http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/women-wearing-ray-rice-jerseys/story?id=25455609
This aticle discusses women, Raven fans, who are still wearing Ray Rice jerseys and voicing their support for him. most the women are saying that Rice made a mistake and that everyone deserves a second chance. Many also feel that his personal life and decisions shouldn't affect his career.
I partially agree. I definitely feel that people deserve second chances, we all make countless mistakes throughout our lives and if we all lost our jobs for them or weren't given a "try it again" we would probably have a different perspective on this Rice situation. Then you have to consider the backlash of Rice's wife at the media. She was very upset with them for bringing the situation back up, exploiting their personal life, and subsequently being the cause of Rice's indefinite suspension... but what does that truly mean? One female voiced in the article that if his wife wasn't mad or upset then the community should just let it go, move on. I don't agree. If we are familiar with domestic violence then we know that many women rationalize abuse and make excuses for the aggressor. It is not ok for the community to knowingly let someone suffer from domestic abuse, but to use this argument against Ray Rice we would have to first prove domestic abuse because the video does not. Domestic abuse is defined as a PATTERN of behavior which involves the abuse by one partner against another in an intimate relationship.... a pattern.... habitual or frequent occurence.
Another point that the women commented on was that the NFL shouldn't punish for personal wrongdoings in the players/couaches lives. This is very sticky for me, because I am very liberal and beleive that government, institutions, corporations, etc shouldn't meddle in our personal lifes. We should be free to live and make personal decisions and have bad judgement calls. The problem lies though, when you become a brand... and represent a brand.. that is making money. When the things you are doing affect the brand that you represent, and the brand feels that you aren't a moral representation of what they want to be perceived as then yes ... they have a right to speak up and issue consequence because you are affecting their image.. and in turn possibly affecting their money (which is more than likely the real issue).
Rice should not have hit his wife. That was wrong, that was a mistake that he made a while ago that he should get some consequence for. There isn't anything that supports that he continued on with a life of domestic abuse... he should get a second chance, not without any consequences for his action, but not with such a harsh punishment like indefinitely taking away this man's wellbeing.
