The issues with the Ray Rice narrative

First, let me be very clear: What Ray Rice did to his then-fiancee Janay in that elevator on that fateful February night was wrong.

Whatever led up to it, it was wrong. Whoever started the clearly ongoing fight, whoever threw the “first” punch … it was wrong.

And yet.

The 1997 movie Good Will Hunting featured one particular quote that I've always enjoyed. After Matt Damon's character does an impromptu psychological evaluation of Robin Williams's character based on a painting in his office, Robin kicks him out. They meet again a few days later in a park and have a conversation about it. Robin tells Matt (real names are just easier, you guys) that, for instance, while he can regurgitate anything he's read in a book, he doesn't really *know* anything. Matt might know everything about Michelangelo — his life's work, his political aspirations, etc. — but he doesn't know the beauty of the Sistine Chapel because he's never seen it with his own eyes.

And as Robin continues talking, he says this:

"No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, and you ripped my fucking life apart. You're an orphan right? You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you?"

It's the ultimate caution to judging people and situations without knowing the full story. And with that as the framing for this discussion, allow me to stop to plainly state the points of my argument here:

1. Ray was wrong to hit his now-wife — physical violence of any sort is unacceptable in our society and he should be punished.
2. Without knowing everything that occurred that evening between the two parties, Ray’s action may be more defensible than it is based solely on the video evidence.
3. The immediate reaction by the rest of society to paint Ray as one of the worst people in the world — and Janay as an ongoing victim/idiot — is a glaring example of the worst kind of mob mentality the public at-large assumes in cases like this.

Let’s walk through these points one at a time:

1. Ray was wrong to hit his now-wife — physical violence of any sort is unacceptable in our society and he should be punished.

• No matter what Janay did to him earlier in the night (we’ll explore this below), the best solution for Ray was obviously to walk away. And, frankly, as much as some of the crazy PRO-MEN lobbies would disagree — EQUALITY FOR ALL, etc. — it simply is different when a man hits a woman than when a woman hits a man, and especially when the man is a pro football player. There are shades of gray in everything, and this shade of gray reflects very poorly on Ray. I won’t bother opining on what the correct punishment for Ray should be other than to note, as everyone else has, that the NFL’s bungling of the entire situation has been nothing short of damnable. Besides, the correct level of punishment is based upon another shade of gray, which is related to …

2. Without knowing everything that occurred that evening between the two parties, Ray’s action may be more defensible than it is based solely on the video evidence.

• Here’s what I see in the video: Ray and Janay are arguing in the hallway. She takes some sort of swat at him. They go into the elevator. He’s in her face and takes a swat of some sort at her. She, understandably, is pissed and comes at him, at which point he hits her with a left hook that sends her into the railing and ultimately to the floor unconscious.  Again: BAD MOVE, Ray. But here’s where the video doesn’t show everything. You kind of get the impression from the actions of both (swatting at each other before the punch heard round the world, her charging at him) that there have been some physical altercations between them in the past. And we obviously don’t know the nature of those altercations. Maybe Ray is just a lowdown dude who beats women and this was the first time she stood up for herself in any way. Maybe it has been physical both ways in the past and it just never got to *this* level. Or, just maybe, Janay has been the primary abuser in the past — maybe she even punched him repeatedly in their hotel room before they went out — and Ray just snapped in the heat of this particular moment.  Does that change the fact that knocking her out was wrong? No. Again, it was wrong. But it’s less wrong, right? Killing someone is wrong, but if you’re defending yourself from that person, it’s less wrong and in the most severe cases even justified, right? Imagine, for just a second, if the tables were turned here. What if Ray was on the receiving end of that punch and it was instead him who was knocked out? What if we then found out that Ray had abused her earlier that night and she finally stood up for herself? She would be hailed by men and women alike around the world, right? The point is that it matters what the involved parties have to say about the situation, and whether you want to believe her or instead speculate about her internal justifications for doing so, Janay has taken some of the responsibility for what happened that night. There was more going on than meets the eye here. Which brings us to …

3. The immediate reaction by the rest of society to paint Ray as one of the worst people in the world — and Janay as an ongoing victim/idiot — is a glaring example of the worst kind of mob mentality the public at-large assumes in cases like this.

• The overwhelming reaction to this case has been along the following lines: 1. They should burn Ray at the stake - and/or - 2. Janay is only staying with him for the money/she thinks love will conquer all but she WILL be abused again Any reaction to the contrary is immediately panned. In fact, in conversations with other members of this very site, I have been painted as a guy looking for an excuse to beat women! Here’s where a sort of societal sexual stigma comes into play. Even if the facts of the entire case were that Janay had regularly abused Ray and this was the first time he struck her, they could never in a million years come out and say that and have it stick as the truth. People would immediately jump down both of their throats, call them liars, and so on.  And this is where another dirty little fact that nobody wants to talk about creeps into play: A national survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Department of Justice found that more than 40 percent of the severe physical violence cases were directed at men.  If a man hits a woman, the public says that man is despicable and that the woman should leave immediately,regardless of what may have precipitated it. If a woman hits a man, he is most often depicted as “deserving it.” I probably shouldn’t be surprised, I guess, but I am always disappointed with the mob rush to judgment in cases like these. The public happily takes one two-minute altercation in a couple’s life and defines them by it. You now have professors like Ramani Durvasula opining that “Many times a victim becomes so dependent on her partner for everything that she can’t even entertain a reality without him in it. I don’t know that any of us would have been strong, brave or courageous enough to push back on a billion-dollar organization and a man that she loves.” Sigh. What it ultimately comes down to is that the public mob is doing Janay a disservice and paying her the ultimate disrespect by ignoring what she has to say and projecting its own thoughts and opinions onto her. All of these people telling her she suffers from abused spouse syndrome or the like. All of these people creating such an uproar that they have now removed her from a revenue stream that her family depended on. You have all painted Janay as weak and helpless in this situation. And that’s the last thing that needs to happen here, whatever the real story of their relationship and that night is.  Let Janay be strong. Let her handle her situation. Don’t project your own misguided thoughts and fears onto someone else. Of course, it’s too late for that now. Not only was her personal life rocked by a violent assault, the outsized reaction by a mindless public has forced her to relive the event and embarrassment of it all. Janay called it a nightmare. And it is. Our reactionary mob society is a fucking nightmare.