Essay : The Ray Rice Internet Fiasco

Not a week seems to go by this summer without an internet fiasco of some sort. Whoever seems to be the object of our collective outrage, we haven't found a way to respond that doesn't reflect our moral bankruptcy as a society. Last Monday, society got angry at Ray Rice again for the domestic violence incident involving him and his then fiancée (now wife) Janay last February, in Atlantic City. There is no denying that Rice's actions were horrifying and inexcusable. No man should smack his wife, for any reason whatsoever. But what did we do exactly this week? Did we help the situation? Did we influence future legislation on domestic violence? The answers are no and no, but what happened was interesting. Let's take a step back from the Ray Rice situation for a moment and examine how we handled this other case of moral outrage collectively.

The facts: Last February, the now former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice knocked his fiancée Janay Palmer in an Atlantic City hotel elevator. A first video came out on TMZ, showing Rice dragging his fiancée out of the elevator like a caveman. She was out cold. The video understandably caused a social uproar and the behavior displayed on it called for retribution.

Janay Palmer didn't press charges against Rice for the incident, and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell took several months in order to sentence Rice to a ridiculous two games suspension. Ray Rice and Janay Palmer then  held a press conference and things got a little sick. Rice could not shut up about himself and start behaving like he was coming back from an ACL tear right after apologizing, and Palmer declared she forgave him and stood behind him 100%. I might be wrong, but I believe they announced they got married on that day. 

The suspension itself pissed a lot of people off, It sent the message that the NFL doesn't take domestic violence seriously (I still think it doesn't). The backlash was so bad, that Roger Goodell had to change his policy on domestic violence and enforce more appropriate consequences (and from what I understand, Rice would've dodged this new policy). But it was too little too late: last Monday, the fucksticks of TMZ released the full, horrifying video of Rice knocking out his fiancée and shit hit the fan. 

In the following day, Ray Rice got cut from the Baltimore Ravens' lineup and indefinitely suspended by the NFL, so that we can go back to football without feeling guilty again. 

You're getting none of that, this year. Not anymore.

Analysis: I get why people were angry at Ray Rice. Domestic violence is a crime, and our proper response to criminal behavior as a society is to put people in jail. Justice should apply to everybody and it's frustrating to witness someone avoid due process. But Janay Palmer knows her husband more than we do and if they're trying to work it out together, who are we to judge? It's frustrating, but we have to give the benefit of the doubt to Rice and his wife, this time at least. 

It's also frustrating that he avoided a severe sanction from the NFL, at least until last Monday. It's obvious that Roger Goodell doesn't take domestic violence seriously, and I still believe that he doesn't. The NFL season has just started and the latest developments in the Ray Rice situation were a financial disaster waiting to happen. People were angry at Ray Rice for avoiding the consequences of his terrible actions. But it's not the case anymore. He's been severely disciplined and the career he spent his life building is most likely over. At least, as we know it.

Here's the thing, though. Ray Rice was a bleeding cut. A band-aid has been applied and yet, the severed artery is still bleeding. You shouldn't be angry at him anymore, because he's been properly disciplined (at least, professionally) for his actions and you have to give him benefit of the doubt unless he does it again.

You have to understand he was a scapegoat though. Ray Rice was sacrificed by Roger Goodell in order to keep the NFL's issue with domestic violence under wraps. In this excellent piece, Grantland's Andrew Sharp walks us through the museum of horrors that has been the NFL's domestic violence policy over the last couple years. 

Since the modification of the NFL's domestic violence policy, San Francisco 49ers' Ray McDonald has been arrested for domestic abuse and has not seen a single game of suspension. He played last weekend like nothing happened. Carolina Panthers' defensive end Greg Hardy has committed unspeakable violence against his then girlfriend, and was found guilty in a court of law, yet he has not been suspended. If you think the NFL is waiting for a player to kill his wife in order to change things, it already happened and nobody really heard about this.

The suspension of Ray Rice doesn't send a message. It's a peace offering from Roger Goodell in order to keep the season football free from moral outrage. The only reason why the backlash got so strong against Rice is that his actions were filmed and showed to the entire world. Doesn't it piss you off that the NFL denies having seen the complete video before it was leaked last Monday ? Doesn't it piss you off that Roger Goodell probably REFUSED to watch the video, so he could have so called ''deniability''?

Yes, Ray Rice was properly disciplined when he got cut from the Baltimore Ravens and indefinitely suspended, but don't pat yourself on the back for pointing the finger at him. Blowhards like Seth Rogen were happy to make social media capital on his back, even if they aren't football fans and visibly ill-informed about the problem of domestic abuse in the NFL. To a certain extent, disciplining Ray Rice alone didn't solve the problem. It just gave it a face, a human character and defined limitations to something way more elusive and problematic. Ray Rice humanized the problem of domestic abuse and his disciplining made us feel good because we felt like we mastered the situation.

I don't feel this way, I feel that only thing this week did was to put pressure on a young marriage, scrap a career and send the following message: ''if you beat your wife, don't do it on camera.'' I can't shake the feeling that we've thrown a guy who made a horrible mistake to the lions in order to soothe the public.. I may be wrong, but it's dogging me right now. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy Ray Rice faced due process for his actions, but in a world where Chris Brown is still doing music after beating the shit out of Rihanna, and that Michael Vick is still allowed to breathe, I can't help but hoping Rice gets his shit together and salvages the scraps of his marriage and career.

We're still heading towards disaster.

In the immortal words of Rust Cohle: ''nothing is ever over.''