Plenty of failure to go around
Alan Stewart, Staff Writer
Three-time Pro Bowl and 2012 Super Bowl champion running back Ray Rice failed earlier this year when he hit his future wife not once, but twice, the second of which caused his fianc’e to hit her head on a handrail, knocking her out.
The Baltimore Ravens failed when they backed Rice and said he was still ‘their guy.’
Following the release of video of the incident by the website TMZ, the Ravens, earlier this week, terminated Rice’s contract.
The National Football League and its commissioner, Roger Goodell, failed by initially giving Rice only a two-day suspension, which was increased to an indefinite suspension only after the latest video surfaced.
Even yesterday (Tuesday), Rice’s victim failed. She’s furious, not at the person who left her lying on the floor of an Atlantic City elevator then dragged her limp body out. No, she’s upset at you, me and the media for the outcry.
‘I woke up this morning feeling like I had a horrible nightmare, feeling like I’m mourning the death of my closest friend,’ Janay Rice said on the social media site Instagram. ‘No one knows the pain that the media and unwanted options (sic) from the public has caused my family. To make us relive a moment in our lives that we regret every day is a horrible day.’
Furthermore, during a May 23 press conference where Ray Rice spoke about the incident, Janay Rice apologized for her ‘role’ in that night.
Seriously?
Short of protecting his life, Ray Rice shouldn’t have ever laid a finger on Janay. Ever. Period. End of story. And Janay Rice, short of assaulting her husband, shouldn’t apologize for anything.
Statistics show that two in five women in Indiana have experienced some type of domestic violence in their lifetime. In Indiana, from July 1, 2012, to June 30, 2013, there were 58 domestic-violence homicides, including one in Harrison County. In the years prior, there were 63, 62 (one in Harrison County), 63 and 55.
Let that soak in for a moment: more than 300 people are dead in the past five years because of domestic violence.
Nationally, more than half of domestic-violence victims say they were first stalked before age 25, and 27 percent of female victims experienced significant short- or long-term impacts, such as post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms and injury.
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. How great ‘ and appropriate ‘ would it be for the NFL to move past this current embarrassment and embrace a movement to wear purple in the same way the NFL honors breast-cancer awareness by wearing pink gloves, socks, shoes and the like? Granted, it won’t fix everything, but it’s a start. And don’t just do it for this year. Stand up against domestic violence perpetually.
During the May 23 press conference, Ray Rice said, ‘Failure is not getting knocked down. It’s not getting up.’
On Feb. 15, an unconscious Janay Rice couldn’t get up. And that’s where Ray Rice failed. It shouldn’t have taken a video for everyone to believe it, nor react to it. For that, most of us have failed.
If you are in an abusive relationship, you can get out. If you are in immediate danger, call 911. If you want to talk to someone at any time, a 24-hour hotline is available at 1-800-332-7385.
