I saw the video and I still disagree with the punishment.
We can talk about the fact that she (without any comparable force) backhanded him twice, which in his unfortunate and dysfunctional cultural upbringing is an unforgivable provocation, but that just sounds like excuse making. No, I think the real problem is how the team and the league handled this situation. Let’s start with the facts:
Fact #1: The media and the league–heck all of us–knew that Ray Rice hit his fiancee. What seems to have changed this whole punishment is TMZ’s visual evidence of the attack. In other words, the new punishment is a direct result of America’s highly visual culture. Until we saw the video we could pretend it wasn’t real. Those in power could be satisfied with a 2-game ban and move on. Pictures change things. However, pictures don’t change the facts on the ground. We knew he hit her from the get go and he only got a 2-game ban.
Fact #2: As a result of the initial ban the NFL toughened its policy on domestic violence. You earn a 6-game ban for the first offense and a lifetime ban for any subsequent offense. Why then was Ray Rice cut and subsequently suspended indefinitely for a first offense? So the NFL creates a strict policy and then tosses it out the window in regards to a past case? I think Ray Rice has grounds for a major lawsuit here–both against the team and the league itself. The team case is harder to try because he did suck last year–which is why I think this is getting so much traction. If we have video of Tom Brady punching Giselle in the grill or Megatron doing the same, they aren’t getting cut.
Some Thoughts:
- It is not lost on me that the Penn State ban was dropped the same day. So basically they received a 2-yr ban for being found complicit in covering up the sexual assault of minors. I wonder what would’ve happened to Penn State if we had video of the sexual assaults?