People keep asking us to weigh on the new Ray Rice video. We said what we have to say back in May. (We did update the post, though.) So let’s not talk about Fox needing to apologize for making douchey jokes about taking the stairs. Or about boxer Floyd Mayweather (a man with his own history of domestic violence) apologizing for saying that the NFL overreacted in banning Rice. (A sorry-if apology, even. Oh, Floyd.) Or about an ESPN sportswriter failing to apologize for telling us that he’d assumed until he saw the second video that Janay had viciously attacked her gigantic football playing husband and provoked (!) him into accidentally (!) knocking her out (?) (“I wrongly and naively thought that she was the aggressor in the attack, that Rice reflexively shoved her to fend her off and she slipped, fell and hit her head. I did not think a man could sucker-punch a woman on tape and have the police, a prosecutor, the victim and the image-conscious NFL all work to treat the assaulter in a sympathetic fashion.” I’M SORRY, JASON WHITLOCK, WHAT SPECIAL MAGICAL PLANET DO YOU LIVE ON.)
No, instead, let’s talk about Vice President Biden’s off-the-cuff awesomeness in responding to the situation. Courtesy of Jezebel, here’s what he said on The Today Show this morning:
It’s never, never, never the woman’s fault. No man has a right to raise a hand to a woman…[.] The one regret I have is we call it domestic violence as if it’s a domesticated cat. It is the most vicious form of violence there is, because not only the physical scars are left, the psychological scars that are left. This whole culture for so long has put the onus on the woman. What were you wearing? What did you say? What did you do to provoke? That is never the appropriate question.
There’s more at the link.
SorryWatch’s opinion hasn’t changed since our post in May: the horrendousness of Rice’s apology (to various members of the Ravens’ organization rather than to his wife) and the Ravens’ craven social-media attempt to make Janay responsible for her own beating tell you more than any video.
go joe biden!
Fucking love him there – and the domesticated cat quote SO much.
Go Joe Biden!!! Janay, what in the H*ll were you thinking when you married that a**hole, after he had already beat the snot out of you?!!? Girl, you need help…
Anita, we don’t know what was going on in her head, what messages she was receiving from her family and the wider world, what their history was, and most of all what threats he was making if she ever left him. The hashtag #WhyIStayed offers powerful stories and insight from women who did not leave their abusers for a very long time. It is hugely important to frame the question here not as “why did she stay” but rather “why does he beat her.”
Yes, Snarly.
Having been on the outside of a situation like this, looking on and seeing things that to ME don’t make sense, I have to agree – we do not know what was in this woman’s head — what was promised to her, what she so longed to believe, what further unleashing of emotional, psychological or physical storms it might have uncovered if she disbelieved what she was told — those who have not been there can hardly understand. Sure, she “needs help,” but don’t we all? “She should have known” is probably the saddest sentence in the entire world. At times, there are things we ALL should have known; we can only think of this woman with compassion.
Meanwhile, we can also all think Biden remains pretty hot for and old dude.
Go Joe Biden!