Roger Goodell also faced the media today, and effectively said the punishment was "consistent with other cases", which leads to the spectacularly obvious question of "Did you consider that, perhaps, the other cases were also wrong?"
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2014/08/01/roger-goodell-ray-rice-suspension-baltimore-ravens/13468921/ There is one thing that always jumped out to me as the worst part of the whole thing. Peter King reported the day the punishment was announced that one of the things that made a key difference in the leniency of the punishment was a meeting that took place in June. That meeting involved the following people: * The Commissioner of the NFL, whose office the meeting was held at (Ray's employer's employer) * The Executive Vice President and General Counsel of the NFL (Again, Ray's employer's employer) * The Senior Vice President of Law and Labor of the NFL (Still, Ray's employer's employer) * The President of the Ravens (You should be detecting a trend here) * The General Manager of the Ravens (The phrase is "stacking the room") * Ray Rice (the accused) * Janay Palmer I can't find the right word in the English language to describe how fucked up that is. To put someone who was reportedly abused in a room with not just the accused, but five other people who are the employers of the accused, and expect anything resembling honest answers from the victim is delusional and goes against every fiber of how to handle an investigation, much less how to treat a domestic violence victim. When that piece of information came to light, simply put, it destroyed any value in the league's "investigation". I found it very, very interested who *wasn't* in that room: anyone from NFL Security. I don't know how well the board knows about professional sports team's security departments. They're basically FBI-level people, with an acute knowledge of how the criminal and legal worlds work. I've met a couple of them in past lives, and they are not to be trifled with (aside: every pro sports team in the US/Canada begs their players to always, always, call the head of team security if they're ever in a situation that's possibly weird, and the players very rarely do so) To not have that department involved says volumes about how the NFL thinks, behaves, and should be shamed. On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 11:56 AM, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > Rice gave a 17 minute press conference this morning, to which the > immediate reaction on ESPN was overwhelmingly positive (so far I have seen > two former players almost crying, and a female columnist, both seemed > impressed). > > I was much less so. Rice spent most of the time talking about how the real > victim the night he punched his then girlfriend (now wife) and dragged her > out of an Atlantic City hotel elevator was himself. While he refused to > talk about whatever damage he imposed on her, he talked at great length > about the pain he will now have to suffer living with this, and how much > the thought that his now 2 year old daughter will one day find out about it > on Google (Hint: Ray, you might want to tell her about it before she > googles it). > > He said repeatedly that his wife "can do not wrong" - a phrase which in my > experience is a red flag, since it often marks an overreaction learned "in > counseling" to an initial tendency to blame the victim for the violence. > > An even larger red flag was his reference several times to the Biblical > model of the husband being the head of the family. This is code in > fundamentalist Christianity to a doctrine known as "male headship", which > teaches that women must submit and be subordinate to the absolute authority > of their husband. Many observers believe that this doctrine actually > increases the probability of domestic violence, as men who subscribe to it > tend to believe that it is their right and responsibility to punish both > children and wives (there is little difference in their view between the > two) for any perceived disobedience or imperfection. OTOH, many > fundamentalists are aware of this problem, and have begun trying to counter > it with the message, heard in Rice's comments this morning, that his > responsibility "as a Man" (which means, as the head of and leader of the > family) is to exercise his power and leadership without violence. This of > course is better, but in my observation can lead to troubling kinds of > emotional and psychological manipulation and control. > > I did not hear anyone ask him if he agreed with the apparent stand of the > NFL, that smoking marijuana was a more serious offense than punching a > girlfriend. He did say that he was never going to appeal the punishment, > even if it has been 4 or 6 games. > > Lurking behind this case is the likelihood that the reason Rice was not > convicted of any crime, and not given a more serious penalty from the NFL, > was that his girlfriend/wife took responsibility for the violence, refused > to press charges or testify against him, and told both the court and the > NFL that she has been intoxicated and maybe even initiated the violence by > hitting him. At least twice Rice condemned "domestic violence" in general, > and then specified "especially man on woman violence", which I take as a > remnant of an earlier argument that he made that most of the violence that > night was "woman on man", and that he was just defending himself. > > It may be true that she was behaving badly and started the violence (this > happens fairly often) and it is also true that often it is not true, but > women say it because they have internalized the abuser's propaganda that > the violence was her own fault for being less than perfect. In either case, > Rice's apparent fixation on this is troubling, as it is a less obvious but > still serious attempt to shift responsibility for the violence away from > himself (his repeated and ostentatious explicit taking of responsibility > can be read as more of a principled responsibility, in which he as head of > the family is responsible for all bad actions. His wife can "do no wrong" > because as a subordinate woman in the relationship she is not a responsible > actor). All of this can make repeated violence more likely. > > Ray Rice has a baby face, and comes across as a nice, likable guy - which > he probably is. Popular culture has made "domestic violence" into such a > stigmatized crime that it is difficult to imagine nice, regular men as > perpetrators of it, which is a problem. All kinds of men hit women - some > do it only once, others do it several times a week for years. I was raised > with a strict boys-do-no-hit-girls imperative, which is probably not a bad > rule; a more accurate rule would be that stronger and bigger people should > not his smaller and weaker people. Assuming this really was the first time > Rice hit a woman, he may not be a horrible person; he may really have made > a really bad "mistake", and there may be a good chance that he will never > do it again. > > However nothing I saw this morning reassured me about him, and if the > "counseling" he referred to was some kind of religiously based service > rooted in the fundamentalist assumption that men are the rightful heads of > their families to whom wives owe obedience and submission, then I am much, > much more worried about him. > > > http://espn.go.com/blog/baltimore-ravens/post/_/id/11317/baltimore-ravens-preseason-live > > -- > -- > TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "TV or Not TV" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "TVorNotTV" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. 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