MEN HITTING WOMEN IS WRONG – I didn’t like anyone’s reaction to the Ray Rice video

And that saddens me almost as much as the actual abuse does.

It sounds selfish and childish to say that former Baltimore Ravens’ running back Ray Rice nearly ruined the opening weekend of the NFL.

I love watching NFL football. Probably as much as Ray Rice will miss actually playing NFL football.

Around the time that last season ended, Ray Rice and his then girlfriend Janay went to the Revel Casino in Atlantic City where seemingly they got drunk and argued, but that’s neither here nor there – truly that is neither here nor there in the following sentence.  As everyone knows, Ray knocked Janay unconscious in the confines of an elevator and then proceeded to drag her lifeless body into the casino’s lobby like she a duffel bag of unwanted laundry. 

It was disgusting and despicable. The world had video of the duffel bag of unwanted laundry moment, but not the actual battery moment. Apparently, that was not enough for some. 

The Ravens kept Rice during the 7 months between the moment of finding out about this terrible act and yesterday. 

The NFL suspended Rice for 2 games, which is half what Denver Broncos’ wide receiver Wes Welker got for testing positive for amphetamines for the first time in a decade of playing in the NFL. Some say Welker used the drug “molly” at the Kentucky Derby during the off-season, which sounds sort of far fetched unless he was tested right around the Derby and then the drug sample was not tested for months after that. Others say that Welker used Adderall, which has come slightly en vogue as a few players have come up for the speed-like substance over the past few years.

Back to the point, possibly taking Adderall was 2x worse than a security video of someone dragging their unconscious girlfriend out of an elevator and showing no remorse for the fact that she was seemingly conscious seconds earlier getting into that elevator with that aforementioned someone. 

So, 2 games. 

Then came the public apology. An apology from Ray Rice where he showed great “maturity”. That was a word thrown around by almost everyone who was analyst or a coach or player or teammate or whomever who covered the terrible abuse and sided with Rice. 

Maturity is an odd word to use and I think OVERused because it comes up a lot. 

When someone is caught violating a moral law and/or a governmental law and they apologize, that is obvious – not mature. 

When someone has been caught and is in the act of being punished to whatever degree and they say “sorry” – that’s just a natural reaction. It’s not true “maturity”. Unless, the only other option in people’s mind is for Rice to deny that it happened. And that would be immaturity. And to me, that immaturity would be delusion. And delusion is how everyone else who sided with Rice was acting. 

These people are deluded… but they won’t admit it. 

Seeing the initial video and still believing in anything, but the obvious that Ray had struck Janay to the point that she was rendered unconscious is just delusion. It’s a lie. Lying to oneself. Lying to oneself that there had to be a reasonable answer as to why Ray did what he did. And in that, those people should be ashamed that they allowed themselves to search for a reasonable answer to that because in doing so they allowed Ray to get away with physically abusing Janay that time and any other time he has or will in the future. 

But I’m kind of skipping my original point, I generally hated every reaction I heard on Monday on ESPN or for the NFL. 

Banning Rice was easy. Not difficult, but easy. TMZ and the elevator made it very easy for the NFL to make the right decision. The more “difficult” decision would have been to have done it after the first video 7 months ago. The second video erases the victim-blaming “reasonable” doubt they had lied to themselves about. People who still defend Ray have left the world of “reasonable”. 

The reactions I heard were a lot about “poor decision making”. True. It was poor decision making. That also is a very vague and loose and entirely all too flexible of an idea for a situation where a man knocks a woman unconscious. 

One who simply agrees with the decision making being “poor” may believe that Rice’s true problem was doing this in public. Hitting Janay within a heavily monitored casino. That’s the umbrella that labeling “poor decision making” allows.

It wasn’t simply poor decision making… it was heinous.

It was deplorable. It was disgusting. It was jarring. 

It was wrong.

It was wrong in an elevator. It would have been wrong in the car like Chris Brown. It would have been wrong at home like countless others. It is a wrong act in general.

Men hitting women is wrong. 

While, some may say (and have) or believe that “men hitting women is wrong” did not need to be said because everyone knows that already – wrong. That is also wrong. 

About the only thing that should be said and said over and over and over and over again is MEN HITTING WOMEN IS WRONG. 

Every sentence that came out of every football player, coach, analyst, executive et cetera’s mouth should have started with MEN HITTING WOMEN IS WRONG. 

Before they tried to say anything else about the suspension or the ban or how fucking wrong it is for men to hit women… the first thing all of these people should have said was MEN HITTING WOMEN IS WRONG.

And there are three reasons why…

1. BECAUSE MEN HITTING WOMEN IS WRONG – it fucking is. This is not a fantasy world. Janay is not a zombie comeback from the dead to eat brains or a demon shape-shifting poltergeist posing as Janay or an alien creature with a plan for world domination, which starts with assuming the identity of Janay Rice. Ray is a man and Janay is a woman and he should never hit her. That’s it. 

2. Because 99% of the people talking about this man hitting this woman were MEN – Former players, current players, former coaches, current coaches, team owners, NFL executives, the NFL commissioner Mr. dipshit Roger Goodell are all men. I don’t think I heard a single woman give her opinion on the matter. I only remember 2 women even being on screen with sideline reporter Michelle TaFoya and some chick in the studio who I don’t remember her name, but almost everyone who covered the awful story yesterday were cock and balls having dudes like Adam Schefter and Chris Mortenson and Ray Lewis and Steve Young and dimwit Cris Berman. And none of them made it angrily and perfectly clear that it was WRONG for MEN TO HIT WOMEN. All the bullshit about the suspension and all the bullshit about how this affects the team and all the bullshit about the NFL ta… fuck all of you for not just flatout saying MEN HITTING WOMEN IS WRONG. 

Men need to say that hitting women is wrong. Men. Honestly, I don’t care what women think about the issue. I’m joking, but it’s a man’s issue apparently. Because men are not telling other men it’s not right. Men are apparently saying shit like “poor decision making” instead of being like “Hey, what the fuck are you doing? Men hitting women is wrong! You fucking idiot!” 

And men that know it is wrong need to say it more than ever because it is clear that all men do not know it is wrong to hit women.

3. Because the women who are being hit by these men need to know that it is categorically wrong. Just as much as these men don’t seem to know how wrong it is for them to be hitting women, these women do not seem to know how wrong it is that they’re getting hit. 

Today, Janay Rice instagramed a message to the “media” about how they ruined her life. 

It’s a sad message both in how she intended it and by how deluded she is about her own self-worth. 

Janay is right. She’s right that the life she envisioned for herself is probably over. 

Janay is right that the “media” is to blame for getting her now husband fired. She is right that without the media’s intervention of sorts and non-stop playing of the incident of her being hit until she lost consciousness by her then NFL star running back boyfriend in an elevator at an Atlantic City casino that Ray Rice would still be running the football for the Baltimore Ravens for millions of dollars a year for at least the next few years. 

Janay is right about that, but there is some stuff she’s wrong about.

Janay is wrong that the life she envisioned for herself ended on Monday. It was “an” life she had envisioned that ended on Monday. There were many other lives she had envisioned for herself over the time she was with Ray that ended each time he hit her. 

Let’s say that the first time Ray ever hit Janay was in that elevator. Let’s say that to give Ray the benefit of the doubt. The benefit of the doubt that he never previously knocked Janay unconscious by hitting her. Whatever life she envisioned for herself prior to being knocked unconscious ended the moment Ray knocked her unconscious. From then on, Janay had a new life in her head – a new life where it was ok if he hit her until the point of unconsciousness because he either apologized or because they lived this glossy rich life on the surface while Ray secretly hit her when he got angry or drunk. 

Janay is wrong to think the media is the wrong doer in this scenario. Because of the hapless media of the world, Ray’s life as a man who hits women was brought to light and now he has to deal with it and instead of get away it. The media also forced the hand of a billion dollar team – Ravens – and a multi-billion dollar enterprise – the NFL – to not employ a known woman beater because they surely would have continued to employ him if the media did not force their hand. 

It’s obvious that Janay doesn’t want to be hit. It’s obvious that Janay wanted to be in love with Ray Rice and for him to continue being a professional football player.

But those options were not the world that Ray Rice offered. 

Ray hit Janay – not the media.

Ray was wrong to hit Janay – not the media. 

Hopefully, someone will get Janay to understand that it was never right for her to get hit. 

I would like to see some maturity from the NFL and, specifically, the Baltimore Ravens and, even more specifically, coach John Harbaugh.

I wish that the Baltimore Ravens and John Harbaugh and everyone else would admit that they didn’t want to believe that Ray Rice hit Janay and they were willing to delude themselves, to lie to themselves about it until it was empirically shown to them. 

I hope John Harbaugh and the Ravens and the NFL and Goodell admit they were wrong. They were wrong for protecting Ray after the first video was released. 

They thought they knew Ray Rice as a man who did not hit women. When they found out that he most likely did, they did not want to believe it and they lied to themselves and everyone else and they were wrong for doing so. They are sorry for who that hurt directly and indirectly. 

They will do better next time because sadly there will be a next time and when that next time happens their first reaction will be… men hitting women is wrong and they will try to help the woman and not try to protect the man.