The issue is the culture of covering up partner abuse in the NFL:
Smith-Williams says she has talked about this phenomenon with dozens of football wives and girlfriends over the years, all of whom echo her feeling of powerlessness when law-enforcement, NFL, and NFLPA officials all failed to intervene against signs of domestic-abuse. The women, she says, eventually come to believe there’s nothing they can do fix the problem, so they focus on living with it. “I had friends who had black eyes. They said they ran into cupboards. There were women who said their husbands ran them over like they were on a football field,” Smith-Williams recalls. “There are many other families’ experiences that have already been minimized, ignored, or overlooked by the law and by the NFL because of the protection of the NFL brand.”
Among them was the then-wife of another New Orleans Saints player — the one who asked not to be named because her now ex-husband is still associated with the league. She recalls that one night, when several players were at a bar celebrating their first win of the season during the 1990s, her husband became enraged at her request to go home early. He grabbed her arm roughly and dragged her to their SUV while a teammate convinced two police officers who’d been patrolling nearby not to intervene.
The abuse intensified once they got home, where her husband dragged her into their apartment by her hair and then beat her, she says.
He pushed me to the top of the stairs and shoved me over to the bed. When I stood up, he punched me, and the next thing I remember is coming to on the floor. I remember pulling my legs up to the fetal position to protect myself from his kick after kick. I was vomiting and gasping for air and remember screaming, ‘You are going to kill me!’
Her black eyes lasted for four weeks, she says.
Neighbors who saw the altercation begin outside their home had called the police. But when they arrived, instead of arresting her husband, the officers chatted and laughed with him about his successful game, she says. One requested an autograph for his kid. When her husband cleaned the blood from her face and ushered her downstairs to assure the police officers all was well in the home, they overlooked any evidence of abuse, she says, and as far as she knows they never filed a police report.
Read the whole thing. It’s awful. If the NFL and the Players’ Association cared about the wives and girlfriends of players, they’d be working to have advocates for wives and girlfriends’ who are victims of partner violence, to have safe places for those women and their children, and to structure contracts so that penalties for partner abuse don’t destroy the future of the player’s family along with the player’s career, to name three obvious things. I’m sure there are many others. Instead, Roger Fucking Goodell is still head of the NFL and Ray Rice is going to be reinstated.
jl
I agree mistermix’s recommendations at the end.
But that would be the makings an actual league wide policy with some teeth, which they don’t want.
The real huge cost to the league would be players not playing
weasel
At least makes the NHL look good by contrast.
Of course, suspension is at the league’s discretion and not mandatory, so there’s room to improve.
Corner Stone
RFG is doing what he’s paid $44M a year to do. Ray Rice may well be legally reinstated within a month or so. But who will pick him up?
He can’t possibly play for BAL any longer. Are you saying JAX, OAK or now BUF will pick him up?
Trollhattan
Somewhere in the United States an NFL team is without their starting running back, due to injury. Somewhere else in the United States a plane flight away, Ray Rice sits on his livingroom sofa, a nice sofa BTW, unemployed. Will this oppression never end?
jo6pac
Sad but follow the money if in mass advertisers were contacted about this subject something might get done but then may be not.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
This issue is complicated by Roger Goodell, not just because there’s no evidence that he wants to take it seriously but also because he insists on being the sole dispenser and arbiter of punishments for NFL players. The players, quite rightly, trust neither him nor the office of the commissioner to dispense justice at his personal discretion. The NFLPA may well be an impediment to a sane policy but we really don’t know at this point since they aren’t going to agree to anything unless the league allows for independent arbitration of disciplinary issues and there’s no indication that Goodell will agree to that. The hammering out of a deal to allow for HGH testing is at least a start but nothing like something where punishment has the potential to be as arbitrary as domestic violence.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@weasel: Uhm, yeah, the suspension is at the discretion of the NHL. How would you like them to handle it? It seems to me that they are exercising their discretion in exactly the way you want them to.
ranchandsyrup
Even if Goddell wanted to keep Rice suspended (he doesn’t), I don’t think he could under the CBA.
Schlemazel
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
I assumed hs complaint was that it has the ability to be arbitrary. It would be better if it were codified and clearly established.
Its not really a new phenomena, Americans destroying sports goes back to guys like the beatified Knute Rockne and criminals like him.
Chet
As if the article itself wasn’t depressing enough, I had to go ahead and read the comments. Why, oh why do I never learn?
Betty Cracker
Interesting idea, but how would that work?
The linked article advocated a rehab vs punishment focus so that women who are financially dependent on players would be more willing to come forward. But domestic violence is also a crime, so incidents would still be reported in the media and incite public backlash.
Even if team policy required counseling instead of suspensions or firings, it’s difficult to see how a known wife-beater wouldn’t be toxic from a PR standpoint and thus at risk of seeing his career tanked.
And of course, the bastard would deserve it. But that doesn’t address the impact on the families. I’m not sure what the answer is.
Karen in GA
Women are expendable. It has always been thus.
Yeah, I’m cynical as fuck about things like this.
scav
I’m also wondering what’s likely to really change when parents and neighbors are so willing to risk their own children and really ignore the damage to other people’s children just so long as the local HS or relevant college team continues to have winning seasons. Sayerville NJ, Steubenville, OH, to name the unusual cases that actually bubbled into the news.
CONGRATULATIONS!
I really could give a shit less about the NFL’s response to these incidents, because I am a HELL of a lot more concerned about the response of the so-called “cops”.
Jesus. Ask for an autograph and walk away from an attempted murder.
You’re goddamned right Ray Rice is not the issue.
SWMBO
@CONGRATULATIONS!: It’s that old protect and serve deal…for men. Women…not so much. This is just another variation of Protect the Tribe. They all wear a uniform.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Karen in GA:
And sadly, Feminism has been rendered toxic as a movement and a label, thanks to concerted efforts to turn perception of it into something wholly anti-men, thus therefore the REAL super-mega-bigotry and thus rendering anything tangentially related to it as toxic and evil as well.
Chief
So far this 2014 pro football season, I have watched about ten minutes of a game in August. Coulda been pre-season or week one.
No more NFL for this old Chief.
Roger Moore
@Schlemazel:
Cap Anson was destroying sports before Knute Rockne was born.
Roger Moore
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
This. If the police would treat these things as the serious crimes they are, the league wouldn’t really need a policy, because legal punishments would be sufficient.
The Dangerman
@Corner Stone:
I read a rumor that New England and Indianapolis might be interested. After Aaron Hernandez, I can’t imagine the Patriots picking him up, so that leaves the Colts.
Does he get picked up? My crystal balls (always good to have a backup) say no.
Mike J
@Roger Moore:
In the Ray Rice case, his spouse seems to think the legal punishment was sufficient.
But I do agree with your point. The law should be dealing with illegality, not employers.
Uncle Cosmo
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
IIRC someone dug up a statistic that the rate of (reported) DV among NFL players is roughly the same as that for the general population–and 1/4 the rate among LEOs.
Good evening, I’m Officer Fox. Can you show me the henhouse that was broken into?
Just FTR, the overwhelmingly likely reason that the NFL suspended Rice indefinitely within 15 minutes of the Ravens releasing him was to ensure no other franchise had time to act. If any NFL team had even called his agent to explore the possibility of signing him, the league would have had to deal with another publicity nightmare once the shrieking heads got hold of the fact.
Anton Sirius
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
The fuck it has.
Every time some #GamerGate MRA moron shrieks about those awful feminists, it serves as a reminder why feminism was and is necessary.
Tokyokie
Success as an NFL player depends on being able to channel violent aggression. Which the players are supposed to switch off as soon as they leave the field. Golly gee, it doesn’t work.
MomSense
@Karen in GA:
And we are not just expendable, we are treated like stolen cars in a chop shop, reduced to parts that are sexualized and objectified without regard for the whole person.
Karen in GA
@Uncle Cosmo: I remember the doctor’s appointment years ago when I overheard the staff talking about the badly beaten woman the doctor was treating. One staff member asked why nobody called the cops. The other replied that the boyfriend who beat the woman is a cop.
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: I’ve managed to explain feminism to drunken bikers and have them drinking toasts to it. It’s not that difficult. We just need more people refusing to run away from it just because it makes sexist assholes cry.
Karen in GA
@Anton Sirius: It’s been rendered plenty toxic. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard or read an independent woman saying “But I’m not a feminist.” The right wing has redefined the term and turned it into an idiotic caricature.
Doesn’t mean feminism is unnecessary. It’s very necessary. But it’s also been rendered toxic.
@MomSense: Yep.
skerry
@CONGRATULATIONS!: And look at what happened to Ray Rice when he (and his then-fiancee) were arrested for domestic violence. He was accepted into a pre-trial intervention program and will have no record if he goes to the classes, etc.
If he had hit me, an unrelated woman, in that elevator, I don’t think he would have received the same “punishment”. Why is domestic violence treated as less of an offense?
ETA: He received a $125 fine and has to attend anger management classes.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Tokyokie: Actually, the crime statistics suggests that they ARE surprisingly good at turning it off. Football players tend to commit violent crimes at a rate comparable to the population at large. When you consider that the sort of men who play football seriously are probably more likely than the average male to engage in violence in the first place it suggests that football itself actually teaches them ways to control their aggression.
PhoenixRising
Pretty sure that we could insure against this, if we wanted to be creative.
A policy that pays to the wife when she files for a protective order that a court deems to be validly sworn (the threshold for TROs varies wildly by state), or files for divorce, or a police report of family violence is filed.
You’d need to make sure that perverse incentives aren’t baked into the cake, so there has to be some third-party overseeing the trigger…like, hey, maybe a court system of some kind?
Obviously this doesn’t address the disturbing incidence of assaults on strangers, but that’s a whole ‘nother kettle of rotten fish.
pluege
its bigger than that, its preferential treatment for people in the public eye or otherwise wielding power, and not just (all) athletes. From the rich being able to buy their way out of any crime, to pols who don’t lose their jobs after betraying the public trust, to religious figures and on and on. In America, paying a price for wrong-doing is only for “the little people”
FlipYrWhig
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): “Control” their aggression, I dunno. They have jobs that allow them to vent their aggression and get rewarded handsomely for it.
Roger Moore
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
There’s been at least some walkback on the idea that football players have a lower crime rate than expected given their demographics. Those estimates were based on news reports for football players but general crime statistics for the population at large. That means the football players would look especially good if the police or media were going easy on them, which we have good reason to believe is the case.
PhoenixRising
@skerry:
No, he was charged with aggravated assault. In NJ, that’s 3 to 5 years plus a fine; it’s what a friend’s client was charged with after he cut a guy’s arm mostly off in a crack deal that went very badly.
It’s also what her 13 yo was charged with (juveniles can get 18-36 months of detention) after a fight in a school bathroom, after which no one needed medical care.
-Ray Rice got diversion.
-My friend’s client got the 5 years on that count, and frankly I’m relieved (he’s the kind of guy Richard Pryor was referring to in his epic routine, Why we have Jail).
-My friend’s kid, who happens to be blah, got 6 months and additional probation which involves urine drug tests for 3 more years (even though before the fight in the bathroom which she was mainly a witness to she had never touched a drug).
So, um, criminal law isn’t fair, and not going to be, but Ray Rice was treated like any other millionaire whose assault on a family member was overcharged to get leverage…which is most of them.
geg6
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
That’s changing among the young. The young college women I work with every day will proudly say they are feminists. Beyoncé is making feminism a no-brainer for them. She’s been on a big push about feminism and female empowerment for the last couple of years. Her feminism isn’t the Second Wave feminism I came up in, but it’s this generation’s definition and I support it. To me, you support any woman or movement that increases the number of women who identify as feminist. Hell, there’s quite the male Millenial movement to identify as a feminist. One of the seniors on my campus has done a lot of work for women’s issues, so much so that he has received scholarships because of it. He’ll tell you he’s a feminist. And he’s a popular BMOC–athletic, editor of the newspaper, active in clubs and student government. Not to mention, he’s very charming and attractive to the young women who hear him say it.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Anton Sirius:
@Karen in GA:
@geg6:
You all clearly know better people than I do. The people I know outside of a stark handful turn into regular MRAers when feminism comes up, including folks who are otherwise fierce liberals otherwise, and any attempt to convince them otherwise seems to not only harden them on the issue but drag them harder rightward in general.
geg6
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
Well, I was only speaking of the youth. Most of the men older than 25 or so that I am surrounded by are as Neanderthal as any stereotype one can imagine. Not all, but certainly most.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@FlipYrWhig: Whether it’s allowing players to control their aggression or giving them some place to vent it, either way there is evidence that football itself leads to lower amounts of violence outside of the game than there would be without it.
skerry
@PhoenixRising: Here’s what http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/11514871/judicial-figures-show-ray-rice-deal-offered-rarely said
Also, I’m not a lawyer, don’t play one on TV or live in NJ.
Tree With Water
To be sure, the owners are by and large swine and Goodell is still their $40 million per year man. $40 friggin million. But the NFL is in trouble today, and I believe is headed for more. Or so my bones inform me. I don’t see it going the way of boxing, but think its mass appeal will diminish as its systemic problems play themselves out over the near future.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Roger Moore: How often are college or pro football players charged with a crime without it making a newspaper?
SiubhanDuinne
@Anton Sirius:
We need to reclaim all these once-proud “labels” that have been corrupted or co-opted by the right. Feminist, liberal, patriot. Why in the hell are we letting the opposition provide the definitions?
Edit: Also, what Karen in GA said at #27.
OzarkHillbilly
Delete.
Delete…. I am tired. Delete that too. I am too tired to explain to people how it is that a woman who actually has a choice, chooses to stay in such a situation. How some women… delete that too.
My ex used to have my sons take pictures of her battered face. She used to tell them how they “abandoned” her in her hour of need, at 2:30 AM, when they decided they could no longer stand to see her beaten and chose to live with me instead.
I got death threats for trying to keep my sons out of that… while she chose to stay in it. I paid her thousands of dollars of child support while they lived with me, just so she could leave that SOB. She did finally leave him…. When she went to prison.
And I got blamed for everything that happened to her.
I just want to say, You.Don’t.have.a.Clue.
These are not black and white situations. The woman is not automatically “the victim”. She is quite often just “a victim.” All too often, so is her partner. If that makes no sense to you? Welcome to the club, it makes no sense to me either, but it is still true.
And for the record,…. no, you don’t want to know what that is like. I have seen the worst of these situations, and I still hear those children screaming. Sometimes, I still hear them in the darker hours. I suppose I always will.
Mnemosyne
@OzarkHillbilly:
I do hear ya — my sister-in-law has been engaged in a similar dance for the past 20 years (and two kids), though at least it’s her boyfriend who’s the one who gets jail time. It often seems to me that with the really intractable cases, there’s often mental illness and/or addiction issues in the mix as well. Let’s just say that when my SIL said that her therapist thought she had mild bipolar disorder, I turned to my husband and said, “Called it!”
ETA: And not mental illness just on the victim’s side. My co-worker’s sister has a scary abusive ex-boyfriend who’s a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic who refuses to take his medication.
Ruviana
Let us harken back to yesteryear, to 1994 and 1995, when just about every tv outlet was covering the *OJ* trial. There was evidence aplenty that Nicole Brown had similar difficulties with OJ and the police ignoring her reports of abuse. And we know how that trial turned out.
ellennellee
and yet, you guys keep posting stuff about the games.
good grief; until fans turn their backs on it, this will never stop!!
get a grip, guys. i’m talking to you, cole. you too, betty.
sheez. hypocritical as all hell.
Mike J
@Ruviana: That trial turned out as it should have. He may have done it, but they never put forth enough evidence to prove it. I still think they tried to frame a guilty man.
JR in WV
@geg6:
I’m 63 going on 64, and as supportive of women’s rights as anyone… old hippies, don’t you know.
Most of my women friends (and the Mrs J) are all feminists, and proudly so. worked their way through college, gainfully employed, hard workers, farmers, activists.
I’m about done with the NFL… less interest each weekend. I did enjoy seeing Payton (who I didn’t really care for as a Colt) break Farve’s record last night. But the Stillers, who I used to root for, I can’t stand “Big Ben” the rapist.
Hard to know how to advance things where the NFL is concerned. Money talks, walks, and runs roughshod over everything else.
Joel
@Uncle Cosmo: Definitely an important point.
Gvg
I am of the camp of who cares what the employer does, why doesn’t the league system do it’s job? those cops are a problem. a lot of the justice system and society generally is part of the problem. Don’t ask the NFL or colleges deal in justice anymore than you would McDonald or your grocery store.
B BADRICK
Look. I am no NFL fanboy, but you could do this witch-hunt on microsuft, wallymart, amazoon etc.
Why pick on these dudes when it is a society-wide problem? Too high pressure by companies on the employees produces negative outcomes at home.
scav
@B BADRICK: Well, personally, in part because those other borgs don’t pretend to be instillers of superior moral values and social skills (Teamwork! As though teams only exist and can be learned when tossing a ball about. Thanking GOD for his personal divine intervention in the temporary possession of some trophy.) while insisting we, all of we, build their arenas and subsidize their playdates. Other borgs sponge off taxpayers with promises of local jobs and multipliers, but generally have less of the ethical preening.
Gindy51
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Same thing happened with OJ way back when.
Gindy51
@B BADRICK: Maybe because when the cops get called on corporate dudes they don’t schmooze with the abuser, they actually Do something instead of get autographs for their kids.