Nu Vibez and Roleplay Guide Magazine - August 2014 | Page 101

TURNING DOWN THE HEAT ON RICE - p2

Turning
Down the
Heat on Rice
By HillarySwi Resident
The recent notoriety of the Ray Rice case
in the US has ignited debate about a
whole range of issues to do with jus ce,
fairness, women's rights, domes c
violence and the division between work,
in this case American football, and
personal lives.
Rice is described as a former Rutgers and
current Ravens running back in the
Na onal Football League (NFL) in the US.
He has been recently at the centre of a
controversy because he received a four
game suspension for a blood test posi ve
for marijuana, yet received a two game
suspension plus a one game fine for, one
assumes, is his indictment by grand jury
on a felony assault charge against his
then fiancée, Janay Palmer. Rice
managed to avoid further prosecu on by
agreeing to par cipate in a pre-trial
interven on program, presumably to
deal with his behaviour. The next day
a er the jury verdict, Rice and Palmer
were married.

The ma er of the assault was not straight
forward and the public has weighed in,
making rash judgements on hearsay and
sketchy evidence including a blurry
par al video footage. The harshest cri cs
have been women who have made
comments on the internet going so far as
to conflate this event with the skimpy
clothing of cheerleaders and exhor ng
other NFL fans to boyco games and
rescind their support.
Even the declared fact that Palmer hit
Rice prior to him hi ng her seems to
have caused barely a ripple in the
opinions of the army of those that
strongly condemn Rice. The few that
have a empted to raise the ma er,
saying that no one should hit anyone,
h av e b e e n a n g r i l y d i s m i s s e d a s
suppor ng the “provoca on” defence
long despised in the poli cs of domes c
violence. This is not what these brave
commentators, Whoopi Goldberg
among them, have actually said.
However, at least at some level, simple
jus ce should demand that we examine
both sides of an incident to see if there
has been some fault on both sides.
Indeed, it appears that Janay Palmer was
also arrested for striking Rice and she
later publicly apologised saying she
“regre ed the role that she played on the
night of the incident.” Presumably that
was a genuine Twi er post.
Nu Vibez Magazine - August, 2014 - 101