abuse against women like Janay Palmer, Christy Mack, and Rihanna—are not just about these women. They are about your sister, mother, cousin, and friend. They are about every woman, because acceptance of violence towards one is acceptance of violence towards all.
I, for one, have had enough.
Follow James on Twitter @JamesMSama.
Originally published at JamesMSama.com.
Photo—Keith Allison/Flickr
I don’t see why this article makes a big deal out of one punch. It’s not like he wanted to hurt her- if he did, he would have continued assaulting her afterwards. But he stopped. He just got worked up and angry and couldn’t control his anger. It’s an anger management problem, and if that sort of thing is not likely to be a one time thing, he needs treatment for it. But not jail time, and not having his career terminated. I wish the authors of this article, and so many other people, would stop this retribution nonsense and… Read more »
Uh, penalty for what?!… He’s referring to the believe that his current wife struck him during this assault. I remember when a friend of mine was being verbally and physically abused by his girlfriend at a restaurant. Another friend told him that he needed to just walk away. He refused because he felt he wasn’t doing anything wrong. Our mutual friend told him to call him if he needed any help or needed a place to go to. So at some point later that night the abused friend called our other friend for help. At that point he was in… Read more »
There’s no concern for the woman because she’s obviously there for the money. No self respecting woman would apologize for her part in it. No decent woman would have been with him to begin with. No woman worth our my concern would have stated with him. No Elma. Worth the air she breathes would have married him. And since I find it unimaginable this was a first offense, she does have some fault in it, doesn’t she?
How is Gilz defending Rice in his tweet?
Agreed. Gliz didn’t say it was okay to hit women. Glitz didn’t try to say that Rice shouldn’t be punished for his actions.
But for some reason instead of, “Ray needs to learn not to retaliate so violently when hit.” It’s “Ray Rice is a horrible abuser that hates women!!!”
Gilz is acting just the typical North American insensitive ass who is blurring the focus and using it to blame “women” for being, as he accuses, hypocrites who don’t want equal treatment but to only have their way or something. That is not something we need more of in this world, more men seeing brutal violence against women as an opportunity to call out women on the wrong things they perceive “women” do, if they are right or not. You guys scare me. You, Danny, seems always so forgiving about many things against women. I don’t believe you are ignorant… Read more »
You, Danny, seems always so forgiving about many things against women. I don’t believe you are ignorant about this things, I believe you deliberately choose not to care that much and remain impartial. Am I? So the fact that I’m glad that he was suspended indefinitely, glad that stores are getting rid of his gear, and glad that he is actually being removed from a damn video game (yes EA Sports is actually going to put out an update that will remove Ray Rice from the Madden 15 video game) means that I forgive what he did? The only thing… Read more »
Rice and Michael Vick are two sides of the same sick coin: they enjoy inflicting pain whether on women or animals. I put them both in the same class as pedophiles.
We need to go way beyond becoming totally intolerant of violence toward others. We need to STOP, once and for all, actively teaching boys and the men they will become, to be aggressive and violent in order to satisfy that societal “need”. We teach aggression, we teach violence. We force it upon boys who can’t possibly do anything but accept it and then when it turns out that such actions become second nature and can’t instantly be turned on and off and be controlled we are “shocked.” We train police officers, we train soldiers. We tell them that not only… Read more »
Or maybe he is just a psychopath. He likes to inflict pain on people, and people much smaller and weaker than him, who could never stand a chance at defending themselves… a coward and emotionally ill person at best. He could have killed her. I can see that as attempted murder, actually.
And you are 100% right about violence and the masculine culture there. From the pov of a foreign, that is just saddening.
This is another example of how we put young guys with no sense or decency on a pedestal just because they are great athletes. These guys should have been filtered out in college. Behavior like this does not just materialize overnight.
I bet if you looked closely at his past relationships, you would see a trend.
As a society, we need to become totally intolerant of violence toward others, as well as the early signs of guys who use women as objects in many different ways. We need to become the type of society that, instead of covering up rapes and abuse (i.e. Steubenville) we immediately crack down on these behaviors. That does two things – tells abusers/rapists that they won’t have their behavior tolerated, and it removes some of these people from power positions (and maybe from free society in general). On top of that, we teach young people that abusing others is simply NOT… Read more »