The Ray Rice Incident Has Made Me Question If I Can Remain A Football Fan

I'm a football fan. First and foremost, I'm a Detroit Lions fan, but thanks to several years of playing fantasy football, I've become a fan of the game in general and even have favorite players on other teams (except the Bears and the Packers, because screw those guys). Sundays at our house are raucous days of cheering on our favorite team with a small group of friends while eating far too much food. I'm wearing a Lions jersey (Joey Harrington. Yeah, I know.) as I type this.

But, as a survivor of domestic abuse, watching everything that has come out in the wake of the Ray Rice incident, seeing the allegations against the league as a whole and the Ravens specifically, I've found myself questioning whether I can continue to be a fan of this game that I have grown to love so much. 

I've spoken a lot about my experience with domestic violence over the past week, and I'm telling this story now because a dialogue has been created following the incident wherein now-former Ravens running back Ray Rice punched his then-fiancee Janay Palmer in an elevator. He punched her so hard that she lost consciousness. And while this isn’t the first time there has been a high-profile domestic violence incident associated with the NFL, it's the first time that it's been something that I've felt comfortable talking about. It's the first time that I've been ready to tell my own story in such a public way. And it's also the first time that I've looked at the behavior of an entire entity (the NFL) and thought to myself that it is a complete slap in the face to women everywhere.

It's a slap in the face to me because I am a woman. I am a woman who is also a football fan. I am a female football fan who is also a survivor of domestic violence. Oddly, it was my former fiance, the man who got violent with me, who got me into football in the first place. We watched University of Michigan games together every Saturday and Lions games together every Sunday. After we broke up, I tried to forget a lot of the things that we loved and did together, but I never forgot or got rid of my football fandom.

In fact, the first and only time I ever attended a Detroit Lions game (they played the Packers. They lost.) I got into an altercation with a man outside of Ford Field after the slapped his wife/girlfriend in the face in front of me. Yes, I punched a man in the face after a Lions game, but that's a story for another time.

But now that TMZ has released the full video of the Rice incident and I’m seeing the reactions from the NFL, the Ravens, current and former NFL players, and the general public, everything has changed. I can't believe that I am seeing people defend Ray Rice, the Ravens, and the NFL. I am angered every time I see someone comment on a story about the incident with, “She didn’t press charges” and “She married him." And it makes me physically ill every time someone tries to convince me that this was a one-time incident. There's no way.

If you have it in you to punch a woman in the face hard enough to knock her unconscious there's no way it can possibly be anything close to an isolated incident. This isn't the first time that it's happened, it won't be the last time, and it probably won't be the worst time. "Well, they were drunk." That is not an excuse. Have you ever been drunk? There a reason that people say "drunk words are sober thoughts." Being drunk doesn't change the person that you are, it brings out the things that are already inside of you. The things that sober you is generally able to keep hidden.

Every single time over the past week that I've seen anyone defending any of the decisions that have been made throughout the duration of this case, or talking about the role that Janay Rice played in it (I'll tell you her role. Her role was the one of the woman who got punched in the face so hard that she was knocked unconscious.), every time I hear someone say "she told us to leave them alone" as if they believe that she actually said that of her own free will, I feel like I'm back in that living room, pinned to the ground with a hand on my throat. My anger and my pain have been brought back in a very real way, but this time they are aimed at Ray Rice, the NFL, Roger Goodell, and the Baltimore Ravens.

I have no doubt in my mind the NFL and the Ravens saw the video before TMZ released it. But, you know what? That's not even the point. We all saw the video of the aftermath. Of Ray Rice callously dragging his fiancee's limp, unconscious body around like a rag doll. And that's not the point, either. We knew what happened. And I don't care if she hit him first, I don't care if she called his mother terrible names and then spit on her grave. I don't care. What she did in this situation both shouldn't and doesn't matter. People, all of us, sat around waiting to see what else had happened. Something to explain away the behavior that we saw in the video showing the aftermath of what had happened in that elevator. We all somehow needed that to gauge how outraged we should be. And even after we saw the video, there are still those saying, "we couldn't have known."

We knew. We all knew.

A player for the NFL, where part of your job is to be in the best physical condition possible, punched a woman in the face so hard that it knocked her unconscious. And the majority of people in this country weren't angered and horrified by it until they actually saw it happen. Even though Rice himself had told us that it happened.

The thing with domestic abuse is that you very seldom see it. It's a secret. And a lot of times you won't hear anyone talk about it, because the victims are afraid and humiliated.

So as a football fan and as a survivor, now it’s time for me to speak out.

I am beyond angry that Ray Rice isn't in jail, and that he never even went to trial. I am angered that the existence of this video hidden from us.

I'm not sure if I'm ready to be done with the NFL as a whole. Yet. At first I was, but I am hopeful that there is now an official investigation underway. I'm glad that owners and players and coaches have spoken up and said that if the NFL did, in fact, see this video initially, Roger Goodell should immediately resign as commissioner of the NFL.

But, I can tell you that I'm done with the Baltimore Ravens. I'm done with them specifically because of Coach Harbaugh’s comments that he hopes Ray and Janay Rice can “make it work”. His speech on Thursday night was filled with implications that an abused woman is somehow a part of her abuse, and that her staying with her abuser is the right thing to do. That it's a good idea. It isn't. I’m also furious that no one in the Ravens organization ever made Ray Rice apologize to Janay Rice in public. In fact, everything we've seen from Rice about the incident has been an apology for getting caught and punished. Not committing the act in the first place.

It doesn't matter, though. Me being done with them isn't going to change anything. The games will still be watched in my living room on Sundays. But, I will watch them knowing full well that no one in the NFL actually cares about women. (Except that they want us to buy those cute, pink jerseys. Those jerseys are stupid, by the way, NFL.)

And you know what? It hurts just as much to feel like you don't matter as it does to be pinned to the ground with a hand around your throat.

If you or someone you care about needs help, please call the YWCA West Central Michigan at one of the below numbers:

Confidential Sexual Assault Hotline: 616-776-7273
Confidential Domestic Violence Hotline: 616-451-2744