Readers who follow me regularly know that I am an avid Redskins fan, and by extension, a huge fan of football more generally. However, I find myself questioning my fandom of the NFL with yet another violent scandal that raises the complicity of the league in turning a blind eye to criminal behavior of its players until it becomes a PR nightmare.
For those of you who have somehow managed to miss this recent headline, here is a brief summary: renowned Ravens running back Ray Rice was implicated back in February for violence against his then-fiance (they are married now) in an elevator at the Revel casino in Atlantic City. At the time, the public had only had access to grainy video footage of the altercation outside of the elevator doors that shows a clearly passed out Janay Palmer being dragged callously by Rice. In the aftermath of the altercation becoming public, Rice admitted to having assaulted his wife inside the elevator (effectively rendering her unconscious), and was indicted on an aggravated assault charge. The commissioner of the NFL, Roger Goodell, suspended Rice for two games as disciplinary action for this violation of the league’s conduct policy.
To put Rice’s initial slap of the wrist in perspective, a player that is consuming marijuana, and thus violates the substance abuse policy of the NFL, will face much more significant penalties and fines and could potentially miss a third of the regular season, if not longer. Or, more recently, strong safety Brandon Meriweather of the Washington Redskins was penalized for an illegal hit (leading with the helmet) during a preseason game against the Ravens, and was suspended for two games during the regular season. Yup, that’s right, folks, the NFL is so concerned with violence against women instigated by their players that the penalty is akin to tackling an opponent too aggressively on the field.
Not only was the initial handling of the violent altercation poorly bungled by both the league and the Ravens, public comments by both the commissioner and the Ravens put the blame squarely on both parties in the elevator. In fact, when Goodell questioned Palmer about the incident, it was in the presence of Ray Rice. In what other scenario after a victim has been brutalized are they questioned about what they endured in the presence of the perpetrator? The narrative that the league and team put forth, and that by and large the media and general public swallowed whole, was that this was just a mistaken “moment” instigated by Rice, and that quite probably, Palmer had in some way contributed to the altercation. The classic psychological phenomenon of blame the victim was at play—as is often the case with domestic violence the female victim was perceived as having in some way contributed to her victimization.
For instance, the Ravens tweeted that, “Janay Rice says she deeply regrets the role that she played the night of the incident” in the aftermath of the altercation (Jenkins, 2014, para 5). What role, exactly, did Palmer play in the incident, other than being the target of Rice’s aim? Of course, the implicit message here being, she had it coming.
But wait a minute—all the sudden the NFL turned course yesterday, as did the Ravens, and saw the error in theirs and Rice’s way because of additional grainy footage that couldn’t justify complicity any longer. Just yesterday, TMZ leaked the footage from what happened before Palmer was unconscious, where inside the elevator Rice punches Palmer so violently that her head hits the railing of the elevator and she swiftly hits the ground. The carefully scripted narrative that the commissioner and the Ravens and the rest of the sports media had constructed started to unravel, and suddenly outrage poured from every side—the public, the Raven's head coach, the sports media, social media, even NFL players were tweeting their disgust at what was exposed.
So this is what it takes, ladies, for domestic violence to be taken seriously by this league—just make sure that there is a tape leaked to the public that will foment enough outrage, and now the perpetrator will be characterized as the villain. But what about the league itself? Rice had never denied or tried to misrepresent what happened in the elevator, so is he now suspended indefinitely by the league and released by the Ravens because of his actions that night, or in reaction to public outrage so that the NFL can attempt to restore some sense of order and credibility to their brand?
Firstly, I find it suspect that the NFL did not have access to this footage prior to the initial sentencing of Rice, particularly given that various credible journalists within sports, and employees at Revel, have reported that the league was given access to the tapes. As Sally Jenkins (2014), a prominent sports writer for the Washington Post bemoans:
“The NFL claims in a statement that no one in the league office had previously seen the tape. That is almost surely not the truth, unless the NFL wanted it that way. This is a league that works with Homeland Security, confers with the Drug Enforcement Agency, collaborates with law enforcement and has its own highly equipped and secretive private security arm. You’re telling me it couldn’t get a hold of a grainy tape from an Atlantic City casino elevator? But TMZ could?” (para 3)
This then leads to two possibilities: 1) that the league had access to the videotape all along, but wasn’t concerned about what was exposed in the footage until it became public or 2) the league willfully turned a blind eye and preferred not to dig too deep into what transpired between one of the most prominent players in the league and his partner. Either way, the message being sent is that this league doesn’t care about how their players treat women, unless that treatment is video recorded and leaked to the general public.
The complicity behind this act of violence runs through every phase of the investigation—from the prosecutor who decided to allow Rice a pre-trial diversion to the reaction of the decision makers of the NFL and Baltimore Ravens, to the sports media that ignored this story for too long until the video footage was released.
The reality is that domestic violence is pervasive in American society, and most women who are its victims do not have the luxury of a tape that documents the extent of the brutality that is being waged against them. Moreover, the uproar that ensued in the aftermath of the leaked tape clearly demonstrates that it wasn’t until the visual evidence of Rice’s act was exposed that this incident was actually taken seriously.
Rice is the perpetrator in this case, however turning him into a monster now without also holding the larger institution of the NFL and its key policymakers and coaches involved with the Ravens also accountable is short sighted. A culture of entitlement pervades male dominated professional sports, in the case of football in particular, the reverence and elevation of status that players achieve even starting in high school sets the stage for a mentality that the player is entitled to whatever he wants off the field—with women oftentimes being just another commodity. This sentiment is even more pervasive in college when athletes are not being paid, so their rewards include lavish attention and possession of other spoils on campus, namely, women to be used and then discarded when they are no longer useful or serving a purpose.
Such a mentality then continues into the NFL, particularly when these large sports institutions do little to deter or counter such misogynistic attitudes. Witness, for instance, that, “while the general conviction rate for domestic-violence cases is 77 percent, it is only 36 among athletes” (Calkins, 2014, p. 2). Other research suggests that athletes may have higher incidence of domestic violence than the general population, so it isn’t that these violent incidents aren’t occurring in the male-dominated sports world, it is that the perpetrators aren’t being held accountable, which then further enables such acts of brutality to persist. This brings up perhaps the most disturbing question of all, namely, what happens in all those domestic violence cases when there isn’t video footage?
Calkins, M. (2014, September 8). We only condemn domestic violence when we see it. U-T, San Diego, Sports. Retrieved on September 9 from: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/sep/08/domestic-violence-ray-...
Jenkins, S. (2014, September 8). Roger Goodell’s willful blindness and need to maintain plausible deniability. The Washington Post: Sports. Retrieved on September 9, 2014 from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/roger-goodells-hand...
Copyright Azadeh Aalai 2014