Let's stop focusing on NFL players who beat their wives, girlfriends and kids:

[hedgehog]

it's time to focus on at cops who beat their wives, girl friends and kids. Too many get a pass from their fellow officers - it's the normal historic "protect the institution" reaction common to the police, military, colleges, churches, hospitals, etc. But the time for "protect the institution" by protecting the perpetrators is past. It's time to protect the institution by sending the perpetrators to prison.

It's the best way I know to filter the bad cops out of the force.

[Oktober]

1. Let's just discourage everyone beating on everyone...

[hedgehog]

2. I think the problem is that certain groups have been escaping the consequences -

add upper class males to the list.

[Oktober]

7. Uh huh...

[Cleita]

15. Yep. Assault is assault and it shouldn't be tolerated anywhere from

anyone. We could start with parents beating their kids. There is evidence that kids who suffer corporeal punishment grow up to be aggressive adults. For too long society has looked the other way. It's time to get laws with teeth in them to stop this practice. Sweden did it almost a century ago. They made it a criminal offense to spank, hit or abuse a child. I think it should apply to verbal abuse as well.

[hifiguy]

19. Eeyup.

This.

[merrily]

3. Is it either or? How about focusing on everyone who beats up people?

Besides, is posting really "focusing" on a social problem?

People tell me their activism consists of posting, but I don't see it that way.

[VanillaRhapsody]

4. why do we have to give up focussing on any of them?

[Shankapotomus]

5. Because

it interferes with his football watching.

[hedgehog]

9. What is this "football" of which you speak?

[Shankapotomus]

10. The same football

you mentioned in your OP. Don't try to deny it. You love football, don't you? Say it! Say IT!

[hedgehog]

11. I'm only marginally aware of football because it gets so much attention -

I spend my Fall and winter Sunday afternoons either outside in the garden if it's nice, or inside reading and/or taking a nap if it's raining. My husband spends his Sunday afternoons working on one his cars. We might see a game if the SIL is in the house.

Football seems to be embedded in the American culture, so I am marginally aware of what's happening. My main interest is wanting to know if the Bills won or lost this week.

My disinterest in sports applies to baseball, basketball and hockey as well. I walked into a grocery store last winter and couldn't figure out why everyone and every thing was decked out in orange. I hadn't realized that Syracuse was playing a big game that day. (I think it was a basketball game.)


Please don't report me to the Immigration. I really am a native born American citizen.

[Shankapotomus]

12. Me too

And you don't have to defend yourself to me. I was being a goof. Goofball is my favorite sport.

[hedgehog]

13. No offense taken! I was trying to explain myself without

sounding snooty or defensive. I'm just missing the sports gene.

[LittleBlue]

6. I don't understand why there is so much focus on NFL players

How many of them are there? A thousand or two?

Most DV cases only get news coverage when the woman ends up dying, or she's a celebrity. It's like wow, we saw Ray Rice dragging his unconscious wife around months ago. And people become outraged when the video shows him punching her. How did they think she became unconscious in the first place? Like it was a shock to find out she didn't accidentally hit her head or something. Is the country celebrity-obsessed, or just plain dumb? Is there something in our water that causes us not to connect an unconscious woman dragged around by her abusive husband with domestic violence? Jesus.

Now, how many hundreds of thousands or millions of women are beaten every year in the US? The media focuses more on Goodell and when he saw a tape than all of those victims combined. The whole thing is disappointing and frustrating. At the end of this, some female unnamed NFL executive will lose more from this than Ray Rice himself. The media has turned to tabloid reporting. TMZ has somehow come out of this a big winner. Lots of blood money to be made. Gross.

[hedgehog]

8. This is part of what I am reacting to -

the other part is the suggestion that someone made that we should be testing cops for steroids -

it's easy to get caught up in celebrity culture - sports figures, movie stars etc. I'm not saying they should be ignored - I'm all for kicking them out of the league (and btw - why hasn't Ray Price been arrested?) But they shouldn't be occupying so much media time when there is a larger problem out there.

It occurred to me that a cop who beats people at home is more likely to be a cop who beats people on the job. That's a far more frequent situation and one that has wider ramifications. Very few of us will ever be beaten by a football player - but getting knocked down by a cop?

I think as Vanilla Rhapsody said - it shouldn't be an either /or but a both/and.

[mythology]

14. I think instinctively there's a difference between

an open hand slap or a full on punch to the face in terms of perception and in terms of the damage.

Obviously both suck, but generally speaking, I'd rather take an open hand slap as the force is more dispersed.

Also yes, seeing something does make it more real. Partially because we are a visual species, partially because in our minds, consciously or not, we can see what we want to see for lack of a better word. For some people it's a best case scenario, for others it's a worst case scenario. But seeing a video takes away that ability to have ambiguity about the situation. Sort of like it did when people saw police in the south turning firehoses and dogs on blacks peacefully protesting for their rights.

You can complain about the media highlighting an individual case of domestic violence and the celebrity surrounding it, but at the same time, that same media is looking at the cases of other football players like Ray McDonald or Greg Hardy who also committed domestic violence and haven't been suspended. Other media members like Jason Whitlock are promoting not playing the video after the initial news because it distracts from the issue of domestic violence. Sure that's still the NFL, but it's also expanding the story to not just be about one case.

Celebrity can be used for good. Whether it's ex-presidents working to get aid for Haiti after the earthquake or Sarah McLaughlin for the Humane Society, it can bring eyes to situations that would be otherwise unseen. It's hard to engage the idea that millions of people are victims of domestic violence. Most people have no idea how to even comprehend that. As Stalin is often attributed to have said one death is a tragedy, one million is a statistic. Saying millions are victims just makes people tend to look away because what can one person do about that? Instead if you see an individual, it's easier to engage in the conversation.

[Cleita]

18. An open hand slap?

If you are a woman or a child, have you ever received an open hand slap from a strong man? I have and it nearly knocked me unconscious. Assault is assault, open hand or not.

[JTFrog]

16. No.

NFL players DO NOT get a pass. No wife, girlfriend or child beater gets a pass. If looking at the problem as it exists in sports culture is too much for you, then get out of the way of those of us who have no problem speaking out against any and all abusers. Especially those considered highly visible role models.

I have no problem multi-tasking on this issue.

FFS.

[hedgehog]

22. Sorry for misspeaking - it was early in the morning when I posted - what I

meant to bring up is my reaction that while discussing the problem in the NFL (and male athletes beating up and assaulting girls has been a problem since my college days, many years ago), we should also consider the problem that exists in probably almost every police department in the country - officers who should be arrested for domestic violence but instead get a pass.

[Romulox]

20. The NFL is based on brutal, dehumanizing violence in the first place. When will we deal with *that*?

I can think of no better metaphor for America as a whole than the NFL--top down bureaucracy interspersed with brutal violence, broadcast by Disney! Poor black men, motivated by the promise of lottery-like paydays (which most will never earn) to clash with one another in a way that totally disregards the safety of their opponents, as well as themselves. The average players last 3 or 5 years. Many (most?) are left injured for life by the process, including numerous closed head injuries, which are directly implicated in anger and impulse control problems.

And then we, as a society, wonder why this culture of violence doesn't "turn off" when we shut off the TV on Sunday...

[hedgehog]

21. I tend to agree with what you are saying - especially with what we now know about concussion

(Having been concussed in an auto accident, I can testify that it is not a minor problem.) Was there a time when football wasn't a game of violence, or are we all kidding ourselves?''

This is a comment worthy of its own OP

[Romulox]

23. It's always been a game of violence. As I get older, I see the fuller picture

of these men living out their lives away from, and after the game. We also know much more now, as you say.

[hedgehog]

24. I have to do some serious reading on the subject -

but I'm getting an impression that Teddy Roosevelt saved football because he thought that Anglo Saxon boys at Harvard and Yale needed toughening up. I think it was another aspect of the empire building that began with the annexation of the Philippines. The notion was that we had to go to war to keep the Anglo Saxon stock strong and virile.

[Nye Bevan]

25. I think when people who are heroes and role models to many engage in that behavior,

that is something worth "focusing on".

[malaise]

26. Cops, judges, politicians, doctors, lawyers, engineers

teachers, academics, writers, artists, musicians, technicians, gardeners, architects...as in every fucking profession.