… going to help victims feel empowered in coming forward; especially if they wish to stay in the relationship or marriage while the family goes through rehabilitation?
I have 15-plus years in the judicial arena, I’ve seen all manner of domestic violence cases. I certainly do not want to coddle or excuse Rice’s criminal behavior. Indeed, he should be arrested and processed as any other person accused of assault and battery.
But the reaction to his wife, Janay, is alarming — ranging from the out-of-hand dismissal of any of her own testimony to outright hostility and character assassination directed at her.
Is this going to help or hurt other victimized husbands or wives come forward?
After our ClownUnderwearGnome blahblahblahs forth his bold vision for confronting ISIS tonight, ISIS beheads another innocent in response, people then generally criticize our ClownUnderwearGnome for his pathetic weakness which leads directly to so many beheadings of innocents, won’t we see Janay bawling great tears and sobbing out “Leave my beloved leader alone!”
If by “come forward”, you mean having videotape evidence of yourself being knocked clean out so as to have your skinny arse dragged out of an elevator, then going ahead and marrying the cad anyway, reconciled to a life of perhaps bruised happiness tempered by big NFL bucks? Take a couple uppercuts “for the team”? Tell me this is outlier. No?
Well. At least that’s one ‘hoe’ who won’t act up next time!
Sometimes you have to tune them up a bit, right guys?
Guys?
Hello?
serr8d
is Janay really a ho? Is any wife or husband who sticks with their spouse now to be considered as guilty as the perp if they don’t leave?
I’m being serious here. Being a victim of DV isn’t limited to women. Does seeing how Janay is being vilified in public help convince any victim to seek help least they be subject to such action?
I don’t have a simple answer because each case is so different. But attacking Janay is not good.
Of course it isn’t, Darleen. I forgot my exit tag… \facetious
My point is that Janay didn’t shoot or burn Ray Rice in bed after because he’s not the average rudedude on the street. Having NFL bucks likely tempered her response, and that of her family (if she has a Daddy or Brother, why didn’t they rip Ray’s head clean off?).
She married the bastard afterwards. She forgave him for nearly dislocating her jaw, not because she loved him, but because how else she gonna get a Mercedes ?
serr8d
My experience is that there a lot of long-term dysfunctional relationships that decide to hang in there and try to make it functional even without anything like money or fame in the mix.
Janay, perhaps wittingly, perhaps unwittingly, seems to plead that the private sphere not be merged with the public sphere, for it is within the private sphere that her own powers most take effect.
Too late, Janay. That tide has long ago receded.
Is this going to help or hurt other victimized husbands or wives come forward?
Scarcely matters… the people have opinions y’see, randomly formed without recourse to – or any interest in – the well-being or desires of the folks involved, and the opinions must be voiced on any and all social media, because democracy ‘n’ shit.
At least until everyone gets bored and starts yammering about some new idiocy.
And some folks talk about misanthropy like it’s a bad thing. Pah!
For all we know, she gives as good as she gets.
Greetings:
I have two thoughts, one specific and one general, that I would like to offer.
First, the specific. The bit of the Rice video that I saw showed what well might have been Mr. Rice’s now Mrs. taking a swipe at his head or face before they entered the elevator. Mr. Rice was obscured by some kind of cement pillar so I don’t view this as a conclusive opinion. Then, when the couple is in the elevator, it seems to me that it’s the now Mrs. who closes on the Mr. and I have been educated by my other favorite elderly female ex-judge, Judge Judy, that is, that that can sometimes be an indicator of aggression. And it appears that my father agreed with Judge Judy because when he was teaching me how to defend myself and mine he spent a fair amount of time expounding on what he referred to as “The Critical Distance” inside of which one might be damaged. Something to think about to my mind.
Now, to the general. Recently there have been a number of incidents that have reminded me of Mr. George Orwell’s “two-minutes of hate” in his novel “1984”. It seems that a great deal of media effort is going/has gone into generating some serious hating for Russia’s President Putin, the Ferguson, Missouri Police Department, and Mr. Rice. Knowing the connivance-ability of our Progressive elites I can’t help but wonder if America’s population isn’t being conditioned in some kind of Pavlovian way to expend emotional and intellectual energy where, and only where, those elites find it useful. To expand a bit, I see no media interest in just what the EU’s Foreign Ministress, Catherine Ashton was up to in her Euro-Maidan days of glory and yet we are to convict Putin (the imPaler) of geopolitical geo-cide. Similarly with the Ferguson PD. First it was the specific officer, then when that didn’t pan out so well the goal line should show up on the far side of the whole PD. In Mr. Rice’s case, the media delivers the brutish man cold-cocks woman yet the “science” on domestic violence indicates similar amounts of female on male violence and mutual combat which seem to have been found un-inkworthy (or byteworthy for you techie types).
“Because something is happening here but you don’t know what it is do you, Mr. Jones?”
My understanding is that she was screaming at him and slapped him in the face –twice– before he cold cocked her.
Personally, this all feels to me like the NCAA’s overrreaction to Jerry Sandusky and Penn State. What I mean by that is I suspect that the NCAA knew all along what Jerry Sandusky was, and when he was finally caught, they (over)reacted with outrageous outrage and righteous righteousness. Not because they actually gave a shit about the sexual abuse of minors, mind, but because Sandusky, by getting caught, mucked up the higher business of monetizing sport.
Same thing with Rice. We’re supposed to give a shit. But the fact is we don’t. Because this is Professional(TM) football, and professional football players are one step above gladiators.
We’re mad because we know, or at least suspect that a not insignificant number of these guys are thugs, but as long as their private lives don’t mess with our fantasy football leagues, we don’t care.
Ray Rice just reminded us we’re supposed to care. And we hate that. So we make an example out of Ray Rice so that the rest of the thugs keep their thuggery on the downlow, lest their thuggery force us to confront the reality of the industry we prefer to think of as sport.
Des Bryant beat the crap out of his own mother a couple of years ago. Didn’t LeBron James have some kind of dustup with his wife or girlfriend or something? And then that one guy who shot his girlfriend and then himself? And then there’s Ray Lewis and Aaron Hernandez and Josh Brent….
The thing about most of these guys — they are barbaric thugs. They aren’t classy, hardworking, respectable role models like Lou Gherig or Roger Staubach. They’re not even hard-living divas like Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle.
How is it that we don’t expect better?
I think the initial slap on the wrist is because no one honestly expects these guys to act any differently. Drugs mess with your performance (or, in the case of Brent, end up killing someone), so they’ll jump on that quick. But assault or rape or general bad behavior? I think coaches and managers see the players as feral dogs. And what else do you expect from a feral dog?