Alright, alright, alright. I’ve been promising to drop this piece (which I wrote on Tuesday) all week, so here we go.
By now, we’ve all seen the infamous elevator footage of former Baltimore Ravens (and NFL) running back Ray Rice punching out his wife to be, Janay Palmer. The video sparked a level of outrage and debating about domestic violence, that I personally hadn’t seen since the incident with Chris Brown and Rihanna.
I initially refused to watch the clip because I didn’t wanna see a woman getting knocked unconscious, but I knew I had to in order to write this. I was sick, to be honest. I’m all for defending yourself. Man or woman, you should never just let someone physically attack you. However, what he did was overkill. Hitting her like she was his size and strength was bad enough, but then to see him drag her out of the elevator and lay her on the floor like he hardly knew her? That was crazy to me.
I’ve seen people try to justify Ray Rice’s actions and I get it, but I don’t. People label Janay as the antagonist. Apparently she spit on dude. Blah blah blah. Be all that as it may, you still have to do better. I’ve been in relationships with chicks that prefer to get physical. It’s not fun, but you have to know how to play it. I’ve never hit a woman in my life, but I’ve also never let a woman do enough to take me there. Do you have to stand there and get punched, kicked, etc.? No. And you shouldn’t. But there are other ways to defend yourself than the way Ray Rice chose. No matter what Janay Rice did, you have to be smarter than that.
Another thing people are enraged about is Janay’s decision to marry Ray Rice even after what happened. Those people don’t understand abusive relationships.
It’s easy to tell a victim of domestic violence to “just leave”, because that’s probably what you would do, but unless you’re in their shoes, you really can’t grasp why they think how they do. For a short part of my young life, I watched my mom stay in a physically abusive relationship. She could’ve left. Probably should’ve. But she stayed (until he was eventually killed; in front of us). Despite his abusive ways, this guy had money and was a sense of security for our family which was struggling at the time. Despite what he did, he was all my mom had. She never said it, but I feel like that, combined with the fear he’d do something worse is why my mom stayed. I never agreed, but I get it.
I feel like the same applies to Janay Rice.
She’s been defending Ray Rice pretty adamantly, and it could be for a few reasons. For one, she could genuinely feel bad. We don’t know the whole story. Maybe she’s taken Ray there on more than one occasion and she always knew it could come to this. Furthermore, maybe she’s one of those women who feels “any woman that hits a man should be ready to be hit like one”. On top of that, Ray Rice is a millionaire (or was?). I don’t know what Janay Rice did before she met him. She might’ve worked at Wendy’s or something. But I do know, she’s living a pretty comfortable life right now, and for all we know, she could feel like a few left jabs to the chin is a small price to pay for all that. This is when it becomes hard to feel bad for the victim, because now you’re at a point where you care more than they do.
At the end of the day…
Everyone should keep their hands to themselves. Especially men, because you’re never gonna win that battle once the cops show up. Ray Rice is a hoe for reacting the way he did, and I wish more people were as against men hitting women as I am, but at the same time, I’ve come to terms with the fact that people’s views are going to differ, because everything is case by case, and that’s just something we have to deal with. You know who the real winner in all this is, though? Jay Z.
