Somewhere Solange Knowles is like "See! It's normally the other way around!" And it is. I'm starting to worry about successful black people fighting in elevators. Is that now going to be their thing? The new Captain America is black, so maybe that fight scene in Captain America 2 is a precursor or foreshadowing.
Feminists have been pushing for Rice's ouster since the YouTube video of him dragging his apparently unconscious fiancée earlier in the year and a lot of people are pointing out how disturbing the NFL's stance on tolerating domestic violence while condemning illegal drug use. What's disturbing is the NFL's long refusal to acknowledge that concussions are bad. (The sports broadcasters narrating the game shouldn't be yelling "Oh, boy, he got his bell rung!" but they should be asking: "Is he still alive?") That the NFL didn't fire Rice immediately--over a video--is not as bad. Marijuana is illegal, and although it clearly has some medicinal value and a person might be drugged or take it unknowingly, people choose to take the marijuana. When people are involved, things become more complicated. Relationships are complicated, and love doesn't necessarily make sense, especially outside the movies. When the victim isn't indicating that she (someday, he) is not a victim, what are we to do? What is the NFL supposed to do when a woman walks into a wall? Are the cops supposed to ignore the woman's wishes and do what the cops want--what would make us, as a society, feel better? The Rices did a lot to cover up the battery--as did, apparently, the courts and the league.
I do think it is safe to say that the NFL's stance on domestic violence is zero. However, there is and should be evidentiary issues when making a claim of domestic violence, and ending a man's career on a lie is always a plausibility. Having studied the media all these years, I have realized that not everything is as it appears. A picture says a thousands words, but it is up to the viewer to decode them. Janay might've been injured after he beat her or she might've been drunk or they both might've been drunk or she might've been dead this entire time--we do not know.
It turns out he totally decked her. She was lashing out at him, then he totally dropped that chick like McLovin in Superbad. That slug was nasty and excessive for the amount of energy the attacker had expunged on him. Really, he's the Israel of people. NOW we know what happened (or at least have a better idea)--why he was dragging her out of the elevator--and the question should be how much the NFL can enhance its previous two game suspension, for now he has truly embarrassed the league. A damn elevator cam stripped away their plausible deniability. Hey, maybe someone should've checked that cam when the first footage was exposed?
This leads us to why Janay doesn't just leave him. The first reason is the psycho-mumbo-jumbo that abused women have been brainwashed into believing that they can't leave their abuser, that their marital bonds are physical in nature--and that is a realistic interpretation of the situation. However, I think the more practical explanation is that Janay Rice enjoys being a football wife. The wives are her friends, and it is a world that will be denied to her if she doesn't stand by her man--she is not so much fighting for her husband's life but for her own. (So nothing happened in the elevator.)
The flipside is that Rice will never be able to find work as lucrative as an NFL player; he probably has limited job skills and Janay probably isn't independently wealthy. His wife and daughter will have less--the family's financial outlook is about to take a hit. (Oh, you see what I did?)The feminist fantasy is that Janel will leave her abusive husband and sue him, taking everything he has. But he has nothing now--thanks to the feminists. Ultimately feminists have made this into a gender issue; they are exploiting the situation for the noble goal of lowering the level of spousal abuse in this country. (White people could use this to show how violent blacks are; communists could show the violence of the upperclasses.... Etc.) The "big picture" is that now the NFL will take domestic violence more seriously. The commentators have found a solution, I suppose.
People tend to destroy themselves. YouTube just facilitates it. Ultimately there is no sadder commentary than that.
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