Ray Rice…. How Should You Look at Him?
If you don’t feel like reading and you want the short answer then here you go….
Question: How should you look at Ray Rice?
Answer: You shouldn’t.
There you go. If you’re satisfied with your answer and you’re ready to move on and do something productive with your day, then by all means go along.
If you want to know what the hell I mean or if you think my English needs some polishing because I answered “how” question with a “no” then feel free to read along….
How should you look at Ray Rice? You shouldn’t.
If you think that this is exactly the right answer because he’s a scum who doesn’t deserve to be looked at, then you are exactly the root of the problem that you claim to have solved.
The reason why I am saying you shouldn’t look at Ray Rice is not because he is so low that he doesn’t deserve your attention. The reason why I am saying this is because looking at him is exactly what is wrong with today’s world, and you’re not helping anything by giving your two cents about the issue (most of us agree with you, anyway).
Let me just start off by saying that I am a Ravens fan. The first American football game I ever watched was their Super Bowl victory over the Giants. I knew absolutely nothing about football and I chose to root for that team before the game started because the NY Giants logo was so damn boring.
When I heard about what Ray Rice did, I didn’t hear about it. Here’s what I mean by that: My friends told me about it and asked what I thought, and I just said he was an idiot for doing something like that. But honestly, I ignored the issue and I never saw the video of what he did. Why? Because I’m a Ravens fan and I cared about my team winning. So anything that made them look bad was incredibly easy to ignore (I honestly didn’t even try to ignore it). If Ray Rice was suspended, the Ravens would play without him and things would go back to normal when he came back. My loyalty for my team blinded me to the morality of his actions.
Today, I saw the video of what he did and I could not believe my eyes. But the tragic truth is that I was not disgusted and I did not stop being a Ravens fan.
I’m writing this whole article to explain to myself why the hell I wasn’t disgusted and how the hell I could ever claim to be human if I am not outraged by his actions. Well then, let me keep going.
The reason why you and I shouldn’t look at Ray Rice is because we all know that what he did was wrong. The Internet and social media are blowing up right now telling you that Ray Rice is the scum of the earth and he deserves the worst punishment that we can imagine for him. Honestly though, not a single one of those people is better than he is. We humans have a lot of documented research about our tendencies. One of those tendencies is making mistakes. Another one of those tendencies is diverting responsibility.
Ray Rice made a mistake, but then again, he’s human.
I am by no means saying that what he did is acceptable (I already said it isn’t). What I am saying is that suddenly people are making him the poster child of domestic violence and asking for justice…. as if that’s going to fix the problem.
Today’s culture is one about the hero/villain complex. Anything that happens needs a hero and/or a villian who was ‘more resposible’ than the rest for the end result. That is how we see the world and that is the lens that we use to look at past and future.
Micheal Jordan won 6 titles… Lebron hasn’t.
Putin is attacking Ukraine… Obama isn’t doing anything about it.
Who started WWII? Why, Hitler of course. As if one human could single-handedly do something like that without a single follower.
It’s all about who’s the best of the best or the worst of the worst. It’s all about giving one person more credit than they deserve or more blame than they can/should bear. It’s all about a heirarchy and a pyramid scheme and ultimately it’s all about dodging and diverting responsibility to the top (or bottom).
I’m not about to say that Ray Rice is the new Hitler, but you can go there if you’d like (since half the internet is probably going to, anyway). My point is simply that we seem to be under the impression that talking about how bad Ray Rice is = doing our part. We see what he did and we want justice. For some reason, today we are the heroes that think this innocent woman (I dare you to remember her name off the top of your head if you haven’t read an article about it recently) needs our help and support, so we are seeking justice on her behalf.
Today, Ray Rice shall be punished…. crucified preferably.
Tomorrow, the world will be a better place.
Somehow we seem to believe that an obvious case of domestic abuse by a famous athlete and recorded by cameras is an issue that everyone needs to put their two cents in. Never mind the woman across the street who has no evidence and is too scared to ask for help. Never mind the situations where someone might disagree with us about what’s right and wrong. No. Today we all agree that Ray Rice is the bad guy, so let’s all jump on the bandwagon and celebrate our victory. That’s our part. Let’s talk about the one case that seems to be indisputable.
To avoid going on an hr-long rant, let me finish this off by putting things into a “bigger picture” perspective:
The reason why you shouldn’t worry about Ray Rice is because you probably don’t know him. You probably have zero power over the situation. And your contribution is absolutely negligible, if not detrimental (sorry to break it to you). Instead of talking about Ray Rice, do something about violence. Keep your eyes peeled and your ears listening. If the neighbor is yelling at his wife, don’t turn the volume up and complain about how he’s interrupting your show (after all, these days you can probably DVR that show or watch it online). It’s well-researched and documented that people are less likely to help when they know that other people are there to help. “Why should I be the one that helps while everyone else is watching? Why should I take responsibility for this?” seems to be our basic instinct. We don’t want to be too responsible for something if we can avoid it.
But when it comes to blaming, we are quick to throw the biggest, baddest stone and say “Yeah, that’s right! I threw that shit!” Once the blame/responsibility is on someone else, we think we are free to talk, judge and criticize as much as we want without doing out part to improve the situation.
So today I am not looking at Ray Rice, I’m looking at myself. I ignored what he did because the Ravens would still play without him and because he didn’t do it to my sister/mother/daughter. He didn’t do it to my loved ones so I had no reason to care. I was loyal to my team and I was loyal to my loved ones, and Ray Rice didn’t practice violence against them, so I didn’t have to care. But I should have. Now that I see what he did, I am able to put myself in the same shoes as someone who considers Janay Palmer a loved one. I should have said to myself “this is wrong and he did it to someone’s loved one.” I should have said “this is more important than sports and it deserves my attention.” There’s still nothing I could have done to help the Ray Rice situation, but locally, I am sure there is something that I could have done to decrease the violence in my neighborhood (even something so small as hand out random acts of kindness to get people in a good mood).
