The NFL suspended Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice for the first two games of the 2014 NFL season on Thursday for violating the league’s personal conduct policy. The news comes after Rice got into an altercation with then-fiancée Janay Palmer at an Atlantic City hotel in February. Rice allegedly struck Palmer unconscious while in a casino elevator, as video later surfaced of the 27-year-old running back dragging Palmer on the ground.
(NESN, July 24, 2014)
You probably know about the viral outrage this suspension incited. What you probably don’t know, however, is that men getting slapped on the wrist for punching women in the face actually reflects the prevailing culture – not just of the NFL but of all professional sports.
For years I’ve been decrying the perverse values that guide the NFL’s code of conduct. Nothing demonstrates this perversity quite like juxtaposing the two-week suspension Commissioner Roger Goodell gave Rice last Thursday for abusing his fiancée with the three-month suspension he gave Miami Dolphins offensive guard Richie Incognito last year for bullying his teammate.
Not to mention that the penalty Goodell gave Rice for abusing his fiancée is the same penalty he gave Michael Vick for abusing his dog.
Let me hasten to disabuse you of any doubt about Vick’s football career. Because the only question is: which team will offer him the most lucrative contract once he pays his debt to society…?
Therefore, ignore all of the his-career-is-over chatter by sports analysts. And do the same with the politically correct talk by the NFL commissioner about expelling Vick for violating the league’s ‘morals clause’. After all, if the NFL has no moral qualms about employing men (like Larry Johnson of the Kansas City Chiefs) who routinely abuse women, then it should have no qualms at all about employing a ‘reformed’ man (like Vick) who routinely abused dogs.
(“Dogfighting Fiend Vick Cops a Plea,” The iPINIONS Journal, August 21, 2007)
Interestingly enough, it wasn’t the lenient punishment Rice got as much as the comments others made about it that fueled this viral outrage. And no comment proved more outrageous than ESPN commentator Steven A. Smith advising women to learn the “elements of provocation” to prevent their men from beating the crap out of them.
It speaks volumes, however, that CBS Sports fired commentator Jimmy “the Greek” Snyder 25 years ago for making the arguably unassailable observation that Blacks have bodies that make them better Football players; whereas ESPN shows no inclination to fire Smith for making this utterly unconscionable comment.
After all, back then, the 70-year-old Snyder could reasonably plead ignorance about the politically incorrect nature of his observation. By contrast, given all of the public education since then about violence against women and the wrongfulness of blaming victims of abuse, the 46-year-old Smith can provide no reasonable explanation for his ignorance.
That said, conspicuously absent amidst the virtual pillorying Smith is getting – most notably from his ESPN colleague Michelle Beadle – is any criticism of the decision Rice’s fiancée made to marry him less than six weeks after he beat her senseless.
Clearly the message Smith sends, by insinuating that women provoke the physical abuse they get, is wrong. But the message she sends, by cleaving onto her abuser, is no less so.
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Dogfighting fiend…