Interesting article on the victimization of women in abusive relationships and the complete failure of the NFL to respond to these kinds of brutal incidents.
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/culture-of-blaming-the-victim-is-root-cause-of-failure-for-nfl–ravens-in-ray-rice-case-220237076.html
“Janay Rice says she deeply regrets the role that she played the night of the incident,” the Ravens tweeted.
Wow. Just Wow.
The Ravens actually wanted us to go along with the dangerous notion that the woman was "asking for it"? Did they really use a battered woman to shift the blame off her abusive husband? A woman should never be the one to apologize for being unjustly socked in the face. Period. The entire culture of blaming the woman because "they had it coming" is absolute garbage, as is the team that supports this sort of sexist thinking by going out of its way to remind us that is was the Victim that regretted her role in getting KO’d, and not the wife-beating perpetrator. Disgusting.
If you punch a woman, it's never "out of character." It is your character, no matter what else you have done in your life.
And really, by trying to hush-hush the ugly situation with an embarrassingly pathetic wrist-slap rather than swiftly dealing with Rice initially back in February, now the NFL is facing a larger backlash with more damage & spin control, and more evidently, highlighting the NFL & Roger Goodell’s willful blindness and need to maintain plausible deniability. Obviously they knew of the video. They just couldn't care enough until the video became national news. And now that the video is stirring public outrage, they're trying to save face and backpedaling on the entire issue.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/roger-goodells-handling-of-the-ray-rice-case-willful-blindness-and-the-need-to-maintain-plausible-deniability/2014/09/08/68015714-378b-11e4-8601-97ba88884ffd_story.html
http://www.cbssports.com/general/writer/gregg-doyel/24701553/ray-rice-video-demands-more-answers-from-roger-goodell
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/columnists/ct-haugh-ray-rice-spt-0909-20140909-column.html
Please hold your applause for the Baltimore Ravens. They don't deserve it. The NFL team finally terminated the contract of running back Ray Rice but only because Monday's airing of a video by TMZ forced its hand. The Ravens spent months defending and enabling a domestic abuser in a way that brought shame to their organization and the NFL, damage the team tried to start controlling Monday with a move that should have been made a long time ago. It shouldn't take a celebrity gossip outlet's video for a professional football organization — or the most powerful sports league in the world, for that matter — to do the right thing.
Couldn't agree more. Bottom Line: Fuck the Ravens.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
In Positive News:
http://www.wjla.com/articles/2014/09/ray-rice-jerseys-dumped-by-fans-and-stores-106911.html