Adrian Peterson Is Not a Racial Symbol [View all]

[XemaSab]

The news of NFL player Adrian Peterson’s arrest for child abuse came on the heels of a week focused on an act of domestic violence from another black football player. Some of his colleagues rushed to defend Peterson and suggest his charges were yet another example of our society’s widespread and unfair demonization of black men. “[Peterson] can’t play Sunday for disciplining his child[.] Jesus help us” tweeted fellow NFL player Roddy White. And running back Mark Ingram chimed in, arguing that his parents gave him “more whoopins” than he can count because “they just wanted [him] to be the best human possible.”

To be sure, the prevalent use of corporal punishment among African-Americans is no secret. Some scholars have argued that beating children in the black community serves as some sort of traumatic reenactment of the brutal violence experienced during slavery, a remnant of centuries-old barbarity.

But black people are not the only ones who use corporal punishment when it comes to disciplining their children. About 80 percent of white and Hispanic parents admit that they spank their kids, too. Lots of Christians defend it as a religious practice and in 19 states it’s still legal for teachers and staff to punish children with spankings at school.

So, when a black man gets arrested for an act that is still ambivalently upheld by our country’s legal and moral codes, many people wonder about the role that race might be playing.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/09/adrian-peterson-is-not-a-symbol/380199/